Tanner

by Dale Mayer

  “It wasn’t him that worried me,” Steve said. “It was the guys beside him. They were talking about how they could fix it so he won the next time. They were joking, but, at the same time, it didn’t seem like they were joking.”

  “What was Roger’s answer?”

  Steve shrugged. “I’m not sure he gave them one. He was almost as drunk as I was. I was incredibly upset over your accident, and I think Rog was just as incredibly upset that the competition had been canceled. He was in good standing, and he would have moved up the ranks and probably would have taken the championship the next year.”

  “Except you did,” Tanya said. “You won last year, and then you quit.”

  “I did,” he said, “and I suspect I’ll never go back up in the sky again, and maybe that’s okay too. For a long time I worried it wasn’t okay. I worried I had let the sport get to me and let the fear cripple me. And I think I’m out. I think I’m still afraid. But I’m afraid of different things now.”

  “You’re afraid your equipment will be sabotaged, not that you’ll be killed,” Wynn added.

  Steve lifted a shaky hand and wiped his brow. “The thing is, I don’t know who the other two men were, but, as the conversation went on, it sounded like they were trying to convince Rog to take a deal.”

  “What kind of a deal?” Wynn asked, hating what he was implying.

  “I don’t know. What I do know is that, at one point, as I got up to leave, one of the men said, ‘We can fix it. Just like we fixed Todd.’”

  Silence fell on the group. Wynn’s brain went black for a moment. To think of someone having done that intentionally to her brother …

  Tanya covered her face with her hands.

  Steve leaned over and put an arm around Tanya’s shoulders. “I’m sorry I never told you, Sis. I never even thought about it at the time. I was too horror struck and too devastated by what I had just heard. I wasn’t sure what to do. What I didn’t do was, I didn’t tell the cops. And I know I should have.”

  “Yeah, you should have,” Todd said. He shook his head. “The question is, were these guys just being asshats and implying that, or were they talking about something they’d done?” He swallowed hard. “It’s one thing to consider my injuries being from an accident but another thing altogether to consider that the crash was deliberate.”

  Steve shook his head. “I stumbled outside, not really sure what I’d just heard. But, when I woke up the next morning, I was even more confused. I thought for sure nobody would have done that. But then I couldn’t handle the consequences, and I just refocused. That winter I took off, and, by the time the season started the next year, I’d firmly convinced myself I had imagined it. But, at the same time, I was constantly aware of my equipment. I hired somebody who stuck with it at all times.” He looked over at Tanya. “Remember Pedra?”

  Her face flushed. “Of course I remember him,” she snapped. “I’m pretty sure he’s the asshat who gave me the drugs.”

  “It’s quite possible. I think he was selling drugs on the side. But I did trust that he was looking after my gear. Maybe I shouldn’t have hired him, but it seemed like there were no mishaps for the entire season, and, as I gained confidence, I did better and better. I only beat Rog by a couple points,” he said slowly. “And there’s a funny thing about that day. I was going to use my regular gear, and then I decided at the last minute to use my new one. Even as I was getting ready to take my last run, I was thinking it was a foolish thing to do because there wasn’t time to test it. But instinct kept telling me to go on, to use the new one. And, as it is, I did just fine, and I won.”

  He took a deep breath and continued, “A few days after the competition, I took out my normal paraglider, and I did have a bad accident. But it was nothing like Todd’s. It was bad enough though that I know, if I’d taken that glider up on competition day, where I’d have pushed the gear to its limits, I’d have crashed and burned in a bad way. As I found out afterward, my gear had been sabotaged.” He said it so simply and so clearly that nobody was left with any doubt that at least he believed what he’d said.

  Todd let out a deep slow breath and sank against the chair. “Dear God.”

  Wynn wasn’t sure those were quite the right words. But she was too shocked to say anything.

  “Do you think Rog did that?” Tanya asked, her voice rising. “Or whoever he was talking to that night?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But the police can ask him that,” Tanner said in a no-nonsense tone of voice.

  Steve said, “After my accident, I tried to contact Rog. I wanted to ask him if he knew anything about it. But he didn’t answer my calls.”

  “He’s pretty well winning now,” Todd said slowly. “He could just be busy, or maybe he feels guilty.”

  “Yeah, we’re coming up to the final competition,” Steve said. “And I don’t know if he’ll win or if it’ll be three times lucky.”

  “You mean, if this third year in a row, the lead person has an accident, only this time it’s a fatality?” Wynn asked, her voice deathly soft. She couldn’t quite believe they were talking life and death here.

  Steve looked over at her and nodded. “That’s what I’m worried about, yeah.”

  “When is this final competition?” Tanner asked.

  It was Wynn who answered. “This weekend. The championship is this weekend.”

  *

  Tanner listened as he considered all the things they knew so far. “We need to go to this competition to make sure Rog doesn’t become the hat trick.”

  “It’s not a place I want to go,” Todd declared, shaking his head.

  “What we need to do is ask him who was at that meeting in the bar,” Wynn said. “Rog knows me quite well. I could possibly get him to talk to me.”

  Tanner felt a spike of jealousy in his belly. “How well do you know him?”

  She slid him a sidelong glance. With her lips twitching, she said, “Well. But not that well.” She glanced over at Tanya. “But you do.”

  Tanya shrugged. “I did. But then I must have slept with fifty other paragliders. They all just rolled into one, and not one of them stood out.”

  “Ouch,” Todd said.

  Tanya glanced at him. A hot red flush washed up her neck.

  Tanner stared at the two of them and realized what she’d said and what Todd’s response meant.

  Steve looked from one to the other and said, “Really?”

  Tanya shrugged. “Sorry, Todd. I didn’t mean that quite in that way.”

  “The thing is, that’s how you did mean it.” He stared moodily at the table. “And that was before my accident.”

  “Maybe it would be better now,” she said quietly. “We were both pretty full of ourselves. Now we’d be a lot more real.”

  He looked at her, smiled and asked, “Take two?”

  At that, she burst out laughing, her joyous sound pealing across the room.

  Tanner grinned. He had to give Todd full marks for trying. He didn’t know that Tanya was quite ready for that, but, if they’d been there once, maybe this would be a good time to reconnect. Todd was definitely much more physically capable than he’d been since his accident. The fact that he’d felt strong enough and confident enough to make that move here today was interesting. Tanner was happy for Todd. It was hard to consider a lifetime of loneliness ahead of him.

  Wynn patted Todd’s hand gently, then spoke to Tanya. “Anytime you want to come and visit, Tanya, feel free. We’re not very far away.”

  Tanya nodded. “Ditto. I’m sorry it’s taken us so long to reconnect.”

  “I ended up quitting at the same time as Todd. I won my season. He had won his, but his accident completely changed everything for us,” Wynn said. “I no longer cared about competing. I just cared about keeping my brother alive.”

  “You two were always close,” Tanya said softly. “The same as we were, just different.”

  Wynn looked over at Steve. “You have no clue who was in tha
t pub with Rog?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t. But, after my accident, knowing that my rig had been sabotaged, there’s a part of me that thinks, if I even show my face again, I’m likely to be up for round two myself, and not in a way that would put a smile on my face.”

  “I had an accident just over a week ago,” Wynn said quietly. “My gear was sabotaged.”

  Steve paled and Tanya gasped.

  Wynn nodded and picked up Tanner’s hand in hers. “Tanner saved my life.”

  And then she gave Steve and Tanya a quick rundown of what had happened.

  Steve was visibly shaking in front of them. “Whoever this is, he’s after all of us,” he cried out. “There’s no way I can go back up in the sky again.”

  “You don’t need to,” Tanner said quietly. “Think about it. That was one stage of your life. You’re allowed to change and do something different from now on.”

  Steve stared at Tanner, his brain obviously working, as if trying to latch on to the logic, to find a place in there that made sense. Something he could accept and move into.

  Tanner tried again. “Your life has had three stages so far. Before you did paragliding, during paragliding, and now this is after paragliding. Create a life that makes you happy. Don’t be a prisoner in your house. Don’t be a prisoner on the ground, with fear keeping you there. Find a way forward. Just because paragliding was what you did, doesn’t mean it’s what you should be doing or what you can be doing or what you will be doing in the future.”

  Steve looked at him and said, “But that would mean making peace with my past. I’m not sure I’m ready to do that.”

  “It is time though,” his sister said. “You can’t live like this. You hate to leave the house. You’re a shell of the man you used to be. You don’t sleep anymore. You wake up in the middle of the night, crying out with nightmares.”

  Self-conscious, Steve looked at the coffee table. “It’s hard to forget some of this stuff, and it sneaks into your mind in the night when you’re at your most vulnerable.”

  Tanner nodded. “I’ve been there. I understand. But, if we go to the championship this weekend, we’ll make sure nothing happens to Rog.”

  Steve lifted his gazed and looked at him. “And what if it was Rog who took care of Todd’s accident and mine?”

  Everyone was silent. Tanner nodded. “In that case, we better make sure he doesn’t take out yet another competitor.”

  Wynn looked at him. “It’ll be pretty hard to do. Like Steve did, a lot of people hire someone to stay close to their gear. You’re not supposed to have the public anywhere near your rig.”

  Tanner nodded. “I understand that. But, if somebody’s already managed a number of accidents, the last thing we want is a yet another one. And we certainly don’t want a fatality.” He tilted his head and frowned. “Do either of your ex-bosses ever go to the competitions?”

  “Of course,” she said. “They’re sponsors.”

  Tanner gave a grim smile. “In that case, we’re definitely going.”

  Chapter 13

  Wynn stared at Tanner in surprise. “You can’t really think Charlie and Curtis had anything to do with it, do you?”

  “Not necessarily. But I did get some information pulled up on the school. I haven’t shared that with you yet because I hadn’t really seen anything that linked the staff or the owners to what was going on with this latest angle on your accident, Todd’s accident and Steve’s accident. But, if the owners are connected to the competition in any way, and there have been more accidents, then what we need to do is take a much deeper look.” He stood. “And the sooner, the better.”

  Tanya protested. “Hey, we’ve got lunch ready. Stay at least long enough for that. Then, if you have to run, you have to run. Hopefully it won’t be so long before you guys come to visit again.” She looked at her brother. “It’s good to see them, isn’t it, Steve?”

  For the first time since they arrived, Steve gave them a solid smile and, in a quiet voice, said, “Yes, actually it is. It’s nice to reconnect. I hadn’t realized how much I had isolated myself. How much this house had become a cage that I couldn’t release myself from.”

  Wynn walked over and gave him a hug. “And that’s what friends are for.”

  “I felt so guilty,” Steve said as they walked to the dining room. “I heard that conversation, but I never told anyone. It was just too unbelievable. I couldn’t consider it.”

  “And that’s understandable too,” Wynn said firmly. “Don’t think about it like that anymore. And, if anything else comes to mind, anything at all, then text me or give me a call. Something may help us put the pieces together. I don’t know if Rog is behind it or if Rog is a victim or if it has nothing to do with him. For all we know, we have somebody who likes to torment people.”

  They all entered the dining room, the table already set up buffet-style for lunch. Wynn looked at it and smiled. “This is beautiful,” she exclaimed. “Really beautiful. Tanya, you’ve gone to a lot of work.”

  “My new hobby is cooking,” Tanya said with a self-conscious laugh. “I really enjoy it. Staying home, being a bit of a homebody, is quite nice.”

  Wynn looked at her with new eyes. “Who knew?”

  Tanya nodded, realizing just how different her life back then was as compared to her life now. “I didn’t.”

  Everyone took a seat at the table and soon filled their plates. “Whoever is responsible for this has a motive. There’s always a motive,” Tanner said. “Power is most likely.”

  “In what way?” Steve asked.

  “In this case, money. Money gives people power. When the ego is involved, then you can get revenge motives too. People do all kinds of things to each other for some of the simplest reasons. But here a lot of reasons could be involved and some very powerful motivators.” He looked down at the make-your-own-nachos buffet and smiled. “This is lovely and making me hungry.”

  Wynn nodded as she topped off her plate and dug in. “Me too.”

  About twenty minutes later Tanner picked up the earlier conversation. “Are there any groupies or particular people who hang around competitions all the time who might get too attached to a potential winner or a returning champion and want to see their favorite win at any cost?”

  They all had to stop to consider it.

  “That would probably be a question I could answer,” Tanya said slowly. “I was certainly part of that groupie scene. Except that, because my brother was actually competing, I had a little more power. As you might say, I could get people into the back of the restricted areas, could get them in to see the insider scoop. The media was always pumping me for the goods, the latest details,” she said.

  She reached for her water glass and took a big drink before setting the glass down. Her gaze wandered to the four of them at the table. “But I can’t think of anybody like that. People got very defensive about who was best, what gear was best. But I don’t think anybody was so crazy as to sabotage somebody else to make sure their favorite won.”

  Her face twisted, and she stared down at her plate. “At least, I would hope not. A lot of those people I knew pretty well. But not any of them struck me as the kind of person who would hurt another.”

  Wynn said to Tanner, “Very few people have access to the gear. Chances are you’d have better luck if you were a cameraman, judge or even a stealthy spectator.”

  Todd agreed. “The cameramen are all over the place. So are the judges. A certain amount of media covers the competition too. And the sponsors are there. It’s less about spectators and more about the people hooked into the competitions.”

  “Good to know,” Tanner said. “I hadn’t considered that. So then consider this. Is there any rivalry between the sponsors?”

  “All the time,” Todd exclaimed. “But not to the extent of killing somebody. They might offer better contracts, but I don’t think they’d ever kill one of the stars. It’s the stars who make them money. Whether it’s for them or for someone el
se, money flows in this industry.”

  Wynn understood that. Tanner was just turning over all stones, but she thought he was wrong there. “This has a personal feel to it,” she announced. “Look at my accident. I can’t imagine how many people had access to my gear.”

  “That’s what I mean though,” Tanner said. “Just your bosses and your coworkers were around your rig. You said yourself that no other training was scheduled for that day, except for the units I was a part of. So how many people had access?”

  “Only staff, like you said,” Todd said. “Unless you consider the fact that the place is left empty overnight. It’s all too possible that somebody jumped the fence, went into the hangar, did whatever they needed to do and left again, without anybody being the wiser.”

  “There is security though, isn’t there?” Tanner asked Wynn.

  She nodded. “There is, but it’s not that great. And it’s only on the windows and the doors on the ground floor of the warehouse.”

  “Are there other doors?”

  She nodded. “One that goes up to the top of the shop for loading. It’s got a large double door, so gear can be loaded up there without having to go through the main part of the hangar.”

  “And that door should be kept locked, but, of course, it’s only a door, so who knows what might have been done.” Tanner nodded his head. “Something else to think about then.”

  “The perimeter gate is always locked though,” she noted. “But, like Todd said, it wouldn’t be that difficult to climb a gate and jump over. It’s not like it’s an electric or barbwire fence. I don’t believe there’s perimeter security at all either. The place is not high-tech, and it’s not full of anything that’s terribly important. Sure, there are supplies, and there’s gear, but it’s all insured. It’s not design work or cutting-edge materials that people want a sample of—except for my two gliders and laptop. Not the typical stuff that we would think espionage revolves around.”

  *

  “I don’t think we can make any assumptions at this point,” Tanner said as he picked up a tortilla, filling it with some of the leftovers on the table. “I have to admit, I’m really enjoying this lunch. Thank you very much for inviting me.” Although he’d more or less invited himself.