by Anne Stuart
"Torched? Someone did this deliberately?" She struggled to sit up, staring at the smoldering flames still licking the sides of the air hangar.
"Charlie Olker," Clancy said. "Or so Will thinks."
She shook her head, then groaned at the obvious pain. "But why...?"
"You beat him," Clancy said flatly. "My guess is he's a sore loser."
Her eyes focused on him for a moment, then narrowed. "You hit, me," she said. "You creep, you bully, you—"
"Shut your mouth, Red," he said dispassionately, "or I'll shut it for you."
To his amazement she did subside. "At least I've got insurance," she said in a feeble tone.
"That's the spirit." Clancy rose to his full height, afraid if he stayed closer he'd pull her into his arms and to hell with everyone watching. "Constance must have picked up the Packard while you were gone. I'll find a phone and ask her to come get you. You need a decent night's rest. You've got a lot of work ahead of you."
Parsons cleared his throat. "She's not home."
Angela stared up at him. "Where is she?"
Parsons didn't look any too happy. "She's gone to California."
"I must have gotten hit harder than I thought," Angela said, struggling to her feet.
"You heard me. She's left for California. She thinks she's going to become a movie star."
"That's crazy. She doesn't know anyone out there, she doesn't have any money—"
"Afraid you're wrong on both counts. She didn't go out alone. She went with your Cousin Clement."
Angela sat back down again, hard, on the tarmac, and Clancy could see the stricken expression on her face. "Sparks'll take you home," he said gently.
"I don't think Sparks is in any shape to take anyone anywhere," Parsons said, glancing over at the stretcher where they'd loaded his sturdy frame.
Angela struggled back to her feet and hurried to his side. "Sparks, are you all right?"
"Sure thing, honey," he managed to speak in a faint croak. "I just swallowed a bit too much smoke. I'll be fine."
"Let me come with you," she said, but the ambulance workers waved her away.
"We've already got one fireman down with smoke inhalation. Whatever they used to start this fire is a nasty one," a red-faced Irishman said. "You stay put, little missy. This one's a tough old buzzard. He'll be back on the streets in a day or two."
"Just the rest I needed," Sparks croaked, waving a weak hand at her before being carted off.
"I think I'm going crazy," she murmured brokenly. She turned to look at Clancy, and he could feel it, the tightening in his gut, the wrenching in his heart, the almost-overpowering urge to take her in his arms and tell her everything was going to be all right.
But he knew too well her night wasn't over yet. He had the suspicion that more unpleasant discoveries were yet to come, ones he couldn't shield her from.
When he didn't make any move toward her, she lifted her head as if to say, to hell with you, and instead turned her attention on the uniformed man approaching them.
"Captain Stark," she greeted him wearily.
The police officer kept his face averted from Parsons. "How are you doing, Angela?"
"As well as can be expected."
He patted her awkwardly on the shoulder, with the clumsy affection of an old family friend. "Well, we've got some good news. The fire chief says they've got the blaze under control, and the damage isn't nearly as bad as it seems. And we picked up Olker a few blocks away, running like crazy. Cheap son of a gun. If he'd hired a torch to do the job right, he might have gotten away with it."
Angela pushed her hair out of her face. "I can't say I'm not glad he's such a tightwad."
"One problem though, Angie," Stark continued, still not looking at Parsons. "He's singing like a bird. He's going to cause as much trouble as he can before he's put away."
Her face creased in confusion. "What kind of trouble could he cause me?"
"Yes, Captain," Parsons spoke up suddenly in his raspy, wrecked voice. "What kind of trouble could he cause?"
"The kind that I can't fix, old friend. You better get out of here and fast, before I have to put out a warrant." He turned away, focusing on Clancy. "You'll see Angie home safely?"
"If she'll let me."
"What the hell is going on here?" Angela's voice rose in a wail of despair. "And no, I won't go anywhere with you, Clancy, not if my life depended on it."
"One of my men will see you home, then."
"What are you talking about? What's Parsons done? Won't someone explain anything to me?"
"Good night, Angie," Captain Stark said gently. "We'll talk about this tomorrow."
She turned and directed all her anger at Clancy. "What's going on around here? You're behind this, aren't you?"
He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Why don't you ask your mechanic?"
"I believe I'll do just that." She turned on him, that fierce expression on her face. "What's going on here? What have you done that Captain Stark could issue an arrest warrant? Why did he call you 'old friend'? For that matter, why did you know what Constance has done?"
Parsons's shoulders hunched in defeat. "The statute of limitations hasn't run out for flying in bootleg whiskey," he said flatly. "There's also a little matter of insurance fraud."
Angela held herself very still, peering into Parsons's unprotected face, looking, for the first time, past the beard, the scars, the gray hair and the ruined voice. And the expression on her face was so nakedly painful that Clancy wanted to turn away.
"Frank?" she said, her voice equally hoarse as she recognized her father for the first time.
He made no move toward her. "Yes," he said simply.
"Who died with Goldie? There were three bodies found in the boarding house. Goldie, Mrs. McCarthy and a man, supposedly you. Who was it? Did you kill someone and leave him there to take your place?"
Frank flinched. "I don't know who he was. Goldie always had her little... diversions. Constance knew about them, but you didn't. We figured you didn't need to know."
"Constance recognized you?"
"Yes."
She turned and stared at Clancy. "And you knew?"
"I guessed."
"And you didn't say anything?"
"It wasn't any of my business."
"No," she said after a long moment, "my life is none of your business." She turned back to stare at her father. "You heard Stark, you better get out of here if you don't want to land in the calaboose. You've got some back pay coming."
"I don't want your money, daughter."
"Don't call me that!" Her voice rose drastically, then she managed a tight smile. "Besides, I kept this place going with your blood money. You might at least benefit a bit from it."
"You don't owe me anything."
"You can say that again," she said fiercely. "Goodbye, Frank. I didn't get a chance to tell you that the first time around, while I was fool enough to mourn you. At least this time I won't even shed a tear. For either of you." And she turned and walked away, her back straight and slim.
The two men watched her go in sudden kinship. "You need a ride somewhere, Hogan?" Clancy asked finally. "I want to go check on Sparks at the hospital, but I could drop you at the train."
"The name's Parsons now," Angela's father said. "Might as well keep it that way. And I think I'll hang around here a bit longer."
"Why?"
"I don't want to leave until I make sure the Lockheed's in perfect shape. I know Angela well enough to know she's going to make that flight the moment she possibly can, and there's not another mechanic I trust as much as I trust myself. I figure I'd better make myself scarce by tomorrow morning, but I've got a few hours until then. I'm going to do what I can with her plane."
Clancy didn't move. "Need a hand?"
Parsons nodded. "I could always use one. We work well together, Clancy. If life had been a little kinder, maybe we could have been friends."
"Life isn't kind."
&n
bsp; "No, it's not. Do you love my daughter, Clancy?"
"I don't believe in marriage."
"I didn't ask if you were planning on marrying her. I asked if you love her."
"Yes."
Parsons shook his head, but there was a glimmer of a smile in his damaged eyes. "Then maybe there's hope for her after all. Let's see how badly the tools were damaged."
"I think the power's out."
"Simple enough. Point the Fokker at the Lockheed and turn on the lights."
"And then my plane won't start."
"So you'll be stuck here. Best thing for both of you. Are you game?"
Clancy looked at the old man who'd caused so much trouble, and he thought of his daughter who was wreaking just as much havoc in his own life. "I'm game, old man," he said. "And I've got tools in the Fokker."
*
Constance had cleared everything out, all her clothes, her makeup and every interesting piece of jewelry Angela had ever owned. The place was a shambles—her departure must have been last minute—and the sink was full of dirty dishes. Angela moved through the place dispiritedly. It was after midnight, the end of an endless day, and still she couldn't cry.
The phone rang and she rushed to it, hoping someone would offer her some succor, some hope. Hoping, for some irrational reason, that it might be Clancy. But it was Clement's wife, Eleanor, haranguing Angela over her slut of a sister and her faithless cousin, and Angela set the phone back down in the cradle very quietly.
She ran a bath, practically falling into it. She smelled of smoke, she still had blood in her hair from her crash landing and her body still bore the imprint of Clancy's possession. She tried not to look at her reflection when she brushed her teeth, but she couldn't help it. Without the bandage, her forehead looked gashed but healing, her eyes huge and wounded. A small bruise adorned her chin where Clancy had knocked her out. At least she didn't have to look at the rest of her body. She didn't know whether her sore back came from flying twenty-some hours within the last forty-eight, from her rough landing or from lying on a pile of leather flight jackets with Clancy on top of her—and she didn't care. She found a couple of aspirin, swallowed them and crawled all alone into her empty bed in her empty house.
Her first thought when she awoke was that she hadn't slept long enough. It was early dawn—the sky was lightening past the window with its threadbare curtains, and birds were singing. Why shouldn't they sing? she thought, not moving. They didn't have a family who betrayed them, a man who didn't know what love was. They didn't even need a plane to fly. They could just spread their wings and soar. While she was earthbound and miserable.
She sat up, groggy, and stared at the mess around her. For the first time she noticed the note scribbled in Max Factor's Passion Fruit Red on the huge mirror. "Wish me luck, Sis," Constance had scrawled with her usual self-assurance. Not a word of regret, of apology. Of guilt.
Just like their mutual father. Angela had no idea why he'd taken the job she'd offered. She had to give him credit—he'd turned it down at first. He knew exactly who she was when she'd shown up in that shanty town, and it hadn't been AE's Lockheed adorning the wall of his shack. It had been hers.
He probably loved her in his own feckless way. But that wasn't good enough. Nor was Clancy's hit-or-miss affection. Love 'em and leave 'em was still his code. She knew perfectly well he would be gone when she arrived back at the hangar to survey the damage. And she knew she should count her blessings.
At least Constance hadn't taken the Packard when she'd stripped the house of everything valuable. The radio was gone, so Angela couldn't catch up with the news, but she decided it was just as well. With her luck, they would have played Bunny Berigan singing "I Can't Get Started." Or even worse, "Harbor Lights."
She moved aimlessly enough, running a comb very carefully through her hair, watching out for her tender scalp. All her clothes had been dumped on the floor, but she couldn't quite summon the energy to drag out the ironing board. She simply pulled on a sundress in deference to the burgeoning heat, a silly, feminine thing that she usually wouldn't be caught dead in. It was the only thing that didn't require ironing, and she was almost completely oblivious to the fact that it was outrageously flattering.
She arrived at the hospital by ten o'clock, determined to check on Sparks, only to be informed that he'd already been released.
"But he was just brought in a few hours ago," she insisted, incensed at such cavalier treatment.
"No, ma'am. He was admitted night before last with smoke inhalation. He was released yesterday afternoon."
"What day is this?" she demanded urgently.
"July 3, 1937. Are you all right, ma'am? Maybe you ought to be here yourself."
"I'm fine," she said dazedly. "I just lost a day."
All the better, she thought, driving toward the hangar. By now, Clancy and Will—no, Frank—would be well-and-truly gone. She'd never have to see them again, she could start to put her life back in order. And things would be easier without Constance around. Her sister was extravagant and her meager salary at Woolworths never covered even the basic necessities, much less things like the gasoline she used or the food she ate. One could live much more cheaply than two, Angela informed herself. And at least she wouldn't have to worry about her sister anymore. She already knew the worst had befallen her.
She was half-tempted to stop for a newspaper on her way to the hangar, then reconsidered it. It would only have bad news. Nothing good would have happened in the last few days since she'd taken off for Newfoundland so precipitously. Except that Amelia Earhart was due to finish her historic 'round-the-world trip, and right then Angela wasn't sure if she could summon up enough generosity of spirit to be happy for her. AE wasn't the sort to inspire jealousy, but Angela would have been envious of a saint like Eleanor Roosevelt in her current mood.
Sparks's roadster was parked outside the hangar. The steel walls were scorched but still standing, and in the heat of summer, the smell of smoke still hung heavy in the air. Two of the planes were out on the tarmac, the Percival and the Avian. Clancy's Fokker was gone, but that was nothing more than she expected, Angela told herself, squashing down the shaft of pain that threatened to engulf her.
The cavernous confines of the hangar were dark. Sparks was sitting in her office, sifting through damp papers, but he looked up with real relief when she appeared. "You're a sight for sore eyes," he said. "In more ways than one. How're you doing, kid?"
"Fine, I guess. How are you? I went to the hospital first thing but they told me they'd already kicked you out." She sank down in the chair opposite him, then jumped up, brushing the water from her sundress.
"Can't keep an old scoundrel like me down for long."
"Why is it so dark here?"
"Electricity's still out. They promised to get it up and running by this afternoon. Phone's working, though. You've already had a bunch of calls. You were right. Once people heard that Sam Watson was signing on with you, the others began following suit. Not that they had much choice, with Olker in jail."
"Exactly where he belongs," she said firmly.
"You got other messages. Some woman named Eleanor keeps calling and screeching. I usually hang up on her."
"That's probably our best bet."
"And someone named Langston Howard called and asked whether the job offer was still open. That wasn't who I think it was, was it?"
"He's a very good pilot."
"He's also colored."
"Tell you what, Sparks. You call up Sam Watson and tell him he's going to get the best damned air-freight service with the best damned pilots, and some of those pilots are going to be women, and some are going to be black, and some of them may even be Republicans. But they'll all be the best pilots there are, and if he's got any objections, he can stuff 'em."
Sparks chuckled. "I know Sam Watson well enough to say he won't care if the pilot's got polka dots, as long as he does the job. You sure like asking for trouble, don't you?"
"We need a new pilot, don't we?"
"Yes," said Sparks, "we need a new pilot."
"We need a new mechanic, too, don't we?"
Sparks nodded. "He's gone. Left late last night."
"I suppose you knew who he was, too?" she said wearily.
"We all guessed, Angie. We just figured you didn't want to see it."
"Maybe I didn't. Why'd he wait so long to leave? Captain Stark warned him he'd come after him with a warrant if he didn't disappear."
"He had something he wanted to finish."
"What's that?"
"He and Clancy spent the last thirty-six hours going over the Lockheed with a fine-tooth comb. He said for me to tell you she's as ready as she's ever going to be. You can make your flight, Angie. If you're still so set on it."
"He did that? For me?"
"They both did. Guess your dad thought he owed you."
"What about Clancy. What did he owe me?"
Sparks looked uncomfortable. "You'd know that better than me, kid. So what's it gonna be? You still going to make that flight?"
She glanced over at the Lockheed, still shrouded in shadows. "I don't know, Sparks. Sometimes I don't think I know my own mind at all. I'll have to think about it."
"You do that. For what it's worth, I don't want you to do it. We don't want to lose another woman pilot."
A sudden trickle of dread slid down her back bone. "What're you talking about?"
"Haven't you seen the papers? Listened to the radio?"
"Constance took the radio. What's happened?"
"Amelia Earhart went down yesterday. There's been no trace of her or Noonan anywhere. She's gone, Angie."
"She couldn't be! Haven't they got people searching...?"
"Of course they have. And the papers are reporting every single false lead. But you and I know better. Every pilot knows better. AE's gone, Angie. I don't want to lose you, too."
She stumbled away from him, out into the hangar, the final blow in a series of crushing blows weighing down on her. She stared at her plane, at the larger, shadowy form behind it. And then her eyes began to focus in the darkness.
