Storm the Author's Cut

by Vanessa Grant

  "Lucas? Do I know him?"

  "He turned up about two years ago—bought QC Air from Brady."

  "I wonder if he's related to Doug Lucas? He wouldn't be from Vancouver, would he?"

  "Who's Doug Lucas?"

  "A Vancouver billionaire—mansion on south-west Marine Drive. He's in hotels—like your dad."

  "My father's hotel is never going to make a million, much less billions, and if Lucas were related, that's the sort of thing that would be sure to get around. I heard he worked as a bush pilot in the Yukon before he came here. But you know local gossip. If he doesn't talk about himself, someone makes up a story for him. "

  "Did he give you a good interview?"

  "He didn't want to talk. I interviewed Chief Hall. He was a passenger on Lucas's plane. He volunteered to stay up in the air, to help spot."

  Bev yawned.

  "I've got the interview on my recorder," said Laurie. "I need to take it to the station for the morning news."

  "In the middle of the night?"

  "I may as well. I'm not tired. I'll edit the interview, then go down to the seaplane docks. Nat wanted an interview."

  "The man won't talk. How can you get an interview?"

  She shivered at the memory of his eyes, but pushed the blankets aside. "I need to go."

  "Laurie, it's three in the morning! Mom would have a fit if she knew you were going out prowling the docks at this hour! And Ken..."

  "Don't wake them up." She pulled open a drawer and removed a pair of jeans and a thick sweater.

  All night the memories had been working on her. If there was anything she could do about that missing plane, she had to do it. She snapped the denim jacket closed and pulled her keys from her purse. She wouldn't need the purse, but maybe the wallet?

  No, too bulky.

  "Laurie? What are you up to?"

  "I'm going up in that search plane."

  She pulled a couple of twenties out of her purse and slipped them in her hip pocket, prepared for some nebulous, unforeseen financial need.

  "What makes you think he'll let you on the plane? He wouldn't even give you an interview."

  "I've got to try." She pulled on a pair of walking shoes.

  "Laurie, you're not trying to rescue those men, you're trying to make up for Shane's death."

  Chapter 3

  Laurie's car wheels crunched on the gravel of the parking lot but the man working down on the wharf didn't look up. She closed her car door softly, in no hurry to attract his attention.

  She carried a small pack swinging from her hand as she walked down the ramp in her thick rubber-soled shoes. The islands in the harbor were outlined in silhouette against the grey eastern sky. Beyond the islands, the ocean swept away until it met the sky in a dimly seen horizon. The dull, moody water moved slowly in the harbor.

  The Beaver was almost loaded. Lucas lifted a pack, the last thing sitting on the float beside the plane, and swung it easily into a back compartment with the casual motion of a strong man in good condition.

  It was unlikely that anyone had ever called him handsome. His face was too strong and rugged, and his eyes too piercingly analytical. The hard lines on his face made it hard to judge his age, but she guessed him at somewhere in his thirties. This morning he'd dressed in a thick wool jacket against the cold wind, as if he expected the weather to deteriorate.

  "Good morning, Mr. Lucas!"

  He looked up, black eyes scanning her trim figure and heavy-duty clothes. He turned back to the Beaver before he spoke, slamming the door to the luggage compartment.

  "Where's your recorder?"

  "I figured you wouldn't talk to my recorder."

  His short laugh surprised her. "I won't give you an interview without it, either," he said mildly. He closed the baggage compartment and opened the front door.

  "Let me come with you. I'll help search."

  "Bad idea. Twenty minutes and you'd be bored, cold and stiff from sitting in a small space. Probably airsick as well. There's still a gale warning issued for this coast."

  He turned his back and stepped onto the pontoon.

  "Mr. Lucas!"

  He ignored her and walked to the back of the pontoon. Making his pre-flight check, she realized.

  "I've lived on these islands all my life," she said, talking fast. "The first time I flew in a seaplane was when my mother brought me back from the hospital as a baby. My father was an amateur pilot until he got glaucoma and we flew a lot. I've flown this coast, winter and summer. I've been on rough flights. I won't pretend I haven't been frightened, but I've never been airsick and I've never caused trouble for the pilot flying me."

  Liar. She had caused more than enough trouble for Shane, but she mustn't think of that now. Lucas had stepped across to the far pontoon and she could see only his feet beneath the plane.

  "Six years ago I lost my brother in a plane crash. I know the dangers of flying in this country and I care about those missing men. If I come with you, it'll double your chances of spotting that plane. Alone, you could fly right over it and miss it entirely."

  " I could fly right over the wreck with ten people on board and still not spot it." His voice came from the front of the plane and she saw the propeller move as he hand-rotated it. "Spotting takes practice—you've no idea how hard it is."

  "I do, though," she insisted. "My father used to take my brother and I hunting. I've got good eyes and I'm used to watching for something, anything out of place in the bush."

  He ducked under the nose of the plane.

  When he opened the front door she sensed a flicker, a hesitation, and she moved quickly, taking a chance. She slipped past him and across the empty pilot's seat. She quickly strapped herself into the passenger seat, pushing her pack under the seat, avoiding his eyes as he swung up into the seat beside her.

  He hadn't stopped her.

  "We're searching the Lyell Island area," he said crisply. "We may not be back until dark." His hands moved over the controls and his shoulder brushed against hers in the small space. Was he avoiding looking at her?

  "Won't you have to refuel?"

  "At the Lyell Island camp." His arm brushed against her leg as he made an adjustment to one of the controls. The engine coughed to life and she saw him trim the fuel mixture.

  When the Beaver started to taxi away from the wharf, she let out the breath she'd been holding.

  Ken would be furious. He'd had plans for today and she'd dived into an adventure he would certainly disapprove of. Mrs. McDonald would be angry, too, and no matter how much Laurie apologized, they wouldn't understand how her memories of Shane wouldn't let her stand by and be a mere spectator.

  The plane banked to make a sweep of the harbor, flying just west of the exposed drying spit where Sandspit Airport was located. Lucas wore a headset that held a microphone just in front of his mouth. Laurie saw his lips move and strained unsuccessfully to hear over the noise of the engine.

  When he pulled the chart from a side pocket in the door she judged the radio conversation was over. She shouted over the noisy engine, "What color is the missing plane?"

  Instead of answering, he reached past her legs and pulled a spare set of headphones from under the control panel in front of her. When she put them on, he adjusted something on the panel.

  "There's no point shouting at each other. What did you say?" His voice sounded quiet and very clear in her ears.

  "What color's the missing plane?"

  "Speak quietly and clearly into the mike. Your voice distorts when you talk too loudly. It's a Grummund Goose, silver and black. You won't see the black won't show and unless the sun glints off it, the silver will look much the same as white."

  "The sun won't glint today."

  "No. We'll be going down to check out everything we see. Look for debris, signs of smoke or fire—any sign of life. If you see anything that looks odd or unusual, tell me."

  She turned her head away from him and stared down at the long spit of Moresby Island's nort
heast end.

  "For the moment you can relax," he said. "A fish boat called in this morning to report spotting silver and black Goose shortly before the Coast Guard radio operator lost contact yesterday. The pilot was on course about ten miles east of Lyell Island, but the skipper says he was flying into a squall. Hopefully, the report is accurate because JRCC is basing the search on it. It's the only thing they've got to go on, and it puts the pilot about where he should have been."

  Laurie spotted a group of logs off Sandspit and wondered if she would know the difference between a log and a half-submerged seaplane.

  "Do you know the fishing boat's name? Or the observer's?"

  "The Julie II, a salmon trawler. I don't know her skipper."

  "David MacDougal. If he says he saw a silver-and-black Goose, you can count on it. He logs everything he sees unless the fish are biting, probably wrote down the exact moment the plane passed over. If he saw the identity letters, he wrote them down too."

  "You do know what a Goose looks like?"

  "Amphibious plane with twin engines and a big belly."

  "You'll need to recognize one from above." He gave her a detailed lecture on what to look for. She had seen many of the twin-engined amphibious planes from below as they flew overhead. She couldn't remember looking down on one from above.

  When Lucas was satisfied that she knew what to look for, he switched the radio to the emergency frequency and listened to the searchers. It seemed that the search area had been divided into quadrants. Coast Guard 22, the large Sikorsky helicopter belonging to the coast guard, was keeping track of everyone's location and the progress of the search.

  The sky above had darkened and the plane was tossed roughly by the wind as they flew over a headland. She had trouble keeping focused on the map as they bumped through a series of air pockets. Luke glanced from his instruments to the ground, but seemed unconcerned by the roughness of their ride. She concentrated on ignoring the turbulence, telling herself she had overcome the fear of flying that had dogged her since Shane's death.

  "It'll be rough later. If you're thirsty, pour yourself a coffee now—there's a thermos behind the seat."

  "I brought coffee, too." She took her thermos from her pack and filled the lid half full. It didn't seem prudent to fill it to the brim, considering the way the weather was deteriorating. She handed him the cup and he took it without looking, his eyes on the water below.

  He took one sip and shoved the cup back at her. "I'll pass. Pour me one of my own, would you."

  Strong, black liquid poured from his thermos. "Of course you'd take it black," she muttered.

  "Of course," he agreed. "I chew nails, too."

  She grimaced.

  "Nice to know that something will make you speechless."

  She wondered if his eyes were laughing at her but he was looking out the side window so she couldn't tell.

  "If I hadn't talked fast, you wouldn't have let me come."

  "True enough."

  She had forced herself on him. Most men would have resented her tactics, but once she boarded the plane, he had stopped fighting her.

  "See that island ahead? That's the beginning of the quadrant we've been assigned."

  Her laughter died. For a moment she had forgotten the missing plane and the men who had been aboard it. She had forgotten Shane.

  The overcast sky was overcast but the ocean below was only rippled, barely enough wind to keep their ride from being smooth as they flew south along the east coast of Moresby Island, the second largest island of Haida Gwaii.

  Lucas switched channels on the radio to hear the latest marine forecast. The radio operator reported a gale blowing on the west coast of Moresby, with winds rising on Moresby's east coast in the afternoon.

  Luke pulled out the map again when they reached the northerly edge of their assigned search quadrant. Their search area was roughly ten miles by ten miles square but she'd lost track of their location when they entered the group of islands.

  Luke's large-scale map showed a confusing jumble of small islands, water, and the inlets typical of the beautiful South Moresby area, and he traced their search pattern with his finger on the map. Without reference to the map, Laurie would have had no idea at all of their location.

  When she saw a strange collection of debris on the water, she pointed and Luke circled, dropping towards the water. As they came closer she spotted something orange—the color of the life jackets the missing plane would have carried as safety gear.

  They dropped lower. Laurie was still straining to see when Luke pulled the stick back and they lifted up to return to their search pattern.

  "Garbage bag," he muttered. "Someone threw garbage overboard."

  They swooped down time and time again. Sometimes Luke saw some unexplained incongruity in the land or water below and banked to investigate; sometimes it was Laurie who pointed downward.

  She lost track of time. The constant throb of the engines was so loud that sometimes she felt she could not hear anything at all; then Luke would speak softly over the intercom and she would hear his voice clearly.

  Darwin Sound—a long, narrow passage—was the roughest spot of all. Luke told her that the wind often funneled through it, making eddies and swirls as the passage narrowed. He was alert as they came into the narrow part, anticipating the wild ride as the little seaplane was tossed about sickeningly. Once they were through, he circled back to fly through a second time, then continued their search pattern.

  "I could have missed something there," she told him. "I don't think I got a good enough look at that island in the middle."

  "I know, but we'll go on. We have to cover the entire quadrant first. If we don't find anything, then we double back on the doubtful spots."

  The sky darkened until she doubted her ability to see anything on the ground. They flew on, back and forth, covering their area like a vacuum cleaner's pattern on a living room carpet. They stared at the water, the rocks, and the trees.

  When the rain started they could see even less, but Luke flew on. It seemed hours later when he marked their location on the map, then called Coast Guard 22.

  "This is CF 191. We're heading in to Lyell Island camp for fuel, then we'll resume searching."

  "See anything at all?" crackled the coast guard pilot in Laurie's ears.

  "Nothing," Luke told him. "Conditions are deteriorating here. The narrow passages are gusty, especially Darwin Sound. How's the weather forecast? Any chance of a break?"

  The coast guard man laughed bitterly. "They've predicted sunshine for California—we get the storms."

  When Luke had cleared with the helicopter, he turned towards the east and Lyell Island.

  "It's getting worse?"

  "Looks like it," he agreed. "We'll listen to the new lighthouse weather observations in an hour. You can tell a lot about what's happening from them. We might be in a localized squall, or we might be blowing up for a real storm."

  When they passed over the trees on the north side of Lyell Island she was surprised to see a settlement with chimneys smoking and men moving about on the ground. Luke brought the plane down gently into the sheltered bay and motored over to the floating wharf, As they bumped gently against the wharf, two men caught hold of the pontoon and secured the Beaver with ropes.

  "Morning, Luke!" the older, heavy-set man shouted around his cigar. "We'll fuel her up—you get on up to the cookhouse and have a bite. Bloody awful weather for a search!" He opened the door and his massive arm reached to lift Laurie down on to the float. She landed awkwardly, then looked back to see Luke climbing out behind her.

  "Thanks, Tubby. We could use some hot food."

  She rubbed her arm as they walked up to the mess tent.

  "You might have a bruise there."

  "If he's really called Tubby, it's a misnomer! I thought he'd crush my arm when he grabbed me!"

  "He's strong, but you're a pretty tough yourself." He glanced down at her. In jeans and a heavy sheepskin jacket she did
n't think there could be any female curves showing, but she felt herself flush at his look. "Small and feminine," he murmured, "but definitely not fragile."

  His eyes said that he found her attractive and when he looked at her like that, she felt an intense awareness of every female curve of her body. She thought how different his black eyes were from Ken's brown ones. Luke's eyes were deep enough to drown in.

  She looked away quickly.

  She belonged to Ken. She loved Ken.

  This crazy, momentary madness surging in her veins was—madness! The drama of the search had made her forget who she was for a minute. She had better not forget! Laurie Mather's days of wild impulses were long gone.

  "Do you think they really have hot food in there," she asked to distract herself.

  "I can guarantee you won't be hungry when we leave."

  A small, dark Italian man named Mike waved them to a long table and served plates heaped high with steak and mashed potatoes, and poured two cups of strong, black coffee.

  "I feed you good, then you find our men."

  "Drink the coffee," Luke advised. "The stuff in your thermos isn't strong enough to keep you alert."

  The monotony of staring at endless, similar bits of tree and rock and water had begun to make her sleepy. She drank the coffee obediently.

  "Luke, that passage—Darwin Sound—where it was so rough—"

  "Maybe," he said, as if he knew her thoughts without her speaking. "Visibility was poor, so he was flying low over the water. With the squall to the north, he might have flown south of Lyell Island and up through Darwin Sound. We checked it twice, and we'll check again after we eat."

  She remembered the turbulence, rocks and trees. She could have missed something in the trees. They had been bouncing around so badly, she'd had trouble keeping track of where she was looking.

  "If you were flying in those circumstances, would you have gone up that passage?"

  "Not with a Goose—the air speed is too fast, not much time to react if you're flying low. Flying north in Darwin he'd have been going with the wind. That makes it even faster, harder to control flight in the narrow passage at speed."