by Sandra Brown
“Now, Mallett.”
Rye looked at the other man with consternation, but did as told, and showed Goliad his waistband all the way around. When they were facing again, Goliad told him to keep his hands up and away from his body, which he did.
Goliad made a motion to Brynn, who unzipped her coat pocket, and took out the bubble-wrapped package. “It’s sensitive to light and heat, and any exposure to bacteria would be—”
“I’ll be careful.” Goliad extended his hand.
Startling them all, a door opened a short distance away, and a housekeeper pushed a rattling cart into the corridor. In a singsong voice, she wished them a cheerful good morning.
Taking Goliad completely off guard, and shocking the hell out of Rye, Brynn went around Goliad and walked briskly toward the woman in the pink uniform. “I’m so glad you arrived when you did. We used all our towels last night. May I please have some extras?”
Without waiting for a response, Brynn lifted several from the stack on the cart and then broke into a sprint. Both Goliad and Rye charged after her, but Goliad had a ten-foot head start.
The housekeeper flattened herself against the wall in fright. As Goliad passed her, he one-handedly hauled her cart into the middle of the hallway. Running full out, Rye barreled into it, knocking it over and scattering everything it carried. He hurdled piles of fresh laundry and rolls of toilet tissue.
Brynn’s intention had probably been to take the fire stairs, but just as she drew even with the elevator, the bell above it dinged. She heaved the stack of towels toward Goliad. He batted them down, stumbled over them, kicked them aside as he chased after her.
The elevator doors opened. Brynn stepped in. Goliad, pistol held close to his side and out of sight, got in behind her. Rye put on a burst of speed and slipped in between the two closing doors.
He crowded in behind Goliad to make room for himself, because there were five other people in the elevator: a silver-haired couple looking annoyed for having been herded to the back; two teenage girls wearing earbuds and staring into their phones; a heavyset man in shorts and flip-flops.
Affably, he bellowed to the newcomers, “Morning, folks. Headed down to the buffet? The biscuits and gravy are tops. Grits, too.”
The teenagers continued to peck on their phones without looking up. The older couple smiled politely, but neither spoke. Brynn was on Rye’s left, huddled in the corner of the elevator, as though trying to go unnoticed. She didn’t speak. Rye thought she might have been holding her breath.
Goliad turned around to face out. Rye had kept his back to the door, so he and Goliad were now eye to eye. With everyone else in the cubicle unaware, Rye poked the short barrel of his pocket pistol into Goliad’s stomach. The man’s eyes registered surprise, and his abs contracted, but he didn’t react so that anyone else would notice.
Rye whispered, “I was just fooling about the clip.” During the chase down the hallway, he’d managed to retrieve his pistol from the pocket of his bomber jacket. Last night he’d loaded it with the spare clip he carried in his flight bag.
Given the close quarters, there was no way he could verbally communicate with Brynn. He couldn’t have advised her anyway, because he had no idea what Goliad planned to do when the elevator doors opened. Raise his gun hand and commence a shootout? That seemed unlikely, but Rye couldn’t dismiss the possibility.
Brynn had forced Goliad’s hand. He had proposed a peaceful settlement where nobody got hurt. But it had to be clear to him now that she wasn’t going to surrender the GX-42 without a fight.
Whatever Goliad did, Rye would have only seconds in which to process it and react correctly, or people could die. But years of pilot training had taught him to do just that.
Goliad’s method of problem-solving was more stolid.
Giving Rye the advantage here.
He hoped.
The elevator stopped. The double doors behind him began to open. Brynn once again seized an opportunity. Wraithlike, she slipped around behind Rye and cleared the doors before they had even opened all the way.
“She wants those biscuits while they’re hot,” the flip-flop man said around a booming laugh.
Rye pretended that Brynn had pushed against him on her way out. He fell forward into Goliad, throwing him off balance. “Sorry, man.” The apology was for the benefit of the others in the elevator, but he jabbed Goliad’s middle with his pistol for emphasis before whipping around and running after Brynn.
Rather than trying to navigate the crowded lobby, she’d headed down the long corridor that came to a dead end at the side door they’d been using. When she reached it, she looked back to ensure that Rye was behind her before she pushed through the door to the outside. By the time Rye got to the door, he saw her through the glass, splashing across the parking lot in a mad dash toward Wes’s car.
His relief was short-lived.
Before he could depress the bar to let himself out, Goliad caught up to him, grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, hurled him against the wall, then landed a punch in Rye’s diaphragm that robbed him of breath. It also hurt like bloody hell, but not as bad as a bullet would have. Goliad still didn’t want a firefight, especially not after a terrorized housekeeper had witnessed their race down the hallway.
But bare hands could be just as deadly as guns if one knew how to apply them. Goliad outweighed and outmuscled him. Rye couldn’t bring him down. Not in a fistfight, not by swapping swings. So he folded his arms across his midsection and, with a grunt of pain, bent double.
Then he came up beneath Goliad’s chin with his head. Goliad’s teeth clacked, his head snapped back, and when he brought it upright, Rye’s hands were folded around his pistol, the short barrel pressed up against the soft underside of Goliad’s jaw.
Rye wheezed, “Drop the gun.”
Goliad’s weapon landed with a dull thud on the carpet near their feet.
Still raspy, Rye said, “Why don’t you just back off and let the kid have the drug?”
“Because she’s not who I work for.”
“Stubborn son of a bitch.”
With the hilt of his pistol, Rye rapped Goliad hard, right on the bridge of his nose, then pivoted and pushed through the door. Rain and cold air blasted him in the face, but it felt good. It cleared his head in time for him to leap backward, out of the way of an oncoming, speeding car. Wes’s car. Brynn behind the wheel.
The car skidded to a stop inches from him. In his haste to get the passenger door open, he nearly dislocated his shoulder. Brynn accelerated before he’d pulled in his right leg. Through the glass exit door, he saw Goliad down on one knee, holding a hand to his face.
Rye and Brynn didn’t speak until they were out of the parking lot, up the ramp onto the freeway, and speeding along in the outside lane. By then, Rye had almost regained his breath. “Tell me you still have it.”
“I still have it.”
“Intact?”
“Yes.”
He laid his head back and closed his eyes. “That’s what matters.”
“You matter, too. Are you in pain?”
“I’ll live.”
“Goliad?”
“Not as pretty as he used to be. He’ll need a nose job.”
“But he’s all right?”
“Nothing life-threatening, and he’ll recoup, so we’re on borrowed time. Not only him to worry about, though. All my talk about security cameras? Wasn’t crap. Our altercation won’t go unnoticed. Somebody will get the plate number on this car. Make and model, too. It could get back to Wes.” He raised his head and looked over at her. “Damn, I hate that, Brynn.”
“Believe me, he’s been in tighter spots.”
“Yeah, but I’ve never put him in one before.” He thought for a minute. “Drive to Walmart.”
“Dad’s Walmart? Why?”
“When I switched out the license plates, I put his under the carpet in the trunk. I’ll put them back on, then we’ll leave his car and let him know where it’s parked.
If somebody comes looking for it, they’ll find him at work, and his car on the lot of the store.”
“Thanks for thinking of that.”
“I don’t want him to get into trouble.”
“Neither do I, but without the car, how will we get to Tennessee?”
He leaned forward and looked up through the windshield at the torrential rain and bottom-heavy, opaque clouds. “We fly.”
Chapter 32
7:20 a.m.
They exited the freeway and pulled into a self-operated car wash, which wasn’t doing any business today. Brynn pulled into one of the bays. In a matter of minutes, Rye had replaced the original plates on Wes’s car.
He was just getting back in when his cell phone rang. “Only one person has the number,” he said to Brynn as he fished the phone from the front pocket of his damp jeans. “Hey, Dash.”
“I’ve called you three times.”
“I silenced the phone after our last text so I could sleep. You’ll be glad to know I got several hours. I’ll be fresh for the flight this evening.”
“I gave the job to somebody else.”
Rye, disbelieving what Dash had just said, shot a look toward Brynn, then mumbled an excuse to her, got out of the car, and walked several yards away. There was no way Dash could know about his change of plan. He was still expecting Rye to fly on the passenger flight from ATL that evening.
“The schedule is tight, but not that tight. I told you I would make it, and I will.”
“It’s not about the schedule, Rye.” He paused. Sighed. Swore. “The FAA office in Atlanta called me at the butt crack of dawn. Seems those two deputies from Howardville wiggled their way up the chain of command and finally got to the top dog there. The upshot is that after talking to them, he’s thinking the accident report you called in yesterday morning was inaccurate and incomplete.”
“I told him I would send a full report and photos when the weather cleared. It hasn’t.”
“Yes, but you fudged on the amount of damage done to the craft and—”
“It was dark and foggy. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, much less accurately assess the damage.”
“No mention of a laser.”
“I didn’t want to say anything about it until I could do so without getting everybody in a tizzy.”
“He got in a tizzy when he heard that the crash had put a guy in the hospital.”
“It didn’t! The crash occurred at least a mile from where Brady White was attacked. When I called in the accident report, it hadn’t been confirmed—and still hasn’t been—that the crash and the assault on him are related.”
“Yeah, well, that isn’t washing with the FAA. And now the NTSB. Those deputies sowed seeds of doubt about the degree of your involvement in a felony. The feds want to hold a party at the crash site, and they want you to be the guest of honor.”
Fuck! “When?”
“Tomorrow morning. Nine sharp. You’re to meet them at the sheriff’s office in Howardville. Since you’ve been dashing hither and yon, keeping yourself unreachable, it fell to me to inform you.”
Nine sharp on a Saturday morning. Over a holiday weekend. A crash with no fatalities and no injuries to anyone on board or near the craft. The feds were taking this seriously. Wilson and Rawlins must’ve laid it on thick. “Okay.”
“You’ll be there?”
“I said okay.”
“Okay. After they’ve eyeballed the plane for themselves, heard your explanation, they’ll make a determination on what action to take.”
“Action? Like fine me?”
“Could be.”
“Suspend my license?”
“Rye, listen—”
“Revoke my license?”
“I don’t think they’ll take it that far. Even if they issued a notice of intention, you could demand a hearing, and when all the facts came out, you’d win. But, until that time, I can’t use you.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“Pains me, but I have to protect my business. And you know how word spreads like wildfire through the aviation community. You may have trouble getting work from other outfits.
“In fact, my advice is that you waste no time contacting the highest ranking FAA official there in Atlanta. Apologize for not making yourself clear when you called the agent yesterday. You were thinking of him, didn’t want to spoil his Thanksgiving. You’re willing and eager to cooperate with the investigation. Win the guy over before you even meet with him. And, until this is smoothed over, and you’re cleared, don’t fly again.”
Don’t fly. Don’t fly. Don’t fly.
The threat of it alone made Rye’s blood run cold. “Dash. This is an unfair and unfounded overreaction. Even during my two tours in Afghanistan, I never had so much as a hard landing. Since I’ve been flying, never a bobble until this. Not one close call.”
“No one questions your flying ability, Rye. But your head’s not on straight.” His lowered pitch gave the words more heft. “It hasn’t been since you got back. Now, I’m sorry for coming down hard on you, but that’s the truth, and you know it. That incident in Afghanistan has eaten at you until you’re beginning to scare even me, and I don’t scare easy.”
“You’re the one who sent me out on Wednesday night.”
“I know, and I’ve regretted it ever since. That crash. I even wondered—”
“I knew what you wondered. And fuck you. It was caused by a laser beam being shone into my eyes, not the fulfillment of a death wish.”
“I already told you I believe you.”
Rye was aware of Brynn watching him through the car windows, worry etched on her face. He turned his back so she wouldn’t witness him begging. “Don’t ground me, Dash.”
Dash swore again. “You think I take pleasure in it? You’re the best flyer I know. But you need to sort yourself out. You need to sort out this mess with the agencies. Until you do, I’ve got my own interest to protect.”
Rye stared out at the rain, unseeing, dismay and anger warring inside him. Anger won out. “You know what? So do I. You owe me for my last three jobs. Put my check in the mail.”
“Don’t be like this.”
“No, I changed my mind. Send it Fed Ex.”
He clicked off. When the phone rang almost immediately and he saw Dash’s name, he silenced it, but it vibrated in his hand for a long time. He didn’t get back into the car until it stopped.
“What’s happened? What did he—”
An abrupt shake of his head cut Brynn off. “Give me a minute.” More gently, he added, “Please.”
He sat there, tapping the phone against his chin, considering his choices. They boiled down to two. Do as Dash advised, kiss the agencies’ asses, and, until things were smoothed over, don’t fly? Or, forever grieve another death he possibly could have prevented?
His career was in jeopardy. But so was his soul.
“Screw it,” he muttered and motioned for Brynn to start the car. “To Walmart.”
While on the way, he pulled a business card from the inside breast pocket of his jacket and began to tap in the number printed on it. Brynn asked, “Are you calling Dash back?”
“No.” Rye hadn’t intended to keep the card that had been pressed into his palm during a strong handshake, much less use the contact fewer than twenty-four hours later. “I’m calling Jake Morton.”
7:38 a.m.
Walmart’s parking lot was filled to capacity with diehard Black Friday shoppers undaunted by the weather. It took Brynn a while to find a parking space. Then she called Wes and asked how his day was going.
He described the bedlam inside the store. “Three shoplifters. Two fistfights. One overturned display. And five more hours till my shift’s over.”
She told him where his car would be when he got off work. “Fifth row in on the west side. Second car. Thank you for letting us use it.”
“You said it could be a few days before you got it back to me. Mission accomplished?”
“Dad, you’re truly better off not knowing.”
“In other words, no. Are you safe? Just tell me that much.”
She thought about Goliad, handguns, a chase through a hotel, a narrow escape.
“I’m safe.”
“Mallett still with you?”
“Yes.”
He snorted. “Then you’re not safe.”
“On the bright side, I could be on the lam with the Hendrix boy.”
“By comparison, that hoodlum is looking a lot better.” He sighed. “Leave the car key in the ignition. It’d be a lucky break for me if somebody stole the clunker.”
“Bye, Dad. Thanks again.”
“Brynn? Call me. If you ever get a hankering to.”
“If you’ll stay out of trouble.”
He laughed. “Fair terms.”
He had taken a baby step toward reconciliation. To protect herself from heartbreak and disappointment, she wouldn’t plunge headlong into reestablishing a relationship with him. She would approach with caution. But it was a start that made her smile as she disconnected the call and placed his key ring beneath the driver’s floor mat.
Rye asked, “Has he nabbed any shoplifters today?”
“Three so far. By the way, he thinks I would be better off with the wild Hendrix boy.”
“He’s right.”
“He’s concerned for my safety.”
“He should be. I about had a heart attack when you took off running down the hallway of that hotel. You should have given me warning.”
“What would you have done?”
“I don’t know.” Holding her gaze, his aspect changed. He reached across and stroked her cheek, then pressed the pad of his thumb against the corner of her lips. “You also should have given me warning about forgetting a condom the second time.”
She took a small, swift breath. “Yes, I should have, but I wasn’t thinking of—”
“Me, either,”
“—that. For the first time ever.”
“Me, too.”
Neither moved or said anything, only looked at each other with searching eyes, a taut silence stretching between them.