by Sandra Brown
Nate chimed in. “There’s no doubt in my mind that he injured that man at the airfield.”
“Maybe,” Rawlins said. “We can’t figure a motive, though. And Dr. O’Neal may be moonstruck, but I can’t see her covering for Mallett for something as serious as an assault.”
“Has the poor victim described his attacker?” Delores asked.
“He was struck from behind.”
“What a pity. I hope he recovers soon.”
Nobody responded to that. Then Wilson said, “Well, we’ve taken up enough of your time. Please notify us if you see or hear from either of them.”
There were handshakes all around and promises to share information should any become available. Delores herself walked the officers to the door and saw them out, then returned to the sitting room, went straight to the bar, and poured a drink.
“Just when we need to be our most surreptitious, Brynn has got these yokels nipping at our heels,” Nate groused. “I could kill her.”
“That’s certainly an option,” Richard said. “But we have to find her first. You know her better than we do. You see her almost every day. Have you thought of where she might have gone? What resources she has at her disposal? A second home? A second car? A roadmap to Violet Griffin’s house in Tennessee?”
Compared to the near shout on which he’d ended, Delores’s tone was soft and perfectly controlled. “You made a blunder, darling.”
“A colossal one,” Richard said. “When we trusted Dr. O’Neal.”
“When you mentioned bloodshed.”
Richard’s gaze snapped to hers.
“The deputies hadn’t said anything about blood. How would we know there had been bloodshed unless we knew about his knife fight with Timmy?”
9:37 p.m.
Wilson and Rawlins climbed into the SUV. They waited until they were clear of the gate and underway before Wilson looked over at Rawlins. In unison, they said, “They’re lying.”
Chapter 23
9:41 p.m.
The taxi driver hadn’t been exaggerating about the amount of traffic on the interstate highways. It took longer to get to where they were going than Rye had anticipated, and when he assisted Brynn from the back seat, she looked at him as though he had lost his mind.
The neighborhood was dicey, bordering on sinister. Streetlights had either burned out or been shot out. The few enterprises still in operation were closed for the night. Most had metal grills protecting their windows and doors from break-ins. The street was shuttered, dark, and best avoided.
But since Rye didn’t like either their taxi driver’s beady eyes or his attitude, he asked him to drop them two blocks shy of their destination. Grudgingly Rye tipped him the promised extra twenty, for which he received no thanks. He waited until the taxi’s taillights disappeared around a corner, then drew Brynn into the recessed entrance of an abandoned store.
“You’re out of luck. The place is shut down.” She brought his attention to the faded “For Sale” sign taped to the door. “Has been for some time now, looks like.”
“This isn’t where we’re going. I didn’t want the cabbie to know our final destination.”
“I don’t know our final destination.”
“Remember that beach bar you and your friends went to? I told you there was a hangout like it near every airfield in the world.”
“We’re going to such a place?”
“Couple of blocks from here. Rough neighborhood. Rough and rowdy bar.”
“Lots of pornography.”
“You’ll see. But if you want to fly to Tennessee, you’ve got to go where the flyers are.”
“There’s an international airport within shouting distance. It has lots of airplanes and pilots to fly them.”
“It also has passenger manifests, TSA checkpoints, and ID requirements. If anyone having, say, congressional authority, checks to see if you’re on a flight—”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Richard Hunt will. He’ll check the car rental outfits, too.”
“So what do I do?”
“You let me broker you a deal with a private pilot.”
“Forgive me for pointing out the obvious.”
“I can’t fly you, Brynn. Even I have limits. I wouldn’t get into a cockpit again until I’ve had some sleep.”
“I’ve never chartered a flight. How much will it cost?”
“Depends on the aircraft. But I won’t let anyone take advantage of you. I’ll get you a fair deal.”
“It will probably put my credit card over the limit.”
“You shouldn’t put a charge on your card, anyway. I’ll call Dash. He’ll cover it. You two can settle up later.”
“He would do that?”
“He’ll gripe, but he’ll do it. What do you say?”
She sighed, looked around, clearly in a quandary.
He put his hands on his hips. “Decide, Brynn. Do we do this or not? Your call.”
She deliberated for another second or two, then said, “I’m not committing to it yet, but you dismissed the taxi, and the chances of getting another on this street are slim to none. I guess as long as we’re this close to the hangout, it wouldn’t hurt to look into a charter.”
“Wait.” He caught her arm before she could move away. “One more word of caution. The place will be full of guys who’ll take one look at you and see fresh meat. Most will be drunk, uncouth, talking raunchy.”
“I can handle that.”
Her flippant dismissal amused him. He drawled, “Is that right?”
“I wasn’t raised in a convent.”
“No, but have you ever been groped by a flyboy? They don’t fool around. No time for subtlety. He’ll be flying out in an hour or two. Gotta get it while he can.” He put his hand on her ass and pulled her to him, tilted his head, and lowered his lips to hers.
“No.” She pushed him away, but her hands stayed flat against his chest inside his jacket. “What if you had slept a solid eight hours, Rye?”
He didn’t say anything.
“No answer. Answer enough.” She dropped her hands and stepped back. “That was going to be a goodbye kiss, wasn’t it? Once you pass me off to the next flyboy, you’ll make your grand exit.”
“As a favor to you! That’s what you said you wanted. Never to see me again. Remember?”
“Exactly. So why bother with kissing? I didn’t even ask for your help.”
He wanted to kiss her now more than ever, if only to prove that he could and still leave without a backward glance, without regret. The problem was, who would he be proving it to? To her? Or himself?
He should be sleeping. He should be long gone. Yet here he was, lending expertise and assistance in an effort to fix her problem. Any decent person would do the same, if not for Brynn, for the sick kid.
He would see this through and then split with a clear conscience. But if Brynn could do without kissing, by damn so could he. “You want to get to Tennessee?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“Then you need to move on it before half the population of Atlanta, plus Wilson and Rawlins, are breathing down your neck. If you don’t favor this plan, fine. You don’t want any more of my help? Even better.” He sliced the air with his hands. “I’ll see you as far as the main airport, and we’ll go our separate ways from there. But make up your mind.”
She crossed her arms over her center, toed a dead weed in the wide crack in the sidewalk, looked at the barred windows, and reread the “For Sale” sign.
When her eyes reconnected with his, she said, “How graphic is the pornography?”
9:53 p.m.
To Brynn the noise level was raucous, but Rye, shouting directly into her ear in order to make himself heard, said, “It’s Thanksgiving. Light crowd.”
With an unbreakable grasp on her elbow and a proprietary demeanor, he steered her around tables where groups of men huddled over beer mugs and plates piled high with carbohydrates.
; Billiard balls clacked amid whoops of triumph and curses of defeat. Top Gun was playing on a TV larger than Brynn’s living room wall. Music was piped at a deafening level through scratchy overhead speakers.
There were only a handful of women in the place, all younger and less modestly clad than Brynn. Nevertheless, she received her share of speculative once-overs, whistles, and leers.
Rye headed toward a table on the periphery, which was a bit more secluded and where the lighting was dimmer. It was occupied by two men whose nachos had been reduced to crumbles. On the table was a collection of empty drinking glasses. Rye leaned down. “I’ll buy you a round in exchange for the table.”
They looked up at him, ogled Brynn, and one said, “Two rounds.”
“Done.”
With nudges and winks, they wished Rye good luck, then left them. As they sat down in the vacated chairs, Rye said, “I recommend sticking to the basics like a cheeseburger and fries, or nachos.”
“What else is on the menu?”
“Sides.”
“What are they?”
“Chili and jalapeños.”
“I’ll take the cheeseburger. No sides.”
He signaled a passing busboy and, as he was clearing the table, Rye said, “Couple of cheeseburgers, please.”
“I ain’t the waiter.”
Rye gave him a pained look. “Give me a fuckin’ break and bring out two cheeseburgers, okay?”
The young man looked even more pained. “Fries?”
“What do you think? And two Cokes.”
“Bourbon in those?”
Rye shook his head. “I may be flying tomorrow.”
“Rum?”
Rye laughed. “Straight Coke.”
After the young man moved away, she said, “You seem right at home.”
“Yep. And I know how the system works. Wait here. Keep your head down. Don’t make eye contact, or he’ll take it as encouragement.”
“Who?”
“Pick one, any one.”
He left the table and waded his way to the bar, where he motioned the busy bartender over. He paid for the drinks of the two men who’d given up their table, then conferred privately with the bartender.
Brynn read the names and dates and vulgarities carved into the tabletop.
Rye returned. “I put a bug in the bartender’s ear.”
“He’ll find a pilot for me?”
“He won’t have to. The pilot will find us.”
“That’s the system? You put the word out and see who comes around?”
“Basically. But don’t be scared. Whoever winds up taking you will have met my qualifications. He won’t be a rookie.”
“Thank you.”
“Save it for when you’re on your way.”
She took a look around. “You were teasing me about the porn.”
“No, I wasn’t.” He indicated the wall nearest their table.
She looked at it, then realized that every inch of wall space was covered with pictures of airplanes. Every era of aviation was represented, so was every type, shape, color, and size of aircraft.
Rye said, “I call it ‘plane porn,’ because it’s what every guy in here gets off on.”
“Flying.”
“Flying.” He handed a five-dollar bill to the busboy, who had returned with their food and drinks.
They doctored their burgers using the condiments grouped into a beer six-pack in the center of the table, then dove in hungrily. When Brynn came up for air and took a sip of her drink, she said, “Why do you love it so much?”
“Tabasco?”
He’d poured a puddle of it onto his plate, but she knew he was using the quip to dodge giving her an answer. “Why do you love flying so much?”
“Early exposure, I guess. Most of my growing up was done on Air Force bases.”
“Was your father a pilot?”
“He had his license, but flying bothered his ears. Pulling Gs made him sick.”
“He didn’t have the stomach for it.”
He responded to her joke, but then his smile relaxed into a thoughtful expression. “He didn’t have the—” Coming up empty, he made a gesture of dismissal.
She ate one last French fry, then moved the plastic plate aside and wiped her hands on a paper napkin. “Didn’t have the what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes you do.”
He dabbed the last bite of his burger into the pool of hot sauce, but returned it to his plate without eating it. He took a drink, shifted in his seat, turned to see if perhaps the bartender had forgotten him. When he finally resettled and his gaze lighted on her, she said, “Rye, this may be the last private conversation we ever have. Make it count.”
“Why?”
“Because, it’s been roughly twenty hours since you knocked me to the ground. That was the high point. Since then it’s been one calamity after another. Aren’t I entitled to take away something meaningful from this experience?”
“You turned down a grope and a damn good sloppy kiss in the making.”
She held his stare.
He relented by exhaling a deep breath as he leaned back in his chair. “Thing of it is, I don’t know how to explain it, any more than I know how to explain my fingerprints. They’ve always been there, and so has the obsession for flight. It goes beyond liking it, or even loving it. It’s…” He paused, searched for the word, and again drew inspiration from his fingerprints. “Ingrained.”
He must have thought that she would comment, or thank him for enlightening her, and that would be the end of it. But she continued to watch him with a listening aspect.
Eventually, he continued. “For as far back as I can remember, I wanted to be up there. I’d spend hours on end as close as I could get to a runway, watching the planes take off. One after the other. Over and over. I never tired of it. Envied the guy in the pilot’s seat. All the time thinking, ‘God, I can’t wait to do that.’”
He looked toward the ceiling as though seeing open sky through it. Coming back to her, he said, “To this day, for that last nanosecond before I pull back on the yoke, I savor the anticipation of taking off. I still can’t wait.”
Her eyes glossed over with tears, but she sniffed them back. “Now, was that so hard?”
“Not very poetic.”
“You’re wrong.” She spoke with emotional huskiness, but even above the cacophony, she knew he heard her.
He sat forward and braced his elbows on the table. “Okay, Dr. O’Neal, your turn. Why did you become a doctor? Did you answer a call to serve your fellow man?”
“Something like that. My mother died when I was very young. Before I understood about incurable illnesses, I was angry at the doctors for not making her well. Wasn’t that what doctors were for?”
“You wanted to do better than they had.”
“I suppose that factored in, early on at least. But becoming a doctor was also—”
“Excuse me?”
She and Rye looked up at the man who’d interrupted them. He was around Rye’s age, but cleaner cut, with hair worn short, and a smooth shave. His Hawaiian print shirt was tucked into his jeans. A Levi’s jacket was slung over his shoulder, hooked on his index finger.
“Rye Mallett?”
Rye shot the bartender a vexed look. “I told him no names.”
“You’re in need of a pilot to fly this lady to an as-yet-undisclosed destination ASAP. Is that right?”
“You instrument rated?”
“Yes.”
“How many hours do you have flying IFR? And what kind of plane is at your disposal?”
“I’m not applying.”
Rye’s tone turned testy. “Then what?”
“There’s a cop asking around the pool tables if anybody’s seen you and a lady fitting this one’s description. Said the police are canvassing all the probable places for you to charter or rent a plane.”
“Shit!”
“So, that resonates?”
�
��Yeah. It resonates,” Rye muttered.
“What did y’all do to tick off Atlanta PD?”
“You don’t care what we did, or you wouldn’t be over here warning us.”
“Was it short of killing somebody?”
“Way short. In fact, she’s a doctor who’s trying to save a life and running out of time to do it. Security cameras in a parking garage have me trying to teach some manners to an asshole who came at me with a knife. His package is gonna need an ice pack for several days, but he’s still breathing.”
The explanation seemed to satisfy the other man. He pulled on his jacket. “The cop went into the can, but he won’t be long. I’ll walk out with her, like she’s my date. The cop has a picture of you taken off a security camera. I got a glimpse of it. It’s blurry, can’t tell much, but doesn’t hurt to be careful, so use my cap.”
He passed Rye a Braves ball cap. Rye put it on and slid off his bomber jacket.
“Good call,” the man said. “Jacket’s cool as shit, but it’s part of your official description. Meet you outside.” Addressing Brynn, he said, “You ready, sweetheart?”
He came around and held her chair.
Brynn looked at Rye with full-blown panic, not only because the police were conducting an official search for them, but because they didn’t know this man from Adam, and she was being handed over to him. Regardless of the stance she’d taken earlier, she didn’t want Rye to abandon her now.
“Are you coming?” she asked.
“Right behind you,” he said. “Now go!”
She stood up, unsure her trembling legs would support her. The stranger placed his arm across her shoulders and propelled her toward the exit. But as soon as they had cleared it, she drew to a halt. “I’m not going any farther without Rye.”
“I’m trying to help, I swear.”
“Why would you?”
“Rye Mallett? Are you kidding? He’s a legend.”
Just then the legend exited the bar. He spotted the police unit parked off to one side and reclaimed Brynn by grabbing her hand. “Thanks, buddy. I owe you, but we gotta split.”
“Where’s your car?”
“Don’t have one.”
“Damn, man. Come on.” He motioned for them to follow as he led them through the mazelike parking lot where lined spaces had been ignored. When they reached his car, he unlocked it with a fob and opened the back seat door.