But people were unpredictable. Fate was fickle. Nature played tricks. Fog—for crissake, fog—had kept their private jet grounded, so it couldn’t make a short round trip to Columbus tonight. They’d been forced to rely on another plane, another pilot, and then he had crashed! Unforeseen interferences such as that made her crazy. Chain reactions could cause a simple plan to rapidly derail. She had to trust Goliad to handle the tenuous situation, but it was hard to depend on anyone except herself.

On the end table, Richard’s cell phone vibrated. Goliad. She clicked on and said, “Tell me you’re on your way back.”

“I’m afraid not, ma’am.”

“What?” Her blood pressure spiked. “Why not? You were supposed to intercept the doctor when she left the airfield.”

“We can’t go near it. The place is crawling with cops.”

Chapter 6

2:57 a.m.

Using the phone on Brady White’s desk, Rye had called Atlanta Center to tell them that he was on the ground. He didn’t tell them the manner in which he’d gotten there. He’d save that for the FAA.

Standing in the open doorway of the office, he’d looked toward the end of the runway where he would have touched down. Whoever had shone the laser at him could have been in that very spot. The angle would have been perfect.

While waiting for the ambulance, Brynn had continued monitoring the injured man’s condition.

She’d taken his pulse every couple of minutes and periodically checked his pupils. When she’d gently parted his thinning hair and assessed the gash, she’d gotten a groan out of him, which she’d seemed to take as a good sign, because she smiled faintly and patted his shoulder.

Rye had left her to her doctoring and stayed out of her way by propping himself against the far wall under a paint-by-numbers portrait of a snarling bear. From this observation point, Rye had watched Brynn take off her coat and hang it alongside Brady’s on the rack just inside the door.

She was wearing a black sweater over skinny, dark-wash jeans tucked into tall, flat-heeled black suede boots. They all looked damn good on her. Rye couldn’t help but notice and appreciate the way the garments hugged this and molded to that.

Whenever she timed Brady’s pulse by her wristwatch, an alluring vertical dent appeared between sleek eyebrows the same dark color as her hair. By contrast, her eyes were light. Best he could tell from a safe distance, they were more gray than blue.

Her hair hung past her shoulders, and there was a hell of a lot of it. She had a habit of absently hooking strands of it behind her ears, where they never stayed for long. Too heavy, he thought. He doubted he could gather up all her hair even using both hands. He’d like to try, though.

No sooner had that thought popped into his mind than he questioned where it had come from. He shouldn’t be looking at her closely enough to notice the color of her eyes. Speculating on the weight of her hair, and how double-handfuls of it would feel?

Jesus.

And all this time, while he’d stood silently by, assessing her attributes, she’d ignored him as though he were invisible.

But she’d been aware of him, all right. Why else had she done everything within her power to keep from looking in his direction? Was he so bad to look at? Irritated by that thought, he decided to heckle her.

“Hey.”

She looked at him.

“Did I say something to offend?”

She opened her mouth to speak, but just then they heard the wail of approaching sirens. At the distant intersection, flashing red, blue, and white lights split off from the two-lane highway and started up the pockmarked road that he and she had walked along earlier.

The lights created kaleidoscope patterns in the swirling fog. As they got closer, the vehicles took form: an ambulance and two police units, all running hot.

Suddenly, Brynn whipped her head back around to him. If he could have captioned her expression in his terminology, it would have been “Oh, shit.”

His gut clenched with foreboding. He pushed away from the wall and took a step toward her. “What?” He emphasized the t, making the word a demand.

She wet her lips, which at any other time would have distracted him. Now, however, the nervous gesture served as a herald for something he sensed he didn’t want to hear.

“Before they get here…” She’d stopped, swallowed. “I should clear up a misapprehension.”

“What did I misapprehend?”

“You assumed that I was Dr. Lambert.”

He shot a look toward the black box, then placed his hands on his hips and glared at her. “I fuckin’ knew you weren’t legit. You’re not a doctor? Who the hell are you?”

She cast a quick look over her shoulder. The emergency vehicles were screeching up outside. “I am a doctor. Dr. Brynn O’Neal. I came in Dr. Lambert’s place.”

“Why?”

“I can’t explain now.”

His head nearly exploded with fury. “What the hell have you gotten me into, lady?”

3:02 a.m.

Rye had resumed his place with his back to the wall, grinding his teeth in agitation, taking in the scene, and thinking sourly that it must be a slow night in law enforcement.

From the look of things, every officer in the county had heeded the 911 call. After the first two squad cars arrived, others showed up in rapid succession. You’d think on a foggy holiday eve, cops would be busy with fender benders, DUIs, and settling disputes at the reunions of dysfunctional families.

Instead, uniformed men and women—Rye had lost count after a dozen—had crowded into the compact office of the Howardville County Airfield. It was as though the crime of the century had been committed here tonight. Good thing it hadn’t been, because they’d tromped all over the shoe prints on the floor.

In a jargon made up mostly of medical acronyms, Dr. O’Neal had given the EMTs a concise update on Brady’s condition, then relinquished him into their care. Shortly thereafter, the ambulance had left with him, still unconscious.

Now Brynn was in conversation with two men in gray uniforms that designated them as sheriff’s deputies. Because of the hubbub caused by the other people milling around but generally doing nothing constructive, Rye couldn’t catch what she was saying to the pair, but, following a lengthy monologue, she flicked her hand toward him. As one, the three turned. Rye stayed as he was, with arms and ankles crossed, seemingly indifferent to their scrutiny. One of the deputies excused himself from Brynn and his fellow officer and strolled over, notepad in hand.

“Rye Mallett?”

“That’s right.”

“Spelling?”

Rye spelled his name, and, as the officer jotted it down, he introduced himself as Deputy Don Rawlins. “What happened here tonight, Mr. Mallett?”

“Dr. O’Neal and I got here, found the guy slumped over his desk, unconscious and bleeding.”

“You a friend of his?”

“Never laid eyes on him. I’d only talked to him by radio.”

“Tell me about that.”

“I flew in from Columbus, Ohio, and was on final approach when—”

“Crummy night to be flying.”

When Rye didn’t respond, the deputy looked up at him from beneath the brim of his hat. Rye looked back and raised his eyebrows by way of asking if the deputy wanted to hear his story or not. The officer tipped his head for Rye to continue.

Disliking the deputy’s attitude, he decided to stick with the lie he’d told Brynn at the crash site. “I was on final approach when my panel lights blinked out. Just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “It was a flicker, but it came at the worst possible time. No instruments, no visual because of the fog. I was flying blind.”

“You crashed.”

In abbreviated, layman’s terms, he described the crash. “I narrowly missed the doctor’s car. It was a close call. We were both lucky. Wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. I walked away with nothing but a bump on the head to show for it.” He pushed back his hair to show him the goose egg. The deputy looked at it with no detectable concern.

He said, “The doctor tells us your plane is banged up pretty good and not going anywhere for a while.”

“It can’t be buffed out, no.”

“She gave us the general vicinity of where it is. We’ve got officers going out to take a look.”

Rye grimaced. “I’m required to call the FAA and file an accident report. My phone was busted, and since discovering White, I haven’t had time. I need to get some pictures of the craft, as is, so tell your guys not to disturb anything.”

“I’ll tell them,” Rawlins said, but he didn’t seem in a hurry to do it. “What caused your instruments to blink out?”

“A glitch. It’s an old plane.”

Rawlins looked doubtful. “I’m no pilot, but I know this is a tough place to fly in and out of. We had a guy fly in here last year. Sunday pilot. Came in too low, clipped the power lines as he—”

“I’m not that guy.”

Rye’s curt interruption seemed to rub the deputy the wrong way. “Oh, no?”

“No.”

The lawman looked him over then gave a skeptical snort and wrote something on his pad. “What was so all-fired important that you had to fly here tonight?”

“I fly freight.” Rye didn’t think that would cut it, and it didn’t.

“For who?”

“For whoever pays me.”

“What kind of freight?”

“All kinds. Big, little, dead or alive. You name it.”

“I’d like for you to name it. What were you flying tonight?”

“That.” The deputy followed the direction of his pointing finger to the box where it still sat in the chair adjacent to the door.

“What is it?”