Page 51 of Grissom
Muscle training ordered him to get up off his ass and run after Tuesday. His spine stiffened to do just that, but taking off like an idiot, when she might return any second…
When this was more likely just another sneaky panic attack…
When he knew damned well Tuesday was capable of taking care of herself…
Would frighten his boys. Probably unnecessarily. She’d faced down and ended the psycho Maeve Astor. She’d been stuck in many of the most dangerous parts of the globe, all for the sake of some almighty important photographs, and she’d done well. She was a loner used to taking care of herself. She didn’t need him to fight her battles. She was just like him. Never surrender was their motto. Maybe unspoken, but something they’d recognized in each other.
But his boys? This house was their sanctuary. They had to believe it was safe, no matter what happened to Tuesday. If she were in trouble.
So many ifs.
Pushing to his feet, Grissom slapped a hand over his rear pocket, making sure he had his cell phone. There was no wayhe could just sit and do nothing, but he needed to handle his exit gently. “Boys, that bag might’ve been too heavy for Tuesday. Stay here by the tree until I get back. Tanner, maybe you could share your pastels and help Luke make another surprise for her, okay?”
“Sure, Dad,” Tanner answered, his nose in his pastels, “but I think he’ll like my new colored pencils better. They’re already sharp and not so messy. Luke, wanna make a couple new pictures for Miss Tuesday?”
“Yeah, sure!” Luke chirped like a noisy little magpie, already scooting over to where Tanner sat on his butt, readily giving up on his newHot Wheelsracetrack to draw a ‘pitcher’ for the lady who’d snagged his heart, too.
That went better than Grissom expected. Nonetheless, he took time to tousle both his sons’ heads before he all but ran for the garage, hurriedly sliding in his stocking feet down the carpeted steps and hurtling across the cold concrete floor to the side exit. Frightened by the adrenaline dump burning through his system, he prayed his anxiety and this panic attack were nothing more than his overactive imagination. It stood to reason. Things had been going smoothly. What could go wrong?
But in case his gut was right, he reminded the Man Upstairs, “I can’t lose her, and You know it.”
Clearing the top of the riding mower parked at the side exit, like one of theDukes of Hazzardboys, Grissom verified the double-wide garage doors hadn’t been activated. Of course not. He would’ve heard them from the loft.
But something was definitely wrong. Tuesday wouldn’t have dawdled. She would’ve returned quickly, simply because she wanted to spend Christmas with him and his boys. She said she’d be right back. She told him not to eat breakfast without her.
Pulling his pistol from the ankle holster hidden under his pant leg, he was thankful for every redundant session of military training he’d ever endured. He stomped into his work boots, then, pistol first, he cleared the exit and scanned the immediate area, the extra-large driveway and parking pad.
Just snow, damn it.It must’ve barely started falling, as fine a dusting as covered everything.
No sign of Tuesday. The bag of trash lay beside the trash bin, and—
Shit!A small pool of bright red blood. Boot tracks and a long bloody trail from the parking pad, through the snow to—where? Someone had taken Tuesday. Hurt her. Dragged her away!
Pissed out of his mind, Grissom ran for his mini-forest, following the smooth, blood splotched trail, dodging pine branches, his eyes on the ground. Who’d do this? Why Tuesday? Who’d dare? On Christmas!
Two women sprang to mind. It couldn’t be them. One was dead. The other lived on the opposite side of the country. So who the fuck assaulted and kidnapped Tuesday?
Chapter Twenty-Five
Tuesday came to beneath a thin blanket of snow with a blinding headache. Snowflakes fell into her eyes and on her face, enough that ice crystals had welled in her eye sockets. Tiny icicles coated her lashes. She wasn’t cold, though. Cold in Virginia was nothing compared to far-off Resolute Bay, Nunavut, Canada, the coldest inhabited place in the world. She’d gone there once, to photograph the Haughton impact crater on nearby Devon Island. Now that—was cold.
Blinking as more frosty goodness crashed silently over her, she elbowed her torso up and off the ground, then flopped back when she couldn’t maintain her balance long enough to sit. What on earth? She was laid out like the letter L, beneath what had to be the only deciduous tree in Grissom’s tree farm. At least, she hoped that was where she was. Her ankles were tied together. Her thighs and butt were positioned flat against the trunk. The soles of her slippers faced skyward.
By now, Grissom, Tanner, and Luke had to be worried out of their minds. Forcing herself to stay calm and to think, to analyze her predicament, she took quick stock of her surroundings. Plenty of tracks littered the thin layer of snow around her. Good. They weren’t deep. Neither was the snow. Which meant she hadn’t been unconscious very long, just long enough to be dragged into the trees and leashed to a really big tree by some jerk.
Her brain connected the dots quickly. Whoever’d done this came prepared. Only one rope restrained her, one end tied to her ankles, the other end slung over a very high branch, thenwrapped around the trunk of a nearby pine. Too bad that nearby tree was too far away to reach.
A brick, probably the one she’d been hit with, lay a good yard away. That explained how the jerk got the rope over that high branch. Whoever he was, he’d pulled the rope tight enough she couldn’t sit up far enough to reach the knots at her ankles.
Yet.The fool didn’t know who he was dealing with.It was times like this when Freddie’s staunch counsel came to mind.Head up. Shoulders back. Never let ’em see you blink. Never back down.
Tuesday knew what she was up against—an idiot. The rope was just rope. Nylon, not invincible, and that knot was nothing a kindergartener who knew how to tie his shoes couldn’t untie. And she was the one and only Tuesday Smart, making this kidnapping just one of many obstacles life had thrown at her. Okay then.
Summoning her willpower and every last bit of her strength, Tuesday crossed her arms over her chest, curled her torso upward, and began the arduous process of lifting her stiff body and clenched butt off the ground and into a reverse Uttanasana yoga pose. Her thighs burned when, at last, she touched her nose to her knees. Flattened upside down and against the trunk like she was, and if she stretched, her fingers could, at last, reach the simpleton’s knots.
If she wanted to. Instead, she wrapped her fingers around the stretch of rope above her feet, and, inch by inch, with her biceps flexing and every strand of muscle on fire, with her lungs burning and the taste of blood on her tongue, she pulled her body straight up that tree. Keeping her legs stiff. While upside down. Shaking, because upside down was not how she’d ever trained. Like a crazy ninja in the most bizarre full-body press of her life. Not bending her knees. Not giving up—ever.
Tuesday hadn’t overcome the crap life had continually dished out by sniveling, crying herself to sleep, or by quitting. But by keeping her eyes forward and working her hardest to survive. To overcome.
