Se7en Deadly SEALs: Season 1

Episode 58

Ever since Elías died, it had felt as if a part of my soul were missing. The urge to be with him and mother him had only become stronger since I learned he was alive. When I added Grant into the mix, it made me yearn for something more. I wanted to belong to someone. Create a new family to replace the one I had lost. Elías bound Grant and I together forever.

I jumped in the shower and heard Hero bark a greeting to Grant when he came back from wherever he had been. When I emerged, clean and wrapped in a big fluffy towel, I saw him packing his seabag.

"Where are we going? Oh my God. Did you find Julián?"

"No, not yet. But there was a sighting in San Rafael. Kyle doesn't want us intervening, but I figured we could go up there anyway and go through those medical records you said you'd kept."

"Can you get off work?"

"Kyle's covering for me. Come on, our plane leaves in an hour."

"Plane? I don't want to go to the airport. I mean, my Ksenya documents may be good, but they're fake. And I don't look like my old IDs."

"My buddy's taking us. He's a Blue Angel."

"Wow, really? That's nice of him." Damn. I loved Blue Angels. When Joaquín and I were kids, my father would drive us to the top of a hill in Tiburon to watch them fly. After I told Grant about the trips, he made it a point to take me to see them every time they did their airshows at Miramar.

We dropped Hero and Curry off with friends and headed to Carlsbad Airport to meet Beckett, who would be flying us in a small airplane. I had to admit I was disappointed by the news. I'd secretly hoped that I'd be able to hitch a ride in one of those glorious blue-and-yellow Hornets. Still, it was cool that we were getting a ride in a private plane.

We walked over to the hangar, and Grant strode toward the gorgeous man in a green flight suit who was waiting for us. He was tall, had dark hair, and wore black aviators.

"Hey, man, this is my girlfriend, Mia."

I smiled and tried to play it cool even though my stomach exploded in butterflies when Grant called me his girlfriend. We were finally back together.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Beck."

"Nice to meet you, too," I said. "Thanks for taking us."

"No problem. Works out fine. I was headed up to the wine country for the night anyway."

We climbed into the tiny plane, and I wanted to laugh. I might love to watch the Blue Angels doing their stunts, but I hated flying. "How do you know him?" I whispered to Grant.

"He deployed with us a year ago. He was our pilot, and then he got selected to be an Angel for the upcoming season. I'm happy for him. It's harder to become an Angel than a Navy SEAL."

Grant and Joaquín were always bragging about how impossible it was to graduate from BUD/S so it was nice to hear that Grant could acknowledge that Beck was as badass as he was. I gave Grant a beaming smile and tried to stuff my nerves down as deep as I could. Still, I spent the entirety of the two-hour flight white-knuckling the side of my seat, and Grant laughed at me more than once.

We landed at the Sonoma airport, and I was the first person off the plane. I wanted to puke, but Grant just rubbed my back and led me to the rental car he had waiting for us.

"Are you sure we can't go look for Elías?" I asked when I regained my composure.

"Kyle doesn't want us seen around the area just in case we get spotted and they get spooked."

I gritted my teeth. "So we're really just here for medical records?"

"Well, those and anything else you want to bring home with you. You said it was in storage, let's go get it."

I took a deep breath and let my shoulders slump a bit. We really weren't here to find our son. Grant was here to find some intel about Joaquín. "Yeah, we have a Grange box in San Rafael. There's not much in there. Joaquín and I threw out most of it. We pretty much kept pictures. What are you looking for?"

"Nothing. Anything. Something."

Great answer. I directed him to the row of storage units along the side of the freeway. I hadn't been back since after Elías died. I didn't even have a key. I was about to suggest calling a locksmith, but Grant just pulled into a parking spot and cut the engine.

"Which number is it?"

"Three-oh-four, but I don't have a key."

He just turned and gave me a wry smile and waited. It took me a minute, but then it clicked. He was a SEAL, and SEALs didn't need keys.

"Right. Let's go then."

Grant grabbed a Gerber tool out of his pocket and picked open the lock as if it were nothing more than a damn bow holding the door closed. In my mind, I always knew what he was capable of, but I had to admit it totally turned me on to see his ninja skills in person.

Grant rolled up the steel door, revealing all the dust and spiders. My first step was toward a small box I'd shoved in the back of the locker just in case Joaquín visited the unit. I trusted Joaquín, of course, but I hadn't wanted him to go through that box. I'd never told him I'd been pregnant and didn't want him to find out that way. I opened the box and found the manila envelope where I'd kept all my pregnancy records.

Grant sat beside me, and we looked at blood tests, ultrasounds, and invoices. He gazed longingly at the final ultrasound, and I had to close my eyes to stop the tears from welling up. I remembered what it felt like to have my son in my belly, the joy of counting his kicks, the thrill of seeing him on the doctor's screen. Hopefully, I would replace those memories with better ones.

When I reached the bottom of the pile, I expected to find another stack of paperwork, but there was nothing.

"That's weird. I swore I put the hospital papers in this envelope."

Grant grabbed the pile and rapidly thumbed through the papers. "They're not here. Did you put them in another file?"

"No. This was the only one I brought that day. I must've misplaced it—my memory is so hazy. I was a wreck after he died."

Grant clenched his jaw. "Or . . . Joaquín could've taken them."

"What? Please don't start with me again. Why on earth would Joaquín take my paperwork? He didn't even know I was pregnant. Maybe I left them at my old apartment."

But I remembered bringing them here. I had sat in almost this exact spot and read the words: infant not compatible with life. I didn't read them once or twice. No. I read them a thousand times through my tear-blurred eyes, clutching my belly, trying to convince myself to keep living a life without my son.

"Maybe whoever kidnapped my baby followed me here and took them? You picked the lock. If someone can kidnap a newborn, they would probably be capable of picking a lock, too."

"You know who taught me to pick locks? Your brother." Grant shook his head and grabbed another box. I was too spent to argue with him. But I was sick of him blaming Joaquín for every bad thing that had ever happened to me.

I quickly migrated to the old photo albums, losing myself in memories. Joaquín and me at the park, Joaquín and me holding hands on my first day of school, Joaquín and me posing near the Christmas tree. But then I focused on some older pictures. Pictures of my parents. I found one of my mom when she was pregnant with Joaquín and another of my father holding me as an infant. I couldn't find any of my mom pregnant with me. Nor could I find any of my father holding Joaquín as a baby.

I grabbed an album and turned to Grant, who was knee deep in some old papers. "I can't do this right now, I need a break. I'm going to run and get some coffee."

He threw me the keys. "Okay. I'll be here when you get back."

I didn't even kiss him goodbye. I jumped in the car and drove away from my past. I hoped Grant found whatever he was looking for. All I knew was that who I was looking for, our son, was nowhere in that storage unit full of memories.