Meg pulled out her toothbrush, looking at herself in the mirror. Dark shadows hung under her eyes, proof that last night had not offered much in the way of restful sleep. She’d been waiting for her father to call, which he had, but hadn’t given her much information, merely saying he and John would meet her at the office in the morning.
Rain hadn’t called her with any information from Marcus. Fortunately Amy had. Of course, that meant Meg’s information was different from Rain’s. She knew Dillon was alone and that he was heading back to Whisper. Unfortunately that was all she knew. Meg wished she could have talked directly to Marcus to see if he had any opinions about that.
Meg spit toothpaste into the sink and walked back to her bedroom. She didn’t say anything to Peter, merely went to her closet and looked inside. She turned away, opening dresser drawers for a shirt and the pulled out a pair of black jeans.
Peter sat up, watching her dress, pulling lightly at the edge of her underwear as she pulled them up. There was a definite suggestion in that but Meg ignored it.
It was too bad, Meg thought, as she moved away, that Marcus couldn’t communicate with Dillon.
“You could ask me, you know,” Peter said, picking up her thoughts.
“And you’d answer?” Meg snorted. She wasn’t going to let him get away with playing innocent. After all, he was the one keeping secrets.
“I always answer. It’s not as if I can keep things from you,” Peter said. The dark shock of hair fell across his forehead even as he leaned back against the headboard, now content to watch Meg putting on her clothes. Meg could sense that there was both truth and a lie there. Peter was keeping something from her. She guessed, though that he didn’t think he could keep it from her forever, nor did he intend to.
Meg’s eyes narrowed a little at that, wondering.
“And what do you know?” She finally asked, pulling her top over her head.
“I met him at the border of my lands and we talked. I sent Marcus home.”
“Well that’s good. I’d hate for Amy to have to tell people her boyfriend turned into a dragon and flew away.”
“He’d be killed long before he flew away,” Peter muttered, frowning again. She could feel desire coming from him, despite a vague annoyance that she didn’t seem to get that Marcus could not turn into a dragon where people could see him, Old Whisper Families excluded. Certainly he hadn’t used that form to find Dillon.
The desire which came from Peter moved through the annoyance the way fire burned through wood, feeding into the flames. It was an almost physical force and Meg found herself holding on to the end of the bed to keep herself from being consumed by it. She had an early morning appointment.
“I’m meeting my father,” Meg said, her voice catching in her throat. She could feel the heat in her face and through the rest of her body.
Peter gave her a crooked grin, the desire reined in as quickly as he’d let it loose, leaving her more able to walk out of the bedroom.
It had taken Meg a long time to differentiate when that desire was her own and when it was Peter’s. Her own level of desire seemed like a slow smoldering burn that started deep in her belly and moved up. With Peter it was more a full bodied sensation that started nowhere in particular but didn’t just request release but demanded it.
“Breakfast?” Peter asked, sitting in the stool next to the kitchen. He was now fully dressed. Meg hadn’t quite explained to him that suddenly appearing fully dressed in one room when she had just left him naked in the other was not only not human but downright weird.
“Just chai this morning. I can get it on the way in. My dad will probably be early.”
“He’s already there,” Peter said, standing up to kiss her good bye. Meg would have given him a quick peck. That wasn’t what Peter was interested in. Once again she was flooded with his desire, merging with her own. Meg pushed away before that took over. She made a mental note, quietly and hopefully privately that tonight she’d use the intimacy to see if she couldn’t find out more about what he was hiding.
“I really need to go,” Meg said, not pushing him away as hard as she had in the bedroom. “Unless you’d care to tell me what Dillon said?”
“He found the pilot under a bush. He apparently died of his wounds. It’s too far off of Whisper for him to carry him back here, so I expect there will be another expedition,” Peter said.
Meg nodded, turning to leave. She glanced back as she closed the door. Peter stood in the center of the room, giving her a nod and a wave. Meg wondered if he’d show back up at the office.
There was the faintest smell of rain in the air and the clouds were thick. This time Meg walked. It wouldn’t take her much longer and her father said 8:30. It was only a little after eight. She hated it when he decided to be early. It was something both her parents seemed to do more of as they got older, as if the time rushing by them meant they had to beat it to get some place before dying.
The air was brisk but promised to be comfortable later on, at least while it wasn’t raining. The walk up the street was comfortably cool and Meg remained mercifully dry. They’d get rain, but later on. At the office building, Meg got her chai at the Cuppa and headed up in the elevator.
“Morning Meg,” David said. He and John were sitting in the waiting area.
“Who let you in?” Meg asked, looking around. Kaitlyn certainly wasn’t there that early.
“RaeLynn was here when I called,” her father said, standing.
Meg noticed the cups that both men had in their hands. She hoped they hadn’t taken too much of RaeLynn’s time being served their drinks. She wanted to protect her new computer investigator, particularly since RaeLynn seemed to have such a talent for it.
“Come on back then,” Meg said. She walked back to her office, a little surprised to find that Peter wasn’t there. She pulled off her jacket and hung it on a hook. Her father did likewise, although John left his on.
“Tell me about the plane,” Meg said, sitting down. John was in a chair by the table, a yellow legal pad of paper in front of him. He played with a USB drive, turning it from side to side. Her father sat next to him while Meg was in the chair that she had behind the desk, a pad out to take notes. She opened her computer to warm it up just in case.
“We had time to get out there and take a good long look around. I have photos here,” John handed her the USB drive. “I made some sketches as well. It’s not an ordinary plane.”
“Why?” Meg asked. She plugged the thumb drive into her computer and took notes while she waited for her machine to recognize it.
“First, it’s set up like a fighter plane but it’s got two seats in the cockpit, side by side as if waiting for a copilot. Now that’s not the odd thing. There are two seats behind, like they’d have a couple of flight engineers. It’s not something we do, certainly not in a fighter.”
“Why not?”
“If it was a fighter, we’d load it up with weapons. That’s why you see fighter plane sequences in the movies with two men, one behind the other. It’s an efficient way of maximizing the speed and the space in the aircraft.”
“So this might not be a fighter plane? Could it be a pleasure craft?”
“The wings hold gun turrets, or at least that’s what they look like. There’s the strange stuff on the gun turrets that looks like ceramic but David tells me Peter insists it’s fully metal. It feels like a bit of both and it’s light. It could be shielding to hide the gun turrets but I’m not sure why.” John paused.
“Anything else?” Meg asked.
“It’s not set up right. The things that look like they should be controls aren’t in the places I’d expect. It’s far from standard. I’m not sure how a pilot, someone who knows planes, would fly this. Nothing about the set up makes it more intuitive. Nor are there any labels for anything.”
“So the plane itself is odd as well as having the unusual metal,” Meg rephrased.
“Nothing about the plane seems normal. If you asked a c
hild to make a plane and they had no knowledge of how it would look, this is the sort of model they might come up with. Whoever built this, it wasn’t one of the big plane makers. They each have their signatures.”
“And what can you tell about the metal?” Meg asked.
“It looks like ceramic to me. I was put in mind of the sort of shielding they have on the space shuttle when I first saw it, but that’s not what it is.”
Peter walked in at that moment. He was dressed exactly as he was at Meg’s. He nodded at David who was angled more towards the door. David nodded back, even as Meg glanced up to catch his eye.
“Oh, hi Peter,” John said. He started to stand, as if to offer the other man his chair.
Peter shook his head, placing a hand on John’s shoulder to keep the older man from getting up. Peter’s vitality contrasted sharply with John’s age, making Meg even more aware that no matter how spry the other man seemed, he was no longer young. She wondered if his daughter noticed. She wondered if she’d notice when something like that happened to her own father.
“How much did you touch the metal?” Peter asked.
“Not much. I wasn’t sure what it was. David said it was safe enough but I didn’t like the feel of it.”
Peter nodded.
“Do your contacts know anything?” John asked, looking at Peter. Meg knew the older man lived on Whisper but not being from an Old Family it meant that while he might know Peter, he thought of the other man as human. She wondered how long Peter had looked like he did, as a man of about forty or so, and if John ever questioned why Peter seemed so ageless.
“The alloy is safe enough but we aren’t sure about the people who made it. I think it can be used for a number of things and camouflage might be one of them,” Peter said. He moved back to one of the chairs against the wall and settled in, watching the others.
“The other thing I noticed was that the seats were slightly smaller than standard, even on a fighter plane. For all the width, the nose has the bend of a stealth fighter rather than a regular plane,” John continued.
Meg made a few notes. She glanced at the computer. She clicked on a link that would allow her to view the photos.
“The oddest thing is that there is something a little off about the plane but I can’t put my finger on it. I want to take some more measurements if I can get back out there. The guns look set up to shoot normal ordinance but with everything else, I don’t want to make that assumption. It was getting dark and I didn’t want to start pulling it apart with so little light.”
“Take your camping gear,” Peter said quietly. “And be prepared for rain. I’m not sure how much longer it will hold off.”
“I just want to make sure you know where I am. This isn’t the kind of thing that the government would want broadcast. I’m surprised they haven’t found it yet.”
“The airspace above the mountain can be disorienting if you don’t know it well,” Peter said.
“I’ve flown around this area and never noticed a problem. I can’t imagine the pilots they’d have looking for something like this would be any different.”
“But you’re from around here,” Peter reminded the other man.
John shrugged not really believing him.
“We’ll make sure we get someone to warn you before any military folks descend upon you,” David assured him. “Peter may not look like much of a hiker, but I’m sure you’ve run into him on the mountain. If anyone can find the fastest way in and out of that area, he can. He’ll certainly beat any military folks that might go up that way.”
Peter said nothing, just smiling that half smile, a slight twitch in the corner of his mouth the only tell that he found David’s comment at all amusing.
“And no one has gone up there this morning,” Peter said. “I believe someone was in contact with Meg’s employee who was searching for the pilot. He’s a better than fair tracker and has seen nothing.”
“Good,” John said standing. “I’ll get out of your way then and finish my own stuff. I wish I could put my finger on what was wrong with that plane. I also think you all ought to be prepared that when someone shows up, they will come in fast and hard. This is something completely different. Anyone building something like this won’t want to share, even if doesn’t seem like it can work.”
“We’ll make sure you get a warning to get out of there,” Meg assured him.
John nodded as he left. She watched the older man go. His investigation had produced more questions than answers. Would he find any of them up there or would they all just have more questions? Meg glanced at the photos now sitting on her screen. They looked like a plane to her. She’d have to go up there to get a better a look to see for herself. Maybe then she’d understand the oddness that John had spoken about.
Rain
I opened the door to the office as an older man hurried out. He wore heavy duty slacks that bagged a little in all the wrong places, as if he’d lost weight and hadn’t yet gotten around to purchasing clothing that fit. Still, he moved quickly and decisively, as if he had a mission, although he was kind enough move to the side to allow me to enter the office first.
“Peter is here,” Zari said. “And David too.”
“What’s up?” I asked her, passing the empty receptionist desk. I knew I was early but I still couldn’t get over the empty desk. I was used to RaeLynn always being there. As if Zari summoned her from my thoughts, RaeLynn peeked her head around the corner.
“Morning,” I said.
“Morning. I heard that you’re having a meeting around nine or so with everyone. Do you want to use the conference room? I can get things set up there.”
“That would be perfect,” I said. “And make sure you join us, even if Kaitlyn hasn’t shown up. You’ve been working the computer stuff all night I bet.”
“Well, I slept,” RaeLynn admitted. She looked surprisingly good for a woman who had kept a very late night. She was wearing a full skirted outfit that made her waistline look smaller. She had on ankle boots that matched the browns in the print of her skirt and a ruffled blouse that I could never get away with. It was a sort of reddish brown that picked up more colors in the skirt. The earrings were dangling wooden elephants.
I walked back to my office. David waved from the doorway of Meg’s. I nodded but didn’t say anything. That would give me a minute before having to talk with Meg. Besides, I didn’t want David to see how badly his daughter treated me. I think he’d feel obligated to apologize.
“Or maybe Meg will be too embarrassed to be mean in front of her father,” Zari suggested as I set down my bag. The cat leaped to the edge of her cat tree and started grooming her belly.
“Don’t count on it,” I said.
Zari stopped what she was doing and gave me a long look.
“Well, if you say so,” she finally acknowledged. She probably asked Peter or something because she clearly didn’t believe me.
“I had no reason to believe you without proof,” my cat added as she went back to licking her belly.
Naturally.
“Morning,” David said as he walked down the hall.
“Morning,” I said brightly. I removed my laptop from the carry all.
“Did you meet John as he left?”
“John?”
“He’s the man I asked to examine the plane,” David explained.
“Oh.” I started realizing I’d completely overlooked the older man. He appeared so ordinary and not at all like an expert, particularly not one who was supposed to be a very good pilot from his days back in the navy. “I saw him leaving but we didn’t really speak.”
“He’s not a talker unless you start asking questions about planes,” David laughed. “I’ll let you all get to work.”
“Have a good one.” I waved at him as he left.
I plugged in the laptop before going to Meg’s office. She ought to be in on the meeting I was planning. We all ought to be on the same page as there were so many of us working bits and pieces
of things.
Peter wasn’t sitting in the chair so he must have left after David. Meg was sitting back behind her desk, looking annoyed as usual.
“What?” she asked as I came in.
I’d like to say Meg was just economical with her words but in fact she was only that abrupt with me.
“I called a 9 AM meeting. Dillon may or may not be back but I want to fill Colleen in on what he found and get her take on things. RaeLynn will be there. If you can be there you can let us know what John found. If Kyle is back, I think it would be a good idea for him to sit in on this even if he’s not working the case. He’s the only one who can coordinate things if you go up the mountain.”
“Not that anyone will let me up the mountain,” Meg growled.
“You never know what could change,” I said, leaving. I wasn’t about to sit there and get yelled at for something over which I had no control.
Meg didn’t choose to follow me nor did she throw things at me. Not that she’d ever thrown things, but I could feel that itch between my shoulder blades as if I expected something to happen. My brother would have laughed and said it was a guilty conscience. I surprised myself with a start. I rarely thought of my brother, my real brother. When I’d changed my name the first time and left the area I’d grown up in, I hadn’t let myself think about my one remaining relative at all.
I gathered my papers and walked down to the conference room. I was almost there when the phone rang. I was planning to ignore it but I can’t stand a ringing phone. It wasn’t like there was anyone else there to answer. RaeLynn probably would, but I didn’t need her distracted. I picked up the phone at the front desk.
“Barringer and Associates,” I said clearly and carefully. “How may I help you?”
“I’m looking for Rain McFarland,” a male voice said.
“What can I do for you?” I asked.
“Is this Ms. McFarland?”
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