Page 92 of Heston
Grissom’s life had become a tragic rerun that wouldn’t stop playing. As many times as Murphy’d explained what had happened to his wife and sons, Grissom kept asking. Always the same questions. Always getting the same answers. The truth wasn’t kind, and his brain wasn’t letting him accept it anyway. It was protecting him and doing a bang-up job at that.
As for Pamela, she’d done Grissom dirty on so many levels. First, by cheating on him whenever he’d been OCONUS, while still active duty. Then, by taking Tanner and Luke with her when she’d fled to South America with her boyfriend, Mike Estes.
Unfortunately for her, karma was a sneaky bitch. Murphy now knew Estes had made his living providing guided tours in one of the three Cessna’s he owned.Hadbeing the key word. He was the one flying the plane when it went down off Costa Rica’s west coast. Fortunately for Grissom, his boys weren’t partof that tour. But Costa Rican navy pulled Pamela, Estes, and four paying tourists out of the ocean.
Murphy still had no idea where Tanner and Luke were. Between him and TEAM One’s top dog, Mark Houston, they had a dozen TEAM agents working to locate the boys. From her home, where she was recovering from minor surgery, Agent Leisha Warner had backtracked Pam’s activities up to the morning she’d left the States. Pam’s neighbors had been just as helpful. The retired couple across the street from Grissom informed Leisha that every time he’d gone OCONUS, Estes had all but lived with Pam and his sons. God, Murphy hoped those boys were still alive. Pam wouldn’t have been vindictive enough to have them, would she?
“Oh… Oh, yeah.” Oddly, Grissom calmed as quickly as he’d escalated. “Sure. Robin’s good. My boys love her. She babysits a lot for us.”
His breathing settled, which was great, but Murphy had no idea what or who Grissom was talking about. “Robin who?”
“My neighbor. Robin Dillon. She’s a real good girl. My boys love her. She babysits for us.” He pursed his lips, as if forcing himself to breathe, like a pregnant woman in labor, would help. “I need to see ’em, Murph. You’ll make sure they come see me as soon as they get here. Is Robin bringing them?” Grissom swiped a hand over his hair again, as if he wanted to look good for whoever Robin was.
“You’re injured, Gris.” Murphy pressed a hand to his sternum. “Here.”
Grissom had yet to make direct eye contact, and that was troubling. “You sure? Cuz I gotta tell you, there’s no hole in my chest or belly big enough to even stick my little finger into. I checked. I can’t find any wounds anywhere. No entries. No exits. Christ sakes, don’t you think I’d know if I was dying?” The longer he talked, the higher his voice crept into hysteria.
This visit was going nowhere. It was time for Murphy to back off. Inhaling a gut full of regret, he lifted to his feet.
Grissom jumped up, staring past him to the door. “Don’t go. Please. This place is killing me. All they wanna do here is talk, and I’m fucking sick of it. I… I got a wife and kids to get home to… two kids… two little boys… err, don’t I? Pamela. That’s her na-a-a-m-m-me…” The nervous tone in his voice rapped down low into slow gear, like a vinyl record on a turntable losing power. “Pamela,” he whispered, blinking but still not facing Murphy. “It’s not me, is it? It’s her. It’s Pam. She’s… she’s gone. She’s run off and took my boys and she…”
Died. Just say it, Grissom. Remember. That’s the only way you’re getting out of here.
Grissom’s gray eyes went blank. His lips thinned.
Murphy sucked in a breath, knowing what was coming next.
Sure enough. Grissom blinked and yawned, as if his poor brain had just rebooted, and he’d woken up in the middle of the same nightmare. “Well, hey, Murph. You come to win back the cash you lost playing poker last night?”
“Just came for a visit,” Murphy replied softly. “How are they treating you here?”
“Here?” Grissom blinked again and once again, his gaze hit the exit door of the room that would be his home for as long as it took for him to remember. Four cream-colored walls and a comfortable bed with a navy-blue comforter, a mostly empty closet, a dresser, and a desk. A private bath and a single picture window framing bullet-proof, unbreakable, polycarbonate glass. No one could get in and Grissom couldn’t get out. For now the world was safe.
There were no pens or pencils in the desk. No paper clips, either. The dresser was bolted to the floor and the drawers were painted on. The bed was bolted down, as well, and the blinds on the windows were enclosed inside two panes of that bullet-proofglass. No drawstrings. Nothing anywhere to fashion a weapon with. Which didn’t mean squat when the man inside this room was a trained killer.
“Boss?” Grissom asked for what seemed like the hundredth time in the last thirty minutes. “Where am I?”
Murphy sucked in a bellyful of patience and sat back down. Grissom’s nerves were shot and his heart had been blown away with them. He just didn’t know it yet, and there was no way to help him understand. He’d lost touch with reality, and judging by the way this visit had gone, he wouldn’t be coming back anytime soon.
But then…
Grissom did something he hadn’t done since becoming a full-time resident of the Shady Creek Asylum. His gaze scrolled from the door and, without blinking, he stared Murphy dead in the eye. “She really left me this time, didn’t she?” he asked, his voice a rock in the middle of the shitstorm that was his life. “Pam ran off with that guy who’s been hanging around. That’s what you’ve been trying to tell me, isn’t it? She took my sons and she dumped them somewhere in” —he closed his eyes and touched two fingertips to his right temple— “fucking Costa Rica.”
His nostrils flared as he drew in a deep breath and his belly inflated. Murphy could only guess that the pain and suffering Grissom was under had somehow freed his brain from its trauma. He needed his boys. Good fathers always did. But the stark sadness in his voice was a knockout punch Murphy hadn’t seen coming. Neither did he expect Grissom to lift to both feet, plant them like he was ready to fight, and declare, “Help me find my boys or get the hell out of my way, Murph. Like it or not, I’m leaving.”
“Now hold on a minute.” Murphy put both palms forward, as if placating a man the size of Grissom would stop a father hellbent on finding his children.
Grissom stood a good foot over Murphy. He was as tall as Shane and bulkier than Beau. His eyes were mean for the first time in days, both dark brows narrowed over two pissed off steel-blue death rays. He leaned over Murphy, glared down at him, and hissed, “I said move, old man.”
Murphy allowed a faint smile. Sass was another step in the right direction. “Call me old man again, and I won’t sign off on them letting you out of here.”
“I don’t need you signing anything. I’m a man, damn it. Get the hell out of my way.”
“You’re not going anywhere—”
“The fuck I’m not!” Grissom’s roar blistered over the top of Murphy’s nearly bald head. But rules were rules.
“Back off, buster!” He could bellow, too. “If you’d shut up and listen for a guldarned minute, you’d understand you can’t go—” Damned if this junior agent’s hands didn’t ball into fists. “—ALONE! You big dummy!” Murphy yelled before Grissom could cock that hammer-of-a-fist and knock him on his ass. “One is none and two is one! Remember? You’ve got to be smart. Take someone with you. Hell, take everyone. We’re all on your side, and you know better!”
