========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Apr 1996 11:02:29 -0400 Reply-To: Jill Marie Spetoskey Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Jill Marie Spetoskey Subject: Mortals 9/14 (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: k s gritten Subject: Mortals 9/14 Mortals 9/14 "It's been too long," Tracy said in frustration. "She could be anywhere by now, with Dawson and Natalie." "Or she could have killed them already," Captain Joe Reese said morosely as he stood at the water cooler. Tracy and Nick both looked at him in surprise. "That not like you, Captain," Nick said. "I don't like this Nick, not one bit," Reese snapped. "The victim's wife walks out of here and calmly kidnaps our coroner and her husband's employer. Somebody slipped up. Where was Mrs. McKenzie when her husband was murdered?" Tracy looked through her notes from the interview with Lisa McKenzie. "She claims that she was in their hotel room, waiting for husband to call." "And we let her out of here without double-checking? Damn sloppy." Reese pointed an accusing finger at Nick. "Get out there and find them." Nick nodded grimly. "I will, Captain." Reese looked at his expression and nodded. He did not envy the woman when Nick found her, not one bit. ****** "I wonder what time it is." Natalie's voice startled Joe, who had been drowsing in the warm, dark room. He looked at his watch reflexively, but of course he could not see it. "I knew that I should have bought the glow in the dark watch. Morning, I guess. A few hours after sunrise?" "You know, I've gotten used to telling time by sunset and sunrise." He heard the torrent of unspoken words behind the statement, and sympathized. It was painful, sometimes, sitting on the edge of a world of Immortality, watching as it passed you by. He'd had his moments when he longed to forget it all, to be a normal guy, with a normal wife, normal kids, a home. A life. As if echoing his thoughts, she asked, "Have you ever been married, Joe?" "No." He thought back across the years. "There was a girl, before I went to Nam. We might have gotten married. But I came back like this." He knocked his hand against one of the prosthetic legs, hearing the hollow echo where there should have been a meaty slap. "Did you lose both of them in the war?" "Yeah. Got too close to a mine. I thought I was dead. A friend of mine--an Immortal, it turned out--saved me. That's how I became a Watcher--*his* Watcher recruited me." "It must be nice to have real friends like that, even though they are Immortal." She sounded wistful. Joe thought about Andrew Cord, the man who had saved him. Duncan had taken his head. Not before Cord killed Charlie DeSalvo, though. "It's painful," he said, without thinking. He heard her sigh. "Yeah, that's what I was afraid of." "Try to get some sleep," he said softly. ****** Sometime later Natalie awoke, her arms cramped where she had pillowed her head upon them. She tried to think what had awakened her, but the room was quiet, apart from the gentle breathing of the man across from her. There. She heard it again. Somebody was moving behind the door. "Help!" she shouted. Nick must have found them. "Help!" Her second cry was joined by Joe, who had also heard the scuffling behind the door. The door opened, just a small bit, and Natalie got up unsteadily, trying to move towards it on legs that had been in the same position for too long. Her hopes were shattered, however, when she saw Lisa McKenzie staring at her, wild- eyed. "Tonight," McKenzie intoned. "Tonight I'll get what I want. Or you'll both rot here." "Wait! Can we at least have some food?" The woman shoved something into Nat's hands, then closed the door wordlessly. It was not food, however. "Great," she muttered. "Our own little taste of history." "What is it?" Joe asked from behind her. "A chamberpot." "Thank goodness for small comforts. I was dreaming about waterfalls, and lakes, and rivers...." She chuckled.