“I’ll do my best.”
“I know you will.”
Once Wes was back in his room at the motel, he lay in bed unable to sleep. At just after 11 p.m., someone knocked on the door.
“Just a minute,” he called out as he pulled on his jeans and T-shirt.
When he opened the door, he found Anna standing outside.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” he replied, mellowing.
He pushed the door open wide enough so that she could slip in, then shut it behind her. A few seconds later they had their arms wrapped around each other and were in the middle of a deep, long kiss.
“I’ve been wanting to do that all day,” Anna said when they finally pulled apart.
“I’ve been needing that all day.”
“What you’ve been needing is a slap upside the head,” she said. “I nearly had a heart attack when I saw you running toward the plane.”
“Don’t get all Dione on me,” he said.
She considered him for a moment. “Fine. But if that happens again, and I’m around, you’d better run the other way, or I will personally kill you.”
“I bet you would, wouldn’t you?”
At five foot four, she was a good half foot shorter than Wes. She arched her head upward and kissed him again, her long brown hair falling down her back. She then put her hand in his and led him toward the bed.
“Danny was right about one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re not going to sleep alone the whole time we’re here.”
COMMANDER THOMAS FORMAN WAS STILL SITTING at his desk as the clock ticked past midnight.
It was the crash, of course. Since the moment the plane had gone down, he’d been on the move putting things into motion, making sure every base was covered. He knew he should go home soon and try to get a little sleep, but until the call came through, he couldn’t go anywhere.
The phone finally rang at 12:09.
“Sir,” the voice on the other end said. “They’ve all returned for the night.”
“Any suspicious contact?” Forman asked.
“No, sir.”
“Phones?”
“The ones in their rooms were taken care of while they were out, and their cellphones are being monitored.”
Forman exhaled. It was all just precaution, but when it came to national security you didn’t take chances. “Have someone continue monitoring, and dismiss everyone else,” he ordered. “But first hint of trouble, everyone’s back on. I want this sealed tight.”
WES’S ALARM WENT OFF AT SIX. ANNA GAVE HIM a kiss, rolled out of bed, and slipped quietly out the front door. He was pretty sure he mumbled a goodbye, but it could have been a dream. A second alarm woke him a half hour later. With a groan, he hobbled on sore knees into the bathroom to take a shower. The reflection that greeted him in the mirror was bruised and scratched.
“Awesome,” he said with zero feeling. The day ahead had to be better than the one he’d just gone through.
But before he could even get the water started, his cellphone rang. The name on the display read CASEY.
“Hey,” Wes said into the phone.
“You can’t be serious,” Casey said.
“Way too early for cryptic. What are you talking about?”
“The plane crash yesterday. You were there?”
“How did you know that?”
“I never reveal my sources.”
Casey Dake worked as one of the top researchers at the Quest Network. His job was information. He assisted producers and writers in gathering any facts and other data they might need for future shows.
Casey and Wes had been friends since college, meeting in the television/film department while working together on such collegiate classics as Drive-Thru Confessions and The Man from La Mirada. After graduation they’d stayed close. Casey had helped Wes get his gig at Quest. And when Casey had broken up with his longtime girlfriend, Wes had offered up the guest bedroom in his Santa Monica townhouse. They’d roomed together ever since.
“No. Really. How did you find that out?”
“Racquel over in HR. She just sent me an email to see if I’d heard from you. Apparently a couple military guys in uniform came to the office yesterday afternoon and asked about you.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. Racquel said they were making sure you worked for the company.”
It kind of made sense. The Navy would want to confirm Wes and the crew were who they said they were. But a phone call should have been enough to take care of that.
“So what happened?” Casey asked.
Wes gave him a condensed version of events, then asked his friend to keep him posted if any other gossip surfaced at the office.
“Sure,” Casey said. “And you try to stay out of trouble today, huh?”
“Don’t worry. I plan on it.”
Wes soaked in the shower, letting the heat work out some of the soreness in his muscles. Once he was finished, he dried off, shaved, brushed his teeth, and got dressed, marginally more awake than before. That’s when he noticed that the red message light on the motel phone was lit. He followed the message retrieval instructions, heard a beep, then:
“I’m calling for Wes Stewart,” a male voice said. “Wes … em … it’s Lars … Lars Andersen. From high school? I just found out you were in town. Look, why don’t you give me a call when you get this. I was thinking maybe we could get together. Here’s my number.…”
Wes wrote it down, deleted the message, then stared at the piece of paper.
Lars Andersen. Wow. He hadn’t thought of him in years.
Wes looked at the clock on the nightstand. He still had twenty minutes before he had to meet the others.
What the hell?
He grabbed his cellphone and punched in Lars’s number.
“Lieutenant Commander Andersen,” a voice answered.
“Lars?”
A pause. “Wes?”
“You’re in the Navy?”
After growing up with him on and around the China Lake naval base, Wes thought Lars had been as anxious as he had been to do anything but join the service.
“You think I’d be back here if I weren’t?” Lars said with a laugh.
“Good point.”
“How are you?”
“I’m fine,” Wes said. “But surprised, I guess. How did you know I was here?”
“You haven’t seen the paper this morning?”
“No. Why?”
“There’s a front-page article about yesterday’s F-18 crash. It mentions you and your colleagues were nearby and witnessed it.”
“How did they get my name?”
“I don’t know, but if they hadn’t included you, I wouldn’t have known you were here.”
“Of course.” Wes paused. “So … uh … how are you?”
“I’m good, thanks. Busy. But that’s normal. Hey, listen. I can’t really talk too long right now, but why don’t we meet up for lunch? It would be great to see you again.”
“Hold on,” Wes said. He grabbed the shoot schedule off the dresser and scanned his day ahead. “Looks like I can probably break free around noon for about forty-five minutes.”
“Perfect,” Lars said. “I know exactly where we should go.”
“Where?”
“Tacos.”
Wes smiled. “Don’t tell me. La Sonora.”
“Yes, my friend. La Sonora.”
“They’re still around?”
“I know. Surprising, huh?”
“Is Hannibal Lecter still running the register?”
“Still there.”
Wes laughed. “I would have sworn she’d have been dead by now.”
“It’s possible. Could be they’re just propping her up.”
THE CREW OF CLOSE TO HOME DROVE UP THE slope on the south side of the valley to Cero Coso Community College. When Wes lived there, people called it Harvard-on-the-Hill or Tumbleweed Tech. On the schedule were
interviews with a geology professor and an area historian. Dione always liked shooting experts in an academic setting. Said it made the show look more important.
By nine-thirty, the professor was already done and gone, a whole half hour ahead of schedule. While the crew waited for the historian to show up, Tony set out a box of pastries and a bag of fruit in the open back of the Escape.
Monroe pulled a banana out of the bag, then grimaced. “Who taught you how to pick produce?” Before Tony could say anything, she tossed the banana back in the bag and said, “I can’t eat that.” Then walked off.
Tony glanced at Wes, a look of genuine concern on his face.
“Don’t worry about it,” Wes said. “She won’t starve.”
Tony looked only partially relieved. Then he brightened. “Your muffin’s in the box.”
Wes glanced inside and smiled. “You just earned yourself an after-lunch lesson.”
He grabbed the muffin and headed over to where Alison was leaning against the grille of the Escape, a newspaper spread out in front of her on the hood.
“That the local paper?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Alison replied, eyes not leaving the paper.
“Today’s?”
“Yeah again.”
“Can I take a look at it?”
She glanced at him, a mock smirk of annoyed superiority pushing up the left side of her mouth.
“When you’re done, I mean,” he said.
“That’s what I thought.” She flipped the page. “Ah, the comics. This might take a while.”
Wes rolled his eyes and started to turn away.
“Fine,” she said, folding the paper and holding it out to him. “Here. There’s no Dilbert, so what does it matter?”
Wes set his muffin on the car and took the newspaper from her. “Thanks.”
She leaned close and said softly into his ear, “If you’re looking for the mention of you, it’s in the article on the front page.”
Wes put on a smile as he took a casual step back.
“Dione made it, too, but no one else,” Alison continued in a normal voice. “Well, except for Monroe. They even have her quoted about how horrible it was. If I recall correctly, she was with me, nowhere near the crash for most of the time. Whatever.” She gave Wes an exaggerated shrug. “Are there any chocolate old-fashioneds?”
“One left, last I saw.”
“You checked? Isn’t that sweet.”
“Just happened to notice.”
“Right.” She winked, then called out, “Hey, the old-fashioned’s mine,” and made her way to the back of the Escape.
Wes watched her go, then picked up his muffin and unfolded the paper.
A picture of the crash site took up nearly half the space above the fold. It had been shot not too far from where Wes and the others had been when the plane had flown past. There were at least a half dozen more helicopters than Wes remembered being there. The gray distant lump that had been the F-18 seemed to be swarming with people. Wes guessed the photo had been taken after Commander Forman released them.
JET CRASHES NEAR TRONA PINNACLES
Wes started reading. The pilot’s name was Lieutenant Lawrence Adair, age twenty-seven, native of Michigan. According to the article, the plane had experienced a catastrophic but unknown problem during a routine training mission. After a moment Wes reached the part Alison had mentioned:
The incident was witnessed by a crew of the cable show Close to Home, who were at the Pinnacles filming a segment for an upcoming episode.
“I’ve never been so scared,” Monroe Banks, host of Close to Home, said. “For a few seconds I thought it was actually going to crash right in front of us. Thankfully that didn’t happen, but that doesn’t take away from the tragedy.”
Banks said she and the other members of the production team could only watch as the disabled jet plowed into the earth, creating a scar across the ground at least a quarter mile long.
“One of the people in our crew was closer to our vehicles than the rest of us,” Monroe said. “I yelled at him to do what he could.”
That person, identified as former China Lake and Ridgecrest resident Wesley Stewart, raced out to where the plane had come to rest. Soon he was joined by other members of the crew, including show producer and director Dione Li. But they were too late.
An unnamed source tells the High Desert Tribune that Lieutenant Adair had most likely died on impact. He—
Not true, Wes thought. But he got why the paper had been told the pilot was already dead. The public didn’t really need to know the gory details. The article did clear up one thing, though. Monroe must have been the one who had given the paper his name.
He flipped the front page over so he could read the rest of the story, but his attention was drawn to a picture next to the text. It was a head shot of a young man in a naval uniform.
Wes read the caption below the picture:
Lieutenant Lawrence Adair, killed in a crash at the Trona Pinnacles, twenty miles southeast of Ridgecrest.
Wes looked at the picture again, then reread the copy beneath. Confused, he flipped through the paper, searching for any more pictures that went with the article. But there were no others.
He returned to the photo on the front page.
No matter how hard he stared at it, the image of the pilot didn’t change. Whether he was Lieutenant Lawrence Adair or someone else, Wes knew one thing for sure.
He was not the man Wes had tried to rescue from the cockpit.
“MAYBE IT’S AN OLD PHOTO,” DIONE SAID.
She, Danny, Tony, and Alison were standing with Wes at the back of the Escape. Anna was touching up Monroe’s makeup inside the college.
“I’m telling you, this isn’t the guy,” Wes said. “Can’t you tell?”
“You’re the only one who got close enough to see him,” Dione said. “But if you’re saying it’s not him, okay, I believe you. It’s not him. Maybe the paper just ran the wrong picture.”
Wes paused. That possibility hadn’t crossed his mind.
“Wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened,” Alison remarked.
Wes chewed at the inside of his lip. “Okay, you’re probably right. Just an error. Sorry. Guess this thing’s got me more worked up than I thought.”
“Of course it has, but you gotta give yourself a break. You did everything possible,” Dione told him. “In fact, you did more than most people would have.”
“I’d have never jumped up there,” Danny said.
“Yeah, you would have,” Wes told him.
“If it helps,” Alison said, “I woke up dreaming about it in the middle of the night. I think it’s pretty much affected all of us. Well, except for Monroe. Unless you count seeing it as a PR opportunity.”
They all shared a laugh. Even Wes.
He gave them a smile. “Sorry.”
“Don’t sweat it,” Dione told him. “Now come on. Let’s finish setting up. The next talent should be here any minute.”
As Wes headed back to the cameras, he tossed the paper in a garbage can.
Just a mistake. That has to be it.
THEY RAN A LITTLE OVER WITH THE HISTORIAN. She’d gone on and on about alluvial fans and ancient lake beds.
“We’re never gonna use this,” Wes muttered to Dione.
“Let her talk. Maybe there’ll be a nugget buried in there somewhere.”
When Wes finally got to La Sonora to meet Lars, it was closer to twelve-fifteen than twelve o’clock. He went inside and looked around, hoping he’d recognize his friend after seventeen years. But Lars wasn’t there.
As Wes got into line, he couldn’t help but let out a little laugh. La Sonora hadn’t changed at all since the last time he’d eaten there: the brown-tiled counter, the kitchen, the wall-mounted menu—all the same. And sure enough, sitting on a stool behind the cash register was Hannibal Lecter. It was Mandy who had given the cashier the nickname. Maybe the woman had a few more wrinkles than she used to have, but h
er uncanny resemblance to Sir Anthony Hopkins remained intact.
The glass door opened behind Wes, and before he could turn around he heard Lars’s voice.
“Wes Stewart!”
Lars, dressed in a pressed khaki uniform, strode up smiling broadly, his hand extended. “Good God. Almost twenty years and you don’t look a damn day older.”
Wes sneered as he shook his friend’s hand. “Then you’ve gone blind, and the Navy needs to think about getting rid of you.”
Lars laughed.
“You’ve certainly changed,” Wes observed.
Lars patted his lean stomach. “Navy prefers its pilots to be a little less rotund than I used to be.”
“You’re a pilot?”
“Now we come back to the vision thing. Wanted to be, but I inherited Mom’s eyes. Forced to stick to the ground. But I liked how I felt after I dropped the pounds.” He smiled. “Sorry I’m late.”
They ordered their food from Dr. Lecter and, once it was ready, grabbed a shaded table on the patio.
As Lars began unwrapping his taco, he said, “So. Hollywood. How the hell did that happen?”
“Honestly?”
“Absolutely.”
“A girl I liked when I was a freshman in college.”
Lars snorted. “This should be good.”
“She was a film major, so I thought it would be cool to take some production classes. You know, show her we had similar interests. Would have worked, too, if she’d actually noticed me. But what I did realize was that I kind of had a talent for the production stuff.”
“What exactly do you do now?” Lars asked.
“Depends. I mostly do both camera and editing. I’ve directed a few of my own shorts, too. But the only place you can see those is on YouTube.”
“So do you do both for this show you’re here for?”
“Kind of. I shoot during the day, then, when we have enough footage, I put together a rough cut on my laptop. They got another guy back at the network who does the final edit.”
“That’s so cool.”
“Yeah, well …” Wes took a bite of his taco. “And you? I distinctly remember both of us saying we couldn’t imagine joining the service.”
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