by Dale Mayer
Charlie had taken two steps, but, hearing her words, he spun and froze. “What are you talking about? … Police?”
“Just in case you were planning on firing me right now and giving me the helping hand out the door,” she said smoothly, her eyes glinting with anger, “I’m fully prepared to go to the police to open an investigation into this mess.” She’d wallow in denial that this was a police matter but it was impossible to do so now. But it’s not a step she wanted to take.
The color leeched out of his face, and he shook his head. “You can’t say a word about that.”
She snorted. “I’m not only going to say something about it but I’m going to scream it from roof to roof. You were about to fire me for something I had nothing to do with. Do I really have to remind you that I was the victim of a glider crash?”
He glanced around, as if making sure nobody was listening in. “I was going to ask you to take time off, so we could recover from the bad press.”
“What bad press?”
He frowned at her. “You know, anytime an accident happens, the media gets wind of it.”
“But have they? No.” She shook her head. “You were just trying to get rid of me.” She thrust her chin out in his direction. “Maybe you were behind the sabotage. Maybe you thought that was another way to get rid of me. Permanently.”
He stared at her as if she were something he loathed.
She nodded. “I can see the real Charlie inside there now. And what about your partner? Is he in on this too?” She pulled out her phone and texted Tanner. “You know that last group I took up? The one when I had the near-death accident?”
“Yeah. What about them?”
“Do you remember what those guys do for a living?”
He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her.
She nodded. “I’m presuming you do then. Because I certainly found out. Not that they advertised the fact they were SEALs, part of that elite team, but they’re protectors. And they’ve already got several of their men asking a lot of questions. So far, not only have you not even asked about my welfare but you’re only concerned about giving me the boot. Very suspicious.” As soon as she sent off her text message, she hit a Speed Dial number, put the phone to her ear, turned and walked away. When her brother answered, she said, “I’ve been fired.”
Her brother gasped. And then laughed. “Of course you have. How else do they get rid of bad press? Idiots.”
Just then her shoulder was grabbed, and she was jerked around, hard.
Charlie got in her face. “I did not fire you,” he roared. “You’ve certainly given me lots of reason for you to be fired though.”
“Yeah, give me those reasons right now,” she snapped, holding out her phone to him.
He stood, glaring at her and then her cell, but he didn’t have an answer.
She snorted, pulling her phone back to her ear. “Todd, you hear that? Charlie’s got nothing to say.”
“I’ve already contacted the lawyers,” Todd said. “Tell him that they’ll be in touch.”
“Todd says our lawyers will be in touch.” She turned on her heel and left Charlie, the worry evident on his face.
Todd added, “The cops should be there soon. I don’t know why I had to call them. You should have two days ago. Someone tried to kill you, Wynn. We need all the official help we can get. And I’m attaching my trailer to the truck as soon as I hang up.” Which he promptly did.
Wynn pocketed her phone and walked outside, just to clear her head. As she stood by her Jeep, her phone rang again. She glanced down, smiled and answered it. “Hello, Tanner.”
“You’re fired?”
“Yeah. Now Charlie’s backtracking and saying he didn’t fire me, but he never gave me my job back again either.”
“I’m only about ten minutes away.”
“What will you do here?” she asked in disbelief. “I wasn’t texting you for assistance.”
“No, but I can help you get your gear out of there. All of it. I also want to take a full 360 in photographs to ensure I understand how the layout of those buildings work, so we can do a timeline as to how somebody got in there to sabotage your gear.”
She thought about that for a moment. “Todd’s coming with his truck and trailer. I’ve brought a lot of my own stuff into this place over the last two years,” she said morosely. “It may be more than I realize at the moment. But I don’t intend to leave behind any of my designs for the likes of Charlie to try to steal my intellectual property. I’m still here, currently outside by my Jeep. I haven’t been forcibly removed yet.”
“Sometimes life happens,” he said quietly. “All you can do is soar on the winds of change.”
At that, he hung up, leaving her laughing. “Great line, Tanner. Great line.” She turned, reentered the hangar and walked to her designated corner, where she had her gear, including an older spare laptop and a bunch of her tools. Todd called her back. Her phone hadn’t seen this much activity in … forever.
“I’m already hooked up to the trailer and hopping into the truck now. Be there in about ten minutes.” And he hung up once more.
She rolled her eyes. Just in time for Todd to meet Tanner.
Curtis raced toward her and said in a jovial voice, “Hey, hey, hey, hey.”
She stopped and gave him a stone-faced look. Like he didn’t already know that Charlie was firing me today.
Curtis held up both hands. “Look. I’m sorry. I didn’t know Charlie was planning on firing you this morning.”
This morning. “Right.” It’s not that she didn’t believe him, but, well, she didn’t believe him.
“We can’t handle any bad press right now. The school is not doing all that well, and we still haven’t got any of the new designs up and running,” he said.
Frowning, she realized he meant her designs. Just because she worked for them as an instructor did not mean her intellectual property—past, present or future—was part of her employment package. Her written contract with the school clearly stated that. Her attorneys had made sure that was very clear, and it was repeated in several sections therein. Said contract was signed by her and the two owners and also by two of her lawyers as witnesses. The contract was written to stand up in court, if need be.
While she may design a few things for the school, she sold only the equipment to them, not her IP behind it. Again clearly spelled-out in her contract. Now, if Charlie and Curtis wanted to hire her as a technical consultant or as an actual designer for them and the school, that would be a separate deal to consider. Plus, Curtis just said they weren’t doing well. No way they could afford her as a designer.
As she took stock of where she and Todd had been on some of the design changes, she half smiled inside. Because, of course, they didn’t share much with the school, and she had already applied for patents covering all their designs. She turned and walked away from Curtis. “Sorry business sucks. I wonder how many other people are getting fired by the end of the day.”
She said it just loud enough that several people working in the warehouse stopped and looked.
Kate came running. “No, no, no, no. Don’t even start talking like that. Charlie didn’t mean what he said.”
“Charlie absolutely meant everything he said. He wants me gone. He wants me out of the way. And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he wasn’t behind the sabotage that was a deliberate attempt on my life two days ago. The cops have already been notified.”
At the strangled sound coming from the man behind her, she spun and looked at Curtis. “So does that mean you had something to do with it too?” Her voice was gimlet steel. She had absolutely no sympathy. She stepped forward and poked him in the chest. “Not only did you not ask if I was okay but you didn’t even ask me what happened. Why is that? Because you already knew? You also didn’t take any time to investigate the state of my equipment or what might have gone wrong.”
“Why would I?” Curtis cried out, his palms up. “You’re the expert.�
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“That I am. And that’s why I’m telling you right now”—as she gave him yet another poke to his chest—“that my equipment was sabotaged.” Poke.
He stared at her and shook his head. “I know you’re overwrought. I’m sure, absolutely sure, that when you take another look at the situation, you’ll realize you’re just seeing ghosts where there aren’t any.”
She gave a strangled laugh. “I wonder if that’s what your line will be when the cops get here. After all, I’m just a woman. Right? I mean, I’m overwrought, right? Isn’t that how women handle emotional situations? We go to pieces. We make up stories to get more attention.”
Curtis tried to backtrack, and she wasn’t having any of that.
“Somebody tampered with my gear. The most common and likeliest place was here in this warehouse. You can bet that the drivers, the trainers, the students, and everybody else who works for this school—past and present—will be investigated. Along with the school’s co-owners.”
“I think you put too much faith in a simple accident,” he said, his voice turning surly. “You’re wasting police time.”
“The police will decide that on their own.” Tanner’s hard voice washed over them. “But she sure as hell isn’t wasting mine. And I have an incredible arsenal of tools and personnel behind me for everything I need. I was there when her rig collapsed. I was there, watching her lines snap. It was me that she landed on. It was the two of us tangled up in our gear in that river. And, if you think I don’t know the difference between a simple accident and equipment failure at a monumental level, you have no idea who the hell you’re insulting.” Tanner stood straight and strong as he strode toward them, his voice carrying loudly.
They had collected quite an audience by now.
Curtis put up his arms in mock surrender. “I don’t know who you are …” he started.
Tanner shoved out a hand and said, “Tanner McGrath, US Naval Service. As a SEAL, I’ve been part of sensitive international investigations for the last eight years. And I’m telling you right now, that event two days ago was sabotage.”
In front of them all, Curtis wilted.
She snorted. “Oh, so because a man says sabotage, you believe him?” She shook her head and walked past Curtis. “Tanner, since you have such a profound effect on him, maybe you can get information about where Curtis and Charlie have been for the last two days and who the co-owners have had through the hangars and close to my equipment. Obviously I can’t trust them anymore.” And she kept on walking.
She didn’t know what Tanner was doing behind her, but she could hear the men talking, and Curtis was no longer belligerent with Tanner. Yet, Curtis had really pissed her off. That was the way of the world. A lot of men wouldn’t even listen to a woman, but the minute another man stepped into the argument, they completely changed. And there was no doubt that Tanner was a full-blown alpha. Curtis was so not. But she would take Curtis over Charlie any day.
Up until now, she hadn’t had a problem with either man. She’d worked for the school happily for two years. The co-owners had had lots of plans as far as she was concerned, but apparently something had happened that she didn’t know about.
As she stepped in front of her desk area in the corner of the warehouse and looked to see just what was here, besides her computer equipment with design software, Trish ran toward her. “Oh, my God! Are you sure?”
Wynn spared her a quick glance and then nodded. “Yes, absolutely.”
“So you’re saying I could have died on the previous run?”
Wynn straightened and remembered Trish had taken Wynn’s rig out first. Trish had been the one who had said the equipment wasn’t operating properly. Wynn reached out with both hands and said, “Oh, my God! I would have been devastated if you had crashed.”
Tears already welled up in Trish’s eyes. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! How could somebody do that?”
Wynn said, “I have no idea, but I intend to get to the bottom of it. I’ve had accidents before, but they were minor, and they certainly weren’t caused by somebody else.”
Several of the training assistants who worked here came toward her. They had equally tense frowns. “So what’s this we hear? You got fired, and we could be getting fired next?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know about you guys, but, yes, I’ve been fired. My crash the day before yesterday was the result of sabotage. Curtis and Charlie have decided the bad press is more than they can handle, so they’re taking the opportunity to fire me.”
“But that’s totally unfair.”
“That’s awful.”
She agreed and sat with a thud in her desk chair. “Maybe it’s for the best. I don’t know what happened to my gear, but I can’t trust this place anymore. The troubling fact is, Trish had taken my rig on a preflight run that day and could have been the one to crash instead. The last thing I want is for any of you guys to have been hurt using my equipment just because someone wants to kill me.”
Trish, at that point, sniffled harder.
Wynn opened a desk drawer and pulled out a box of Kleenex. She handed her several. “It’s a good lesson for all of us. Even though we check our gear before we head out, we need to check it again after it reaches its destination. Another preflight check. And just as complete and thorough.”
“We all checked out the gear first thing in the morning though,” Trish whispered. “And then onsite we did the same cursory checks we do every time. I couldn’t figure out why yours was funky at the time.”
“Exactly, and that’s why I took it down. I had to see what you were explaining to me in action, in the air.” She slumped farther into her chair and looked around. “For two years I’ve been really happy here. I’ll be sad to leave you all.”
A sobering silence filled the group.
“What was that about us getting fired?” Fred asked again hesitantly.
“After they fired me, I worried you all would be next,” she said. “Charlie’s excuse was that business has been really poor. So they didn’t want to pay me any longer, and they couldn’t afford to take any more bad press and suffer a further drop in sales.” She glanced around at the inventory in the warehouse. “There is a lot of money tied up in the business. But still, I wouldn’t have said we were any less busy now than we have been for the last six months.”
“I haven’t heard anything, but then we don’t know if anybody got wind of the accident either,” said Dave, the driver who’d hauled the gear up to the top of the hillside.
“True enough. But, honestly, at this point, I don’t care about the press or Curtis and Charlie. You guys get to go on without me. This is no longer my life.” And she pulled out the bottom drawers and started emptying her desk.
The men just stood and watched while Trish sobbed.
*
Tanner walked over. He’d already dealt with Curtis, and he’d deal with Charlie in his own way. Tanner couldn’t believe they had fired her. There had to be some rules or laws against that. But he also knew Wynn wouldn’t back down from her position, no matter what the police decided regarding any sabotage.
He watched as she unloaded her desk, packing it into an empty cardboard box, along with her laptop … and maybe her laptop contained the reasons why someone would want to kill her. Anybody around here that was a techie could have stolen her IP designs work from that very laptop. He wanted to ask but not while a group of her coworkers stood around.
One of the men turned and looked at him. “Hey, who are you, and what are you doing here?” The man stepped in front of Wynn, as if to defend her.
Noting the gesture, Tanner smiled. “I’m a friend of Wynn’s.”
Trish looked up and gasped. “He’s the guy who saved Wynn in that accident.”
At that, everybody crowded around, wanting details.
“We heard some of the story, but, wow, that’s pretty horrific. What made you think of the river?”
“It was Wynn’s suggestion,” Tanner said. “And a g
ood one.”
“Except I almost drowned as I got caught between the two wings and tangled up in the lines,” she said with a laugh. “It’s one thing to face an imminent death. It’s another thing to tell your mind—all within seconds—how it would be better to possibly survive a drowning rather than hitting the ground going too fast.”
That brought up a ton more questions. By the time Tanner was done with those, he noted she had packed up another boxful from her desk and had gathered together a backpack and what appeared to be several jackets and some work boots. He heard a noise behind him and turned to see a trailer backing into the hangar.
She smiled at Tanner. “Come and meet my brother, Todd.” They each took a load from her desk area and headed to the truck and trailer. A big fancy Silverado with some serious pulling power turned off. Wynn and Tanner deposited the boxes and backpack and windbreakers in the trailer.
The driver’s side door opened, and a young man exited slowly. Tanner remembered Wynn talking about Todd’s accident, how he was mobile but not as good as he could have been. Tanner stuck to Wynn’s side as they walked over to greet her brother.
Todd looked at her, smiled and glanced around. “I guess it’s time, huh?”
Wynn nodded. “I guess.”
They shared a knowing look, and she turned to Tanner. “I want you to meet Tanner. He’s the guy who saved my life.”
Tanner watched as Todd took several steps forward. He walked with the help of crutches, giving him added support. He leaned forward and held out his hand. Tanner took a step forward and shook Todd’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Ditto. Thanks for saving my sister’s life,” he said. “Would you help us load up?”
At that, Tanner said, “Let’s get her stuff and her outta here.”
Behind him came a hard voice. “Her gear and only her gear.”
Tanner realized Curtis and Charlie were standing side by side, their arms crossed. Tanner glanced at Wynn, and she nodded.
“Of course,” she said. “We’re taking away my damaged paraglider. I know the police will want to see it. Let’s load that first.”