“So, find the dog, track down whoever stole Kona, figure out what they’re doing with her, and if she will be okay?” Greyson looked around at the yard. He had spent the last few days working on a deck back here. “Hawaii could be good.”
Geir looked at him and smiled. “Any connection?”
“My grandparents actually,” he said immediately. “They used to live in New York, and then, one day, it’s like they snapped. They sold everything and moved to Hawaii.”
“Hey, I’m not sure that’s such a bad idea,” he said, “but honestly? If you end up in one of the big cities on the islands, I’m not sure there’s that much difference.”
“They’re on one of the outer islands, I believe,” he said. “It might be time to find out.”
“Exactly.”
“Where did the dog disappear from?”
“Well, it was flown in and delivered to the local shelter. That’s the last-known location we have.”
He nodded. “How long ago?”
“Three weeks. She had actually been with another adopted family first, but that relationship ended in an ugly mess within six weeks of her time with them. So Denver was Kona’s second home.”
“So, long enough to bond, but not enough to bond well, given her new life now too.”
“Depends on the circumstances, as you know,” Geir said. “Some situations create immediate bonding.”
“But those are usually the ugly situations,” Greyson said. “Danger, strife, violence, or something along that line.” Greyson chuckled. “I think I can handle this one.”
Geir looked at him, grinned, and said, “So is that a yes?”
Greyson nodded. “Mission accepted.”
Chapter 1
Greyson Morgenstein walked off the plane, taking a moment to sniff the air. There was just something about being in Hawaii. The climate was so warm and almost moist, humidity being at an all-time high this time of year. He had contacted his grandparents to say that he would be in the area and had received an immediate welcome, as expected. He would head there first. In fact, his grandfather would pick him up here.
As Greyson sauntered forward, he cast his gaze from the small airport out to the waiting crowd. He had no problem picking out his grandfather. Even though he’d shrunk with the years, his beaming smile was hard to miss. As soon as Greyson stepped forward, the two men embraced.
“Man, you’re looking good,” his grandfather said, looking him over. “For somebody who spent the last couple years recovering, you sure don’t seem like you’re in bad shape now.”
“I’m not,” he said, beaming. “It was pretty rough going there for a while, but I’m on the other side.”
“Your grandmother wanted to come and visit you,” he said, “but you told us to stay away, and reluctantly we honored that request.” His grandfather searched his face with an intent look, as if to see if they were welcome now.
Greyson reached out and squeezed his grandfather’s hand. “Only because I was in such tough shape,” he said. “I was in no condition to be friendly or to be nice to anybody.”
His grandfather nodded. “I understood, but your grandmother, well—”
“I’ll make it up to her now,” he said with a laugh.
“What is it that brought you all the way out here?” he asked. “And we’re not believing it’s us,” he said with a laugh.
“It’s a serendipitous meeting of work and family,” Greyson said.
“Work?” His grandfather turned to look at him in surprise. “You got a job now?”
“I’ve been mostly volunteering for the last few months,” he said, “with a group of ex-military who pulled together a big training program for a lot of us dealing with life after our injuries,” he said. “They’re doing a job for the War Dogs department, tracking down War Dogs that have somehow slipped through the cracks in their program.”
“War Dogs?” His grandfather shook his head as he pointed at a small truck in the parking area they were heading toward and said, “That’s ours. How the devil did you get involved with War Dogs?”
“Because they had these dozen or so files that they needed to follow up on, and one of them is here in Hawaii,” Greyson said.
His grandfather looked at him in astonishment.
Greyson laughed and nodded. “I know, right? So I figured it was time to come and to let you know that I’m alive and well. I survived all the surgeries and the physical therapy,” he said, his tone turning more serious. “And life is good again.”
“Well, that we definitely needed to hear. At least when you started talking to us and sending emails, we knew that you were still alive, but we worried.”
Greyson nodded. One of the first things he’d done when he woke up from surgery was lock down tight and push everyone away. It was his modus operandi. He wasn’t sure who and what he was facing, and he knew it would be a journey he had to go alone, so he just kept pushing others back in a way. It wasn’t everybody’s system, but it was his.
“Well, I should have contacted you earlier,” Greyson said. “It’s pretty hard, when you’re coming in and out of surgeries all the time and living in pain, to find anything pleasant to say to anybody. And the last thing you want to talk about is your injuries or your surgeries.”
“I don’t talk about that stuff much anyway,” his grandfather admitted. “Much easier to forget about it.”
“Exactly,” Greyson said with a laugh.
With the two of them in the front of the cab and his bags stowed safely in the back, his grandfather pulled out onto the main road, exiting the airport.
“You made quite a change yourself, moving from New York to Hawaii.”
“Across the ocean,” he said, with a nod. “Thought we were leaving behind big cities, population, taxes, and too much political atmosphere,” he said. “Instead we just got a smaller version of it all.”
“Which is to be expected,” Greyson said. “Regrets?”
“No,” his grandfather said instantly. “It’s still a climate that we do much better in, and it’s a much smaller population, at least where we live. And, when we want to go to the big city, we still can, but we don’t do it that often.”
“What about hospitals and health care?”
“We’re not that far away from the main center,” his grandfather said. “So it’s about a thirty-minute drive to the hospital.”
“Which sounds just fine,” Greyson said.
“So, this dog,” he changed the subject, “where is it?”
“Well, it was supposed to be flown to Denver and somehow ended up in Hawaii. But then it was picked up by a rescue for a few days, until the next leg of its journey could be arranged. Then apparently it disappeared from there. That was like three weeks ago.”
“Wow,” he said. “So how the hell are you supposed to find a dog that disappeared weeks ago?”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “I think this file was actually one recently added because a lot of the other dog cases have been on the list for much longer.”