Upstairs, Jessica still couldn’t leave her son alone, so she tucked him into her bed and stretched out beside him. He never even woke after collapsing on top of the dog. That’s what she needed—a dog that could go from being half-wild when attacking somebody to being absolutely comfortable, even wanting close contact with a toddler like that.
But her thoughts couldn’t keep going around in circles because she was too damn tired. With an arm wrapped around her son, she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
She woke after just a few minutes with that same sense of shock and realization, only to realize that Danny was still right beside her. She snuggled back on the bed, cuddling him a little closer, knowing that this would be something she had to live with for the rest of her life. She owed Greyson so much for recovering her son, but she didn’t have any idea how to thank him.
There he was, lying on the couch downstairs to make sure that nobody came in so they could sleep. And that’s when she realized that he probably wouldn’t sleep at all. As long as she was sleeping, he wouldn’t relax.
She shook her head at that. How completely different men could be. No way her ex-husband would have ever done that. He would have said he would stay awake, but he wouldn’t have. He would have just waited for her to crash, and then he would have crashed too. But somehow she didn’t think Greyson operated like that.
As she lay here, she thought she heard somebody coming up the stairs. She stiffened, her gaze on the doorway. And there was Kona, dragging her rope behind her, coming upstairs. The dog went into Danny’s room first, not finding him there, so Kona came into Jessica’s bedroom. Kona stopped at the doorway, raised her head, and sniffed. Then, as if sensing that both of them were here, she laid down in the open doorway.
On her heels was Greyson. He looked over at Jessica and smiled.
She whispered, “Was she checking on Danny?”
Greyson nodded and whispered back, “Looks like it.”
Kona gave a happy sigh, her tail thumping on the floor.
“She really is looking out for him, isn’t he?”
“I think so, yes,” he said. “So how come you’re not asleep?”
“I was,” she said quietly. “Then I woke up, scared that he was gone.”
Greyson nodded sympathetically. “I hear you, and that might happen for a while,” he said, “but you need to rest.”
“So do you,” she shot back. And then she couldn’t sleep anymore. She yawned, and, sitting up, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed. “I guess that was my ten-minute power nap.”
“It was actually about forty minutes,” he said, chuckling.
She looked at him, surprised, then over at the clock on her night table. “Wow. I had no idea.”
“Exactly,” he said. “So it’s all good.”
She nodded at Danny and then said, “I want him to get more sleep, but I don’t want to leave him up here alone.”
“What if we leave Kona up here?” he said with a motion toward the dog, who had now sneaked a little farther into the room, and lay at the foot of the bed.
Jessica smiled, then walked over and bent down with her hand out. Kona sniffed, then nuzzled her hand. Enchanted, she scratched her gently. “She really is beautiful, isn’t she?”
“Yes,” he said, “she really is. Inside and out. And extremely well-behaved.”
“Dang it, I still didn’t think about food for her,” she said.
He hesitated and said, “I need to go out and get dog food, plus a collar and a lead for her, and I could pick up some groceries for us too.”
“Or,” she said, “we could wait until Danny wakes up, and we could all go.”
He studied her face for a long moment and then smiled. “We can do that too.”
She beamed up at him. “Thank you. I just—” And her voice fell away.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, reaching out. Just then his phone rang. He looked at it and said, “I’ve got to take this. Do you mind if I put the teakettle on?”
“Of course not,” she said. “Make yourself at home.”
He lifted a hand and went downstairs.
She crawled back up on the bed, grabbing her laptop from the bedside table, and checking her emails. She didn’t want to leave her son and, at the same time, felt oddly comfortable having Kona at the end of the bed. The dog was completely calm, relaxed, and sleeping.
Having Greyson downstairs was the icing on the cake. She could hear him talking but didn’t have a clue what was going on. She just hoped it was progress on the hunt for the asshole who had kidnapped her son. Of all the things she could let go of, the one thing that was not acceptable was hurting her child. Particularly taking him the way he’d been snatched.
“Right. Okay. I got it, Stone. He’s in the wind. It was a long shot anyway.” Greyson ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I’m staying here with her right now,” he said. “No way I’ll let this guy come back after them.” And then he told him about Kona bonding with the little boy.
Stone chuckled. “And that can be a problem,” he said. “When you get a dog like that, they are very protective,” he said. “So, in a way, it’s a good thing. It’ll be hard for the kidnapper to come back and grab that little boy again, as long as the dog is around. But you also have to consider that the guy might come back with a weapon next time and take out the dog first, when it takes a stand to protect the child.”
“I know. I was thinking about that too,” Greyson said. “I don’t have any weapons here myself.”
“The laws in Hawaii are different than in a lot of places,” Stone said.
“You and I both know that, if I wanted a weapon, I’d get it,” he said, his voice calm and low.
“And you and I both know,” Stone said, his voice equally calm, “that we don’t need to get weapons, right? We have weapons at our fingertips all the time.”
“Isn’t that the truth? Anyway, thanks so much for the satellite work. If you happen to run into any information on this guy, let us know.”
“Will do. I’m pretty sure Levi’s coordinating with Badger as it is.”
“I sure hope somebody is coordinating with the Hawaiian police,” he said, “because, at this point in time, it’s feeling like we’re on our own.”
“And again, sometimes that’s the best place to be,” Stone said. “Less people to report to, less people to give permission, less people to argue with about decisions. You know how it is.”
Even after Greyson hung up, he thought about that and realized it was one of the best things about doing something like this on a private level. He didn’t have to report in to anybody. As long as he kept on this side of the law, he wasn’t crossing anybody’s lines either. Of course the police wanted any information he got, and he was willing to share, but he also knew that they wouldn’t reciprocate. That’s the way the military functioned too. Or, for that matter, any law enforcement agency. One-way communication up the line. He put away his phone and grabbed his laptop from his duffel bag.
There had to be some way to find this guy. At least they had an ID, and they had the brother. Speaking of which, he quickly found a number for the brother at work.
When the brother answered the phone, he said, “Dennis, it’s Greyson. We met when your brother stole your truck. Where does Frank live?”
“Jesus, the cops are all over the place,” he said. “I wish to God my brother would just leave me alone.”
“He kidnapped a child,” Greyson reminded him, “and attacked two police officers.”
“Dumb shit,” Dennis muttered. “He’s always been a loose screw.”
“But he also has skills,” Greyson said. “Where and how?”
“Military black ops but then he was drummed out for bad behavior,” he said. “He went in young and took to the life a little too eagerly. Now that he’s out, he can’t quite let it go.”
“Is he going private?”
“If you mean, are his services for hire? Yes,” he said, “with an ugly side. Like I said, he’s a bit of a screwup.”
“What are his hangouts? Where am I likely to find him?”
The brother hesitated.
“If you don’t help,” he said, “you know perfectly well you’ll go down as an accomplice.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Dennis said.
“For all we know, you gave him that vehicle,” he said. “So that means you aided and abetted a criminal in the act of escaping, after assaulting two police officers and kidnapping a child.”
“God damn it,” he roared. “I didn’t have anything to do with any of it. This is all on my brother.”
“So, I’ll ask you again. Where am I likely to find him?”
“He gave up his apartment a few weeks ago. Told me how he had a big score happening, and, as soon as the job was done, he was leaving the island and was never coming back.”
“Any idea what the score was?”
“He wouldn’t say,” Dennis said.
By the time he finished checking in with Badger and calling the detective for any update on the case, he heard Danny waking up upstairs. Soon enough, the three of them trooped downstairs, Jessica carrying Danny with Kona ever vigilant at Danny’s side.
Danny looked at Greyson and yawned, rubbing his eyes. “Hi,” he said, in a bright little voice.
Greyson hopped to his feet, walked over to the boy, and shook his hand. “Hi back.”
Danny giggled and hung on to Greyson’s finger. Then, in a surprise move, he reached up his arms.
Jessica looked at Greyson in surprise, as he easily slipped the toddler from her arms and walked with him into the kitchen. “Did you have a good nap, young man?”
“Seepy,” he said and dropped his head against Greyson’s shoulder. Greyson looked over at Jessica, who just stared at them in surprise.
“He doesn’t take to strangers normally,” she said.
“Maybe I’m just a comforting presence somehow,” he said.
She walked into the kitchen. “Danny, do you need a bite to eat?”
He looked at her and nodded, reaching out a chubby hand.
“If you could put him in the high chair, I’ll get him a snack before we go out.”
Greyson settled the boy in the high chair, and very quickly she had little crackers with peanut butter, cheese, and apple slices for him. Because they’d had the bacon and eggs earlier, Greyson was fine. Yet she pulled out the materials to make a big sandwich. He looked at her, surprised.
“Oh, I’m hungry,” she said, “so I just assumed that you are also.”
“Well, I can always eat,” he said, “but I could have done without, if need be.”
“No need,” she said with a smile. “There’s plenty of food.”
“Glad to hear that,” he said and watched in amazement as she made a mean sandwich.
She built it up, full of all kinds of vegetables, meats, and cheese.
He could feel his stomach standing up to pay attention. “This looks amazing,” he said.
“It’s just a sandwich,” she said with a smile. “Anybody can make one of those.”
“Well, there are other sandwiches,” he said, “like what I’m used to, with just ham and cheese, or there are real sandwiches that are completely loaded, like this.”
“This is my favorite kind,” she said. She cut the sandwiches, passed him a plate with his, then sat down beside Danny at the island. They all proceeded to eat.
He looked at his watch when they were done and said, “Wow, it’s after one already.”
“I know,” she said. “I’ll fade early tonight for sure, but maybe I can catch up from the lack of sleep last night. I figured that, once we’re done eating, we can go out and do some shopping.” She looked down at Kona, who was sitting nearby, staring at Danny’s food hungrily. “Kona really needs some dog food,” she said with a frown. As soon as she finished her sandwich, she got up, walked over to the refrigerator, and pulled out the last of the fatty ham and cheese and gave it to Kona.
Greyson shook his head. “This dog is getting spoiled,” he said with a smile.
“We have to feed her something,” she said with a smile. “I’d give her a steak for rescuing us if I could afford to. She deserves any treat I’ve got.”
“Well, let’s clean up the kitchen,” he said, “and then we’ll do some shopping.”
“Let’s take my car,” she said. “It’s got the car seat and all. The police delivered it home for me.”
He frowned, looked at Kona, and said, “I wonder if that’ll work with the dog.”
She nodded. “I wondered that too.”
“The only other option,” he said, “is to transfer the car seat to the truck, but then Kona and Danny still have to be together in the back seat, so maybe the car will be okay at that.”
“I’ve got some old blankets,” she said. “I figured I could put them on the seat and maybe Kona could lay on them.”
“Well, let’s give it a try,” he said.