Operation Blind Date

by Justine Davis

  But he had to say something.

  “Do you really think they’re not worried at all?”

  Her head came up. She didn’t look at him, but out through the windshield toward the long stretch of runway marked by tracks of dark rubber left by countless landings. After a moment, she let out a long breath.

  “No. If they haven’t actually spoken to her, either, then they’re worried. She talked to them at least two or three times a week.” After a moment of silence, she added quietly, “Thank you.”

  He wasn’t sure what he’d done, but he’d take it.

  Chapter 12

  He hit a button on the console above his head, and Laney saw a door on the large hangar at the end of a row of them start to open. It was fully open by the time they got there, and they drove right into the cavernous building.

  The first thing she saw was the sleek blue-and-white airplane. It seemed big to her, larger than some of the planes tied down outside, but certainly much smaller than any commercial plane she’d ever flown in. The wide windshield was divided, and there were generous windows on each side of the cockpit as well, followed by three smaller rectangular windows along the side. The swath of dark blue, accented by a ribbon of light blue, flowed over the white body from the bottom, sweeping up toward the tail as if caught by the wind.

  “Told you she was pretty,” Teague said with a laugh as he parked toward the back, well clear of the airplane.

  “Definitely an eye-catcher,” Laney said, feeling both a thrill and a touch of nervousness at the thought of making the trip over the mountains in something this much smaller than the usual commercial jet.

  They got out, Laney shouldering her bag while Teague opened the lift gate and grabbed the smaller of two backpacks from the back of his SUV.

  “Two?” Laney asked.

  “Long-term, short-term,” Teague said.

  “And you just keep them like this all the time?”

  “Except for rotating the rations now and then, yes.”

  She blinked. “Rations?”

  “You never know,” he said again. And as if reminded he said, “Snacks are on the plane, plus water and sodas, but if you want coffee you’ll have to do it yourself.”

  “I’ll be fine without.”

  They stopped beside the plane.

  “She’s a bit unique in the light aviation world. A prop plane with a pressurized cabin. We’ll go over the Cascades like they were foothills. All due respect, of course.”

  She liked that, that he expressed respect for the mountains. She wouldn’t have trusted someone who disregarded a mountain range full of volcanoes and that held the fourteen-thousand-foot Mount Rainier along with ten other peaks over nine thousand feet tall. Her parents still talked about the day Mount St. Helens had left that group in one huge explosion that sheared off the top thousand feet.

  She looked around the rest of the hangar with interest. There was a row of what looked to be offices and storage across the back, one with windows open to the main hangar bay.

  “Backup,” Teague said when he saw her looking. “That’s why the hangar’s really bigger than we need for just the plane. We can operate all of Foxworth out of here if we have to.”

  “Have you ever had to?”

  “Not yet. But Charlie’s a big believer in redundancy of systems.”

  Laney felt a pang of sympathy for Hayley. Even she was feeling intimidated by the impressive Charlie Foxworth, and she didn’t have to cope with the thought of being related.

  Teague walked toward what looked like a small tractor and fired it up. He was heading toward the front of the plane when a fuel truck appeared outside the doorway. He waved at the driver, who stopped, then backed up slightly.

  She watched what was obviously a familiar routine as Teague hooked the small tractor up to the plane.

  “Can’t start the engine inside the hangar, airport rules,” he said when he saw her watching intently. “I get it, safetywise, but it’s a pain in the backside when it’s pouring rain.”

  She managed not to ask how often they flew in that kind of weather. Obviously in the northwest if you only flew when it was dry you didn’t fly much.

  The plane seemed smaller to her after it was rolled out of the hangar into the open air. It gleamed in the late summer sun, and she found herself following the rather rakish curve of the three-bladed prop with her eye. The silver cone in front was polished to a high shine, the nose looked long and racy, and she had the whimsical thought that the plane looked eager to fly.

  She glanced around at the other planes tethered outside several yards away. Some of them looked downright clunky next to the sleek lines of this one. Wings above and below, she was used to seeing that, but she rarely saw the planes stationary so noticed other differences.

  “Why the different propellers? Two blades, four, but this one has three?”

  Teague laughed. “Just open up the trickiest part of aerodynamics, why don’t you? We could spend the whole flight on propeller theory and barely scratch the surface.”

  “Oh.” She felt a little sheepish. She’d thought there might be a simple answer, like the size of the engine or something. And belatedly, the obvious began to dawn on her.

  “But to answer what I think you’re asking,” Teague went on, “Quinn went with three for takeoff performance, since we don’t always end up at wide-open airfields. Four tends to keep the engine cooler, but he figured up here that was a decent trade-off, since we don’t usually have much ambient heat to deal with in this region.”

  The fueler went about his business briskly while Teague walked around the aircraft, checking things whose function was beyond her. Tires, that was obvious. Flaps she figured out and the thing on the tail that went side to side. But he seemed to go over the thing inch by inch, taking his time, with all the care of a surgeon prepping for an operation.

  And he was the surgeon. She felt foolish for not realizing sooner. The absence of anyone else around should have tipped her off right away, before the way he talked about the plane had. When Quinn had said “Take the plane,” he’d meant it literally for Teague. Take it as in fly it. Himself.

  The fuel truck finished and departed, and Teague walked back into the hangar to pick up his bag.

  “Ready?” he asked her.

  “I guess,” she said, sliding him a sideways look. “You really fly this thing?”

  “Nah. She practically flies herself. I just steer now and then.”

  She smiled at that, watching as he reached up and grabbed a handle on the side of the plane’s fuselage and pulled. A clamshell door opened, each half lifting and lowering smoothly. The lower half held two wide, comfortably deep steps that looked easy to negotiate.

  “She seats six,” Teague said as she lifted her foot to the first step. “Pick your spot.” He gave her a considering look. “You can sit up front if you want, or if that will bother you, or you want more room to relax, you’ve got four to choose from back here. There’s a stowaway desk over there, if you want it.”

  She hesitated, then jumped. “I’d like to start out up front.”

  He grinned that crooked grin, and she wondered how flying could flip her heart any more than that.

  “You can move back later. In the meantime, you can always close your eyes if it freaks you out.”

  “No stunts, okay?”

  The grin vanished. “In this? Charlie would have my head. And rightfully so.”

  There was no mistaking his seriousness. When it came down to business he was as steady as Quinn. That made the last of her reservations fade.

  As it turned out, the flight was smooth and uneventful, exciting only because she’d never done it and had never felt so close to the process. He did angle the plane once so, on this severe clear day, she could look down the range of mountains
and see the string of volcanoes that were the crown jewels; Baker to the north, to the south majestic Rainier and the remains of St. Helens, reminding everyone of the power of the giants that they lived with. From Canada to California the string of fire stretched.

  Then the jagged peaks were behind them and they were on the dry side, and she was so busy looking she forgot to be nervous. That she spent as much time watching Teague smoothly handle the controls, and the rather fearsome-looking electronics in front of them, was something she told herself was purely for her own edification.

  Sooner than seemed possible they landed at a small airfield northeast of the city, along the Spokane River. As she was coming to realize, Foxworth’s planning genius wasn’t limited to the infamous Charlie. There was a rental car waiting for them.

  “Navigate or drive?” Teague asked.

  She liked that he asked, but the decision seemed obvious.

  “I’d better navigate. I know where they live, but I’m not used to coming in this way. When I’ve come out to visit with Amber, we came in commercial, at the big airport.”

  Laney quickly oriented herself with the map on her phone and set them on their way. She guessed he could easily have done the same, probably even with turn by turn voiced directions, judging by the high-end phones all of Foxworth seemed to have. She wondered if he’d done it just to give her something to do, something else to think about. If he had, it worked.

  At least, it did until they made the last turn onto the cul-de-sac where Amber’s parents lived.

  There was a police car parked in their driveway.

  Chapter 13

  There was no mistaking the delight in the woman’s face when she opened the door and saw Laney, Teague thought. Or her stark disappointment when she saw him.

  She’d been hoping it would be Amber with Laney, he realized. He took no pleasure in being right; they were already worried.

  Under normal conditions, Teague guessed it would be easy to see where Amber got her looks. He knew from Laney Amber’s mother was only a couple of years younger than her father’s sixty-two, but if she said she was less than fifty he wouldn’t really doubt it. Laney had said they’d moved for the weather, and the woman’s tan seemed to show they enjoyed it.

  But now she didn’t look like a slim, fit, attractive middle-aged woman. She looked like what she was, a worried mother. Still, she didn’t seem distraught. Not yet anyway.

  And, he quickly realized as she ushered them inside the small but immaculately maintained house, she’d made an assumption about him. Them, rather.

  “Well, so you’ve finally brought us a young man to meet? About time, young lady.” Laney tried to speak but the woman seemed on a roll, and turned her attention on him. “Aren’t you the handsome one?”

  “No, no,” Laney finally managed to get in. “It’s not...he’s not—”

  “I may be getting old, girl, but my eyesight’s fine. He most certainly is.” She smiled widely at Teague, who suddenly couldn’t resist keeping his mouth shut, just to see where this would go. “You’ve quite the treasure here, you know. You take good care of her, or you’ll have us to answer to first, since we’re closer than her folks now.”

  “I mean we’re not together,” Laney said. “Not like that.”

  Did she sound regretful? Or was it his imagination? And if so, why the hell was he imagining that?

  “Too bad,” Mrs. Logan said with an appreciative once-over that make Teague smile, just barely. “You might want to rethink that.”

  “I might,” he said, even though the comment had clearly been meant for Laney. He wasn’t sure what had gotten into him. Something about the assumption they were together seemed to have set him off. “Teague Johnson, Mrs. Logan,” he said, holding out a hand. Saying it was a pleasure to meet her seemed wrong under the circumstances so he left it at that.

  The woman shook his hand rather delicately, but she smiled, and in that smile he again saw the younger woman from one of the photos Laney had shown them. A bright, beautiful smile. Somehow it made things more ominous instead of better.

  “Sorry,” Laney said, apparently in apology for her lack of manners in not introducing him. Had Mrs. Logan’s assumption flustered her that much? The inward satisfaction he felt at that thought was unsettling.

  “That’s all right, dear, I embarrassed you. I didn’t mean to.”

  “Mrs. L.,” Laney said, changing the subject by pointing out the obvious, “there’s a police car in your driveway.”

  “Yes.” The troubled expression again furrowed her brow. “Lisa’s a neighbor. She stopped by to give us some advice about Amber.”

  Teague could almost feel Laney’s pulse leap. “Have you spoken to her?”

  “No.” The furrow deepened. “You haven’t yet, either?”

  “No.”

  Teague could tell Amber’s parents hadn’t progressed to where Laney was. She seemed concerned but not panicked, and hadn’t yet connected her daughter’s lack of contact to Laney’s appearance on her doorstep.

  “That’s why we’re here,” Laney said. “Teague, I mean the people he works for, are helping me try to find her. Make sure she’s all right.”

  That did it, Teague thought. Ratcheted up the worry several notches. “You think there’s something really wrong?”

  “I’m just worried,” Laney said. “You know it isn’t like her to not talk to either of us for so long. I just want to be sure she’s okay, that she’s really off on some romantic getaway.”

  “Romantic getaway?”

  Laney sighed as the woman’s puzzled expression made it clear she had no idea what she was talking about.

  “You’d better come into the den with Lisa and Jim,” the woman said.

  It was a small room, with a couch, a couple of recliners that served as comfortable seating in front of the flat-screen on one wall. Not huge, but new-looking. Teague watched as Laney greeted the silver-haired man who rose quickly when he saw her, and decided Amber had had the luck of the draw on both sides. Jim Logan was a handsome man, in a distinguished sort of way.

  The uniformed officer that went with the unit outside was young, blonde and lively-looking. She gave him a once-over much more thorough than Amber’s mother’s assessment, and he guessed like any cop, she was doing just that, assessing.

  “Foxworth?” she said when it came up. “I’ve heard of them. Didn’t one of your guys take a bullet taking down that cop killer in Seattle?”

  “My boss,” Teague said.

  “He okay now?”

  “Fine. He was lucky.”

  She nodded. “You think there’s something serious going on?”

  “We’re involved to ease Laney’s mind,” Teague said. “I’m hoping that means we find Amber is fine, and annoyed at us for interrupting her fling.”

  “I’ve told the Logans how tough it is when the person’s an adult and theoretically still in contact, and there’s no evidence of foul play.”

  Teague nodded. “That’s why we’re in.”

  “Anything I can do from here?”

  “Probably not, but it’s early yet.”

  The woman nodded. She reached into a pocket and pulled out a business card. Lisa Valpraiso, Teague read.

  “Call me if there is.” She turned back to her neighbors. “I’ve heard good things about these people. You’re in good hands.”

  She excused herself and left. Teague let Laney explain what they knew, let her decide what to tell these people who were clearly like second parents to her. She told them most of it, including the odd texts.

  “We don’t text, so I can’t say,” Amber’s father said. “We did get an odd email from her, though, a couple of weeks ago. We didn’t think that much about it at the time, but when we didn’t hear from her after that...”

  �
�Do you still have it?” Teague asked.

  “I’m sure,” he said, rather wryly. “Audra never deletes anything.”

  “Jim, stop,” his wife said.

  The exchange held the tone of being oft-discussed. Amber’s mother got up and went to a small desk in one corner where a laptop computer sat. It was already on; he guessed they’d already checked for anything new from their daughter. It took her only a moment to find the email in question, and before he had to ask she had printed it out.

  “See, you never know when you might need something. If it had been up to you, it would be already gone.”

  “And if it was up to you, we’d need another hard drive just for mail,” her husband answered.

  Normalcy bias, Teague thought. Neither of them seemed as worried as Laney, because they couldn’t let themselves believe anything was truly wrong. They clung to the world as it had been; the normal world they knew, because to acknowledge the possibilities was unbearable.

  He didn’t blame them. Understood it all too well. Too bad it always smacked right into the immovable wall of reality. He understood that, too.

  He realized that somewhere along the line his own view had shifted. He’d begun this with the goal of proving Amber was just off on a jaunt with a new love, simply so that Laney would stop worrying. Now he realized he wasn’t just thinking about finding her, but finding her in time. There wasn’t a lot more evidence something was wrong than they’d had before, except for the plane ticket, and yet he’d somehow become convinced. As if Laney’s worry was infectious.

  And maybe it was. To him, anyway.

  Audra Logan handed the printed page to him. Laney leaned over to read it with him.

  “See?” the woman asked. “It’s all choppy and full of those silly shortcuts I hate. CUL8R? Really?”