Chapter XIV

            Grant felt as if he’d been sucker punched. All the wind had been forcibly blown from his body. His knuckles were white from gripping the edges of his plush chair. The world around him had dissolved. Grant couldn’t see Tim waiting for him to say something nor could he see that triumphant smirk.

            What Grant saw was much more disturbing. The office of InGen’s CEO had disappeared, replaced by a rain-soaked jungle scene. He could see the glistening pavement, the fallen fence, the twisted wreckage. He was panting. His right arm tingled from having waved it in the face of a colossus. The flare threatened to snap in his hand.

            He was standing his ground as the beast threw open its mouth and bellowed, inhuman and unearthly.

            And then his lungs screamed at him. Breathe!

            He realized he’d been holding his breath. The rain stopped. The jungles fell away. The beast morphed in front of him, and there was Timothy Murphy, a smile flitting about the edges of his mouth.

            Grant wasn’t sure what to do or how to respond. He wasn’t even sure what to think. His brain was shifting everywhere, his head growing heavy. He caught it in his hands and let out a sigh that sounded more like a groan.

            “Dr. Grant?”

            Grant lifted his head. “You want me to go?”

            “No,” Tim said slowly, as if talking to a child. “Lex wants you to go. Don’t shoot the messenger, Doctor, I’m just the go-between here. She didn’t know how to get in touch with you. I can only assume she tried, from the calls she made to Mrs. Degler and to my own office, looking for you. I guess she got so restless that she felt she had to act out to get some attention. Well, it worked. I want my helicopter back. Those things are expensive.”

            Grant was feeling dizzy. “She, uh—”

            Tim stared at him expectantly.

            “—she can fly a helicopter?” he finished weakly.

            Tim seemed somewhat disappointed, but laughed anyway. “I’m sure she could, given half the chance. But, no, she never took lessons enough to adequately fly one of our birds.” Tim scratched at his eyebrow. “She hired an outside pilot. She led him to believe that she was allowed to take a ride with it but that all InGen’s pilots were, at the time, indisposed and couldn’t do her the favor. Then they just took off from our landing strip.”

            Grant was becoming uncomfortable. “And you know for certain that they’re on the island?”

            “Well, yes. We installed GPS tracking devices on all our vehicles after what happened at Jurassic Park. We learned a very valuable lesson about employees and how to treat them in a way that won’t jeopardize our programs. Still, it makes us feel better when we keep tabs on them.”

            Grant nodded sarcastically. “Wouldn’t want another employee to make a mistake.”

            Tim continued as if he didn’t hear him. “Aside from that, though, I’ve actually talked to her. Ordered her to bring back the helicopter, threatened to cut her out of allowance, everything I could think of. She doesn’t seem to care. She’s just cried and cried, and said that I had to get you. We were hesitant to give in to her demands—I especially—but we decided we couldn’t treat her like just another thief, so here you are.”

            “Here I am,” Grant said, his arms raised in indication of his surroundings.

            “She left San Diego three days ago,” Tim said, sending a piece of paper across the table. It was a credit card statement for Alexis Murphy. So they had her too. “The pilot she hired out of San Jose went with her to our Puntarenas branch there, where they picked up the copter and headed for the island this morning. She’s been there for almost a day already.”

            “And you think she’s serious about staying, do you?” Grant muttered, tossing him the statement. “Don’t think she’s going to leave as soon as it gets dark?”

            “I’m going to have to assume she means what she says,” Tim said a little sharply. He pointed to the bill. “She bought enough foodstuffs for a week, a brand new three-person tent and, according to our Head of Staff in Puntarenas, she and her pilot had two large suitcases.”

            Grant shrugged. “Well, what are you going to do?”

            “The plan is to go down to Costa Rica, hop on a helicopter, fly out to the island, get out long enough for her to hug you, get back in the copters, arrive in Costa Rica, and then we’re all back here in San Diego by tomorrow evening. You’ll be back in Montana by morning, and it’ll be like it never happened. You can get back to being alone and I can get back to running my company.”

            Tim was indifferent, cold. It was so unlike what Grant remembered that the vision of a casually dressed boy was steadily disappearing. In his place was a man that had been forced to grow up far more quickly than anyone should have to. Timmy was dead. There was a part of Grant that found this a terrible travesty. But there was another part that was happy that he was not facing his memory.

            Tim watched him unwaveringly, his eyes solidly fixed with Grant’s. For a few moments, the only connection they could make with one another was the stare. Grant couldn’t help but feel that Tim was not entreating him, but daring him. Daring him to say no, daring him to say that he wouldn’t help. He seemed to want for the reply. He wanted it to happen, just so he could needle Grant with more taunts, to repay him for all the years of neglect. And was Tim so wrong to feel that way?

            “Tim, look, I want to say I’m sorry—” Grant began.

            Tim started, caught off guard. “Don’t do this.”

            “I want to say I’m sorry because I’ve never actually said it to you,” Grant continued, raising his voice, “but I can’t say I regret it because—”

            “Because what?” Tim barked, standing up. His palms slammed on the table. He leaned menacingly towards Grant. “Because of what, Dr. Grant? Why, why, why? All these questions, all these excuses don’t mean a damn thing anymore!” He straightened and moved along his desk but he never dropped his eyes from Grant. “It’s over, Grant. Over! Let it go! It happened a long time ago! There are no more questions about it. I won’t forget but I’m not going to let it dominate my life. And you—you, who are so much older than me—you are a disappointment. You’re like a child who won’t forgive Daddy for accidentally breaking your favorite toy. Get…over…it.” By now, Tim was craned over Grant, who sat in a shocked silence. “Wake up, Grant. Don’t let yourself be intimidated by something so distant.” Tim stopped suddenly. And for a few moments, all he did was pant like a tired animal. Then, softly, he said, “The only question that remains now is whether or not you’re going to face up to what makes you scared and help a young girl in her time of need.”

            Grant opened and closed his mouth. His eyes were wide and his arms were numb from gripping the armrests so tightly, but he felt a strange new emotion well up inside him. It was strong and aggressive, and it broke free in the same measured tones that Tim had previously used on him.

“You’re right,” he said simply. “You’re right. Everything you say is absolute truth. But all that you have done here is given a voice to my own doubts. I know all this already. I’m aware of it. I’m also aware that these are problems that only I can solve.”

Tim slowly straightened again, folded his arms and half-sat on the desk’s edge. His narrowed eyes threatened to halt Grant’s speech then and there, but Grant’s resolve refused to crumble.

“You want me to face my fears? Fine, I am. Do what you want with me. Call Ellie, let’s talk about it now. Here’s your goddamn credit card, it’s yours, I don’t need it anymore.” Grant chucked it at Tim’s chest. “I’ll write a book, I’ll get a job at a gas station, I’ll do whatever degrading thing I can think of to keep food in my mouth and you out of my life. I’m tired of running. I’m tired of staying in one place.

“It ends here, right now. From here on out, InGen has no influence on my life.”

The silence that followed was deeply unsettling. The daggers that were thrown were done by eyes. Grant’s breathing was long and drawn out, and they were massively taxing. The air conditioning made his glistening forehead chill the fever that burned in his heart. But he never broke the furious battle of wills with Tim. He would not give in. He could not give in.

And just as Grant’s stance began to morph into the ultimate refusal—by walking away—Tim’s entire body collapsed. His straight back slumped, transforming him from the archetypal businessman to a man who had been severely defeated despite his best efforts. The arms that had folded across the chest like some sort of protective shield caught the edges of the desk for final support.

Tim’s eyes fell to the floor. A single tear followed them, a lone raindrop, but it was enough to put out the fire in Grant’s face.

When Tim spoke at last, his voice cracked with the last-ditch effort to keep back the waves of emotion that he had kept locked inside for so many years. “Tanner would not be impressed,” he said, and Grant could hear Timmy, alive but caged. “Ever since Grandpa got sick, he’s been watching over me, you know. He’s young, Tanner, but he, uh, he knows his stuff. Taught me the old clichés: don’t let them see you bleed, the good business man never shows emotion, all that. I’ve tried so hard but in the end—”

“You’ve been through too much,” Grant finished. He realized that Tim wasn’t here anymore. He was talking to Timmy. “You couldn’t hide it forever.”

“Like cleaning your room by pushing everything into the closet,” Tim agreed, wiping the wetness from his cheek. “Eventually, the door won’t close. You’re still left with the problem of the mess.”

            Tim bent and picked up the credit card that Grant had thrown at him, an action the latter now regretted. But Tim didn’t seem to hold it against him. “I only told you the truth, Alan, and I needed to hear you do the same. If you choose to walk away from here today, without this credit card, then I’m going to give you the same treatment as I would have had you helped Lex.” Tim rounded the desk and all but threw himself into the oversized chair. “I’m not going to tell Ellie where you are. I’m not going to hold it against you. Regardless of what you choose to do here today, it’s over.”

            Grant stared incredulously. “You just handed over your biggest bargaining chip.”

            Tim, his eyes closed and his head resting on one hand, snorted. “You sound like Tanner. But then I would say that I was bluffing and he’d lay off. Still,” Tim said, blinking and distantly looking at the far wall, “lying is such a devastating thing, I don’t understand why people do it.” He refocused on Grant. “I can’t play Tanner’s hard-ball tactics on you, Alan. I can’t. I tried, I failed and I’m not going to do it to you anymore. Grandpa gave you this credit card out of the goodness of your heart. Tanner and I—I admit—we kept you in the books just in case we needed to blackmail you. That never sat well with me, but Tanner just said we would probably never have to use you. That, I guess, took care of my guilt, but regardless…

            “Despite all you’ve done, despite all that I’ve felt,” he continued, “I don’t look at any man in the world the way I look at you. For two days in my life, I felt home in a strange place. And that was because of you.”

            Grant winced and hid, somewhat vainly, the underwater view he had suddenly taken of the world. He looked out the window for the first time, yearning to be out there in the world, away from this conversation and the feelings it was dredging. He would even take free-falling from that very floor.

            But he did not rise, he did not try to leave. Though he could not face Tim, he knew that this was what needed to happen. This was his closure, the final nail in the proverbial coffin.

            Tim’s face cleared a little and a deep breath brought back a little bit of the measure he had had before. “I’m not forcing you to do anything anymore. Coercing you doesn’t work and I should have realized that. But I still need to get my sister back—this isn’t about my helicopter. It’s about her. Mom hasn’t talked to us since Grandpa left most everything to us; she’s become so incredibly spoiled, it’s a wonder that she came from Grandpa.  And Dad’s been suddenly calling off the hook, I guess to get a piece of the pie from us. He’s a deadbeat.

            “So what do you do when your mom’s a brat, your dad’s a jerk and the one shining light in your life finally winks out and you’re left with nothing but a busy brother, a crazy past and a lonely future?” Tim shook his head. “What do you do when your crazy past includes Jurassic Park?”

            Grant didn’t have the answer. Neither did anyone else, it seemed.

            “So now I’m not blackmailing you to help,” Tim said, “and I want so bad to just leave this alone. But I can’t. She needs you. Maybe I need you, I don’t know. But you and I are the last places she has left to fall. But I’ve been around her so long she can’t see the forest for the trees anymore. You’re her last hope; my last hope.

            “Alan, I want—I need—my sister back. Please…don’t say no without thinking this through.” The tears were returning. “Please—just think about this. I have only her left. Especially now.”

            Grant’s hand found his mouth and his eyes were closed. He looked up at Tim and saw the pain, saw the reflection in Tim’s tears. He saw himself…desiring a part of himself that was so far away; he was unable to touch it, to hold it, to experience it ever again. Grant didn’t want that life for Tim. There were so many things about his relationship with Tim he wished he could change, but here was a chance to make some amends for the pain he himself had caused the boy.

            As Lewis Dodgson began his ocean journey to Costa Rica with anxious mind; as Ellie Degler crumpled to the floor of his trailer in a spout of heartbreak, Dr. Alan Grant, Mr. Timothy Murphy and Mr. Sean Tanner climbed aboard the same Learjet that had taken the former paleontologist from Choteau, bound for Costa Rica and the seaside InGen base at Puntarenas.