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A/N: Sorry for the long delay in posting, my modem/router died and I just got internet back tonight. ...I rewrote this chapter a few times, so I hope it works well... Let me know what you think. :)

Thanks, as always, for the lovely reviews!

Chapter Seventy Two:

We stood to move inside, and my phone rang—Jace was on his way home, with the money. He'd managed to collect an entire ten million in cash, thanks in no small part to his generous boss. So we waited outside, knowing that Jace would want to see his mother and would no doubt question why she wasn't there—and I knew Gil didn't want Jace knowing what had taken place between them. …I felt a stab of sympathy—I'd always known the woman was controlling, but the look in Gil's eyes when he'd described her, back on the cruise ship… he'd said that she liked to make him pretend to be a student who was earning a grade… and I had seen nothing but shame and self-deprecation in his features.

When Jace arrived carrying two large briefcases, I felt like had to be something out of a movie… things like this just didn't happen in real life.

We moved inside, following him, but I couldn't even look his mother in the eye when she hugged him tightly and asked how he was holding up. I hadn't liked her before this, but now that I knew what she was capable of… now that I had seen first-hand what she had done to Gil…

Jace spoke frantically to his mother for a few moments, gaining information—his dad had been on the West Coast visiting his sisters in San Francisco and despite the size and apparent generosity of Jace's company, they had not had a private jet in San Francisco, so his family was getting on a flight tonight… expected to arrive first thing in the morning. I waited to see if she would point out that she knew Gil… or even ask who the man holding his wife's hand was, to feign innocence and ignorance, but it didn't come. She was afraid of Jace finding out too.

Once they'd exhausted their conversation, Jace seemed to want to do two things—get updates from Gil and I, and pace beside the phone. Gil went first, telling him patiently about the strange sound and the suspicion he'd had that the first caller was not in fact the mastermind… he walked him through fingerprints and finding the man dead in his home. Jace looked positively frightened at this news, so I rushed to tell him that I had talked to Ayla… that was alive but scared and upset. …And that the kidnapper had insisted he would only speak to Jace. From that point on, Jace refused to move more than five feet from the phone he was supposed to answer when the man would call again… and that was one positive thing—they seemed confident that he would call again.

Gil and I sat at the table, and I brought out a photo album I already had filled with pictures of Ayla, thinking that I might distract him from the woman from his past lingering in the room by having him look forward… to the little girl who he would seeing in a few short hours. …The little girl who, after today, would never ever see her twisted, sick, manipulative grandmother ever again. It made me sick just to think that I had let the woman hold her.

I slowly turned the pages, describing the moment and how she had reacted and what had been said or done, and watched the creases on his face slowly ebb in favor of a reluctant smile that was growing with each dimpled grin. …I found myself extremely grateful that Ayla looked so much like me, because if he saw that horrible woman in her, it might not be the same… And what I was seeing in the change that came over him was that Ayla could cure him of Susan. Her goodness and sweetness was greater than the poison her grandmother had inflicted on him.

And we were fine… I knew that Jace was listening to me talk about her, just as he had been before, because I would catch him smiling wistfully when I told funny stories. We were three parents who had lost their daughter… Gil and Jace might not have liked each other, but there was at least a temporary truce in place. It was her fault that everything that had been holding steady as evening drifted into night suddenly flew to pieces.

She sat at the table, beside Gil, and I saw the knowing curve of her lips when Gil tensed at her presence. "So, Gil… why is it that you're here? You work with the police?" She had obviously listened when he was telling Jace where the lab was right now. I glanced between her and Jace—he was frowning at her, momentarily distracted from his pacing fervor. Jace didn't want his mother to know that our marriage was a lie, Gil didn't want Jace to know that he'd had a relationship with his mother, I didn't want a physical fight to break out between two men who ought to have the same goal in mind—finding Ayla—and Anne—Susan—wanted to dangle both of the men in my life by strings.

She was simultaneously manipulating both of them and I wondered why—she loved Ayla. Why distract from the problem at hand? …Was she simply trying to find a way to deal with her own stress by provoking others? By provoking me specifically, because I had an investment in both of the men she was twisting in her coils? To what point and purpose? …No, that much was clear, even if her motivations weren't. She had never thought I was a worthy daughter-in-law for her son and I was the woman Gil had told her he was in love with—I had replaced her in his heart. In the same way that Jace would see Gil as doubly a home wrecker if he knew, this woman saw me as twice the threat over the control she had always exhibited over the men in her life.

Jace had refused to cut his hair for our wedding… prior to that, he'd always given in when she'd insisted he cut it for a special event. There were a myriad of other examples, since then, but this one served—the moment he started a life with me was the moment he refused to let her dictate the details of his life. …Maybe it was that I'd never had a functional family, but I couldn't believe that it hadn't occurred to me sooner how strange a relationship she had with Jace… how strange their entire family dynamic was. And Gil… Gil was no longer willing to beg her to let him… do whatever it was she liked… for a grade or for her acceptance or her love… for whatever it was she offered him that was so precious he allowed himself to be degraded in order to receive it.

Gil looked up from the photo album of Ayla, meeting the woman's eyes with steel in his own. "I'm a forensic scientist. …I'm here to help find Ayla."

She quirked an eyebrow and tilted her head and for a moment, I saw the woman she had been when Gil had known her—without the lines around her eyes and mouth or the streaks of gray in her dying brown hair… I saw the powerful, self-indulgent, passionate and controlling woman who had leaned over a dissecting pan to capture his lips and his heart, and who had invited him to her office to educate him in submission to her twisted fetishes. I saw easily how a young man could get swept up in the confidence and beauty and power she represented… and saw her bringing it out again, to torment him.

"Oh? …Is that why you're holding my daughter-in-law's hand instead of doing something useful…?"

To my great surprise, Jace spoke up before either Gil or I, though we had both opened our mouths to retort. "Mom, that's enough. Gil is helping. …Anything else doesn't matter until she's home."

And then she was back to being the woman I had always seen… an older, nit-picky, harmless woman who nevertheless made my life miserable when she was around… but who was not often around. I looked over at Jace gratefully, and he gave me a curt nod before going back to pacing.

The woman scoffed and picked up the remote, turning on the television, claiming that it certainly couldn't hurt to hear what they were saying about Ayla… maybe it would even help our genius scientist put something together.

Gil's phone rang as she was doing so and he broke my grasp to pull it from his pocket—before silencing it and placing it back in his pocket. I frowned and raised a questioning eyebrow, and he shook his head.

He paged through her photo album again, but I turned my eyes to the television, seeking some moment of solace… some temporary relief from the exhausting, unbearable stress of this horrible, unending day. It was the local news—

"…Ayla Wendt, the eleven month old who was taken from her bedroom between midnight and four am this morning, is still missing. Amber Alerts have been issued across the state, but as time goes on, we're forced to wonder whether this is still a rescue mission, or if it will quickly turn into a 'recovery' mission. Authorities offered no comment but…"

She was wrong. It absolutely hurt.

Gil frowned and got up, pushing the channel button down, putting up on a national news station instead. He plopped back down, with the news in the background, and took my hand again. And once again, his phone rang—I watched again with mindless politics in the background while he pulled the device out, glanced at the screen, and this time flipped it open. "Grissom."

I watched with bated breath while he took in information, nodding and saying 'Okay' more times than I could possibly bear before he hung up and caught both my eyes and Jace's before speaking. "…They've finished processing the suspect's home."

I leaned forward, squeezing his hand hopefully—sure, the man was dead, but there had to be something… some clue… something to indicate who was behind all of this… who had my baby girl. He shook his head slowly, trying to prevent me getting my hopes up right away, but he's already too late. I sigh, and he forges on anyway. "There's no 'smoking gun,' per se. He had a lot of phone calls from many different disposable cell numbers… they're in the process of trying to track down all the different places the phones were purchased from and get their surveillance video… no real names attached to any of the phones."

"So there's hope." I insisted, and he twisted his lips.

"…Sara, honey…" He was going to tell me it was a long shot, but changed his mind half-way through. "…Yes, there's hope."

And even though I knew it hadn't been what he'd intended to say immediately, his words had the desired effect—coming from him, I did feel comforted and hopeful. …There was no way he could avoid detection from multiple cameras in multiple stores.

"The other thing is the audio from when he called you…"

"Did they figure out what that sound was?"

"What sound?" Jace interjected, jarring us both back to the reality that we weren't alone.

Gil cleared his throat. "…It's uh… hard to explain. …Kind of a clicking sound, but… that's not right. We keep hearing it, but we can't place it." Gil gave him a respectful moment, in case he had a suggestion, but he merely frowned, so Gil continued. "They undistorted the voice, and though none of them could immediately place it, it's clearly a different voice from the first call. …He has an accent, but the people at the lab weren't certain how to place it." Both Jace and I blinked in surprise, tilting our heads backwards as we took it in. "They said… Hispanic and British, combined." We both frowned, and Gil nodded, like that was what he expected. "…Do either of you know anyone with an accent like that?"

Simultaneously, we shook our head, and he sighed. "In the meantime, we're just waiting… hopefully the surveillance…"

"It sounds like you're a glorified messenger more than a forensic scientist, Mr. Grissom." The way he flinched when she used his title had me seething, not thinking… overreacting due to extreme stress and mounting despair.

"Fucking hell, you controlling, manipulative bitch! My daughter is missing! Your granddaughter! Everyone in this room wants the same thing, and yet for some reason you feel like the appropriate thing to do is bait him and me until one of us snaps and I'm fucking sick of it! You keep your goddamned mouth shut, or you get the hell out of my house!"

The silence that rang after my tirade left me panting and turning red, wishing I had had better control, because now…

"Mom… What's she talking about?" Jace asked.

I buried my face in my hands, trying to tell Gil via telepathy that I was sorry, but the only thing I'm certain I communicated is despair as sobs overtook me for probably the hundredth time today. I didn't any of their interactions, but I heard their words, and I knew what was coming.

"Jace… please, it's not something we need to get into with everything that's going on," said Gil, the peacemaker.

"No… Sara's never been anything but respectful to my mother, even after all the wedding stuff… for her to talk this way…"

"Respectful, my ass. …Gil, why don't you tell Sara what it means to be respectful? …Or doesn't she know that part?"

Gil had clearly turned his head to face her, because his voice came less clearly than before. "Do you want your son to know this? Is that what you're aiming for?"

"Know what? …What don't I know? …What part doesn't Sara know?"

"Jace, trust me, you don't want to—"

"I don't trust you, Gil. …Mom?"

"…It isn't important honey." She said, but the smile in her voice gave her away. For some reason, yes, she did want it to come out, if only to torture Gil with the information.

"No, goddamn it! Tell me!"

She sighed dramatically, "Well, honey… I knew Gil… from a long time ago."

"…Okay?"

I cringed and reached for Gil's hand. He took it and squeezed, clearly bracing himself as well.

"…It was when I left home, for a while."

There was a long silence. …Jace had never told me about that time of his life. I hadn't even known that his mother had left… and clearly it was something the family didn't talk about, if I'd never heard it from any of his sisters either. He cleared his throat. "I, uh… I don't understand."

"…He seduced me, Jace. He was the man—"

"Seduced you?" Gil roared and I snapped my head up, screaming "What?" in time to see Jace's expression change from concerned and confused to shocked and then… enraged. I turned to try to explain… to make him understand what had really happened, but it was already too late.

He had wound up and punched Gil square in the face.