Tailspin

by Sandra Brown

  He broke off when he realized that the eyes glowering up at him were set in a soft, smooth face framed by a tumble of dark, wavy hair. He said, “Who the hell are you?”

  “Your client.”

  Rye recoiled in shock and looked down at the chest inches from his face, which was rising and falling with agitation…and was also indisputably female. “Dr. Lambert? I expected a man.”

  “Well, surprise.”

  Then she kneed him in the balls.

  Chapter 3

  2:01 a.m.

  Damn!” She’d missed. He had sucked in a sharp breath in anticipation and shifted his hips just enough to prevent a direct hit. Teeth clenched, she said, “Get off me.”

  He didn’t. Instead, he secured her legs by pressing them more tightly between his. “You’re supposed to be at the FBO. What are you doing out here?”

  “Do you have the box? Why do you have a gun?”

  “I asked first.”

  Their eyes engaged in a contest of wills, but he was angry, large, strong, and on top of her, all of which gave him the advantage. “Because of the fog, I missed the turnoff. The road came to a dead end at a cyclone fence. I was about to turn around when your plane swooped in from out of nowhere.”

  “Oh. You belong to the headlights. I flew toward them.”

  “Toward them?”

  “So I could land on the road.”

  “But you didn’t. You crashed.”

  “Wasn’t my fault.”

  “No?” The instant the word was out, she realized how snotty her tone had sounded, and it made him mad.

  “No, doctor. The fact is, I kept the craft from falling out of the fucking sky, which it would have done if I weren’t such a fucking good pilot. It took a hell of an effort to avoid taking your head off. You should be thanking me.”

  “Gratitude isn’t exactly what I’m feeling for you right now. Was the box damaged? What caused you to crash?”

  “Someone—” He stopped, rethought what he had intended to say, then said a terse “Power outage.”

  “On your plane?”

  “The instruments blinked. These kinds of conditions, being able to see your instruments can mean the difference between living and dying. I managed to pull it off.” He continued to stare down at her with mistrust. She forced herself to hold his stare without shrinking, although he looked unscrupulous, and kept her mindful of the gun in his right hand.

  “How long are you going to keep me pinned down?” she said. “You’re hurting my hands, and there’s a rock planted in my left kidney.”

  He didn’t react immediately, but then he must have decided that the standoff was pointless. He released her wrists, moved off her, and stood. He picked up the flashlight she’d dropped and shone it directly into her face, staying on it until she asked him with curt politeness to get it out of her eyes. He kept the flashlight on, but angled it away from her. It provided ambient light.

  She sat up, rubbing the gouge on her back. “What’s your name?”

  “Rye Mallett.”

  “Mr. Mallett,” she said in a murmur as she started to stand. He cupped her elbow to give her a boost. As soon as she was on her feet, she pulled her arm free and began brushing the dirt and twigs off the backs of her hands. They were nicked and scratched. One had a smear of blood on it. She shot him an accusing look.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I thought you were a guy.”

  “It would have been nice if you’d made that distinction before coming after me. Armed. Was the gun really necessary?”

  “Wasn’t, but might’ve been.”

  “Do all pilots carry guns these days?”

  “What other pilots do isn’t any of my business.”

  She looked over at the plane. The damage appeared to be considerable. He’d been fortunate to walk away from the crash, much less have enough strength to overpower her and keep her pinned down. “You don’t seem to have been injured, Mr. Mallett. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” With that settled, she asked, “What about the box?”

  “Do you know Brady White?”

  “The man who manages the airfield? I talked to him on the phone tonight. He agreed to be here when you landed, although I don’t think he believed that anyone would actually fly in tonight. He said—” She broke off when a thought occurred to her. “He did show up, didn’t he? He turned the lights on?”

  “Yeah. He turned the lights on.”

  “Good. He did what he was supposed to, then.”

  “According to your directions.” His jaw was tense with what appeared to be cold fury. His eyes narrowed on her again. “What’s in that black box?”

  That was a question she had no intention of answering, especially since it had been posed with such suspicion. She said, “I didn’t see it in the cockpit.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  “Your only concern should be its delivery. To your client. Who happens to be me. Is it secured in the back of the plane? Please tell me whether or not it was damaged.”

  “Wasn’t damaged.”

  “I’d like to see that for myself.”

  “Don’t trust me?”

  “You have the gall to ask that when you were the one waving a gun around?”

  “Didn’t wave it around. But the point here is that the mistrust works both ways. What’s so bloody important that the contents of that box had to get here tonight, never mind the weather?”

  She held her silence.

  “Hmm? Not even a hint? Come on. What could be so closely safeguarded and time-sensitive? The secret ingredient in Grandma’s candied yams?”

  “This is no joking matter, Mr. Mallett.”

  “You’re goddamn right, it’s not,” he said, raising his voice and taking a fractional step closer. “How come you were sneaking up on the plane?”

  “I wasn’t sneaking.”

  “Looked like sneaking. The hood, the—”

  “I pulled my hood up because of the mist.”

  He held out his hand palm up, inches from her face, waited a few seconds, then said, “Dry as dust. No mist.”

  “It was misting when I left my car.”

  He waited a beat, then asked, “You’re a doctor?” She nodded. “Medical?” She nodded again. “Didn’t you take an oath to do everything possible to ward off death?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you mean it?”

  She refused to honor the insult with a reply.

  “Reason I asked,” he continued, “when you saw the wrecked plane, how come you didn’t break into a run to see to my welfare? For all you knew, I was one heartbeat away from checking out.”

  “I was exercising caution.”

  “You were creeping.”

  “Because I wasn’t sure it was safe!” she exclaimed. “Crashed planes sometimes explode, catch fire.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  His tone had the quality of a death knell, a warning that the topic would be better left alone. But she held her ground and said with stern emphasis, “Give me the box.”

  “Trade you for it.”

  She huffed a laugh. “I’m sorry? Trade?”

  “I need a lift to the airport office.”

  She was about to refuse when she realized that he was, indeed, stranded. “Of course.”

  “Thanks.”

  She’d been so focused on getting what she’d come for, she hadn’t thought of the other repercussions of the crash. “Poor Mr. White,” she said. “You were just about to land. He must be frantic to know what happened to you.”

  “Oh, poor Mr. White will know what happened to me. He’ll know I’m down, one way or the other.”

  “You should have notified him that you’re all right.”

  “Couldn’t. My phone’s busted, and my spare isn’t charged up. So either he’s out searching for me himself, or he’s reporting to the authorities t
hat the plane and I are unaccounted for. In which case, we’ll soon have hillbillies with badges poking around and asking questions, and somehow…” He dipped his knees to bring them eye to eye. “I get the drift that you had just as soon avoid that as much as I would. Doctor.”

  The emphasis on her title didn’t escape her. Neither did his pause, which invited her to confirm, qualify, or dispute his “drift.” When she didn’t speak at all, one corner of his lips tilted up marginally, smugly. “What I thought.”

  He straightened his knees and returned to his full height. “Whatever you’re up to, it’s no skin off my nose. But I’m anxious to meet Brady White up close and personal, and to demonstrate just how alive and well I am.”

  “When you blew over my car, I tried to call him but didn’t have service.” She took her cell phone from a coat pocket, then turned it toward him so he could see for himself that she didn’t have a signal. “Cell service is unreliable up here, especially in bad weather.”

  “You know this area?”

  “I’m one of the hillbillies.” She gave him a pointed look. “I grew up here. That’s how I knew about the county airport.” Looking beyond him at the plane, she asked, “Are you just going to leave it here?”

  “It’s not going to fly off.”

  “Is it yours? Do you own it?”

  He shook his head. “I’m only a flyer for hire.”

  “I see.”

  “No, you don’t, but it doesn’t matter.” He continued without a segue. “If the fog clears, I’ll get somebody to bring me out here tomorrow. I have to take pictures to include in my report.”

  “To?”

  “The nearest FAA office. Depending on whether or not the agent I draw is a real hard-ass, this probably won’t be investigated. No deaths, no injuries. Very little to report, right?”

  Again she got the feeling that he was fishing and was curious to hear how she would answer. She fiddled with her phone to avoid looking directly at him. “I don’t know anything about FAA regulations.”

  “I know everything.”

  She dropped the phone back into her pocket, then gave him a slow once-over, starting at his uncombed hair and working all the way down to his scuffed boots. His jaw was bristly. He wasn’t wearing a uniform, only jeans and a battered bomber jacket. The shirt underneath it looked slept in.

  There was a nickname for his sort of cargo pilot, but she couldn’t recall it offhand.

  Meeting his cool gaze again, she said, “I rather imagine you also know how to get around FAA regulations, Mr. Mallett.”

  “Lucky for you. Nobody else would’ve risked flying here tonight.”

  “Why did you?”

  He just looked at her, his face a mask. Then, “About that lift?”

  “Yes. If we can find our way back to my car.”

  “I charted the layout of the airfield. The road you were on dead-ends at the southeast corner of the property.”

  He turned away from her and walked back toward the airplane. He disappeared around the tree into which it had nosed and reappeared with a leather duffel bag slung over his shoulder and a padlocked black box. He gave her back her flashlight, then handed her the box. “Delivered.”

  She hugged the box against her chest. “Thank you. Truly.”

  “We’ll complete the paperwork when we get to the airfield office. And I accept gratuities. Truly.”

  He returned the gun to its zippered compartment in his bag, then took a flashlight from it and switched it on. He motioned with his chin. “Back the way you came.” He went past her, assuming the role of leader. Over his shoulder, he said, “Stick close. If you fall behind and get lost in the fog, you’re on your own. I won’t come looking.”

  She believed him.

  2:16 a.m.

  The two men who were hunkered down in the underbrush a few yards away from the wreckage waited until the pilot and doctor were swallowed up by the fog. The cold haze had helped conceal them, but it was also making a complicated situation just that much more difficult.

  When it should have been so easy.

  That’s what the boss was going to say when Goliad called in to report this royal fuckup.

  “What now?” his partner whispered.

  “Plan B.”

  “What’s plan B?”

  “For me to know. Come on.” As Goliad stood up, he looked down with loathing at the man beside him, whom he would gladly throttle here and now. The boss had told him to bring someone with him, someone disposable, to be the fall guy if something should go wrong. Timmy had been suggested.

  Bad idea. Timmy had screwed up, and, for him, there would be hell to pay. But not until the time was right. Presently, Goliad was letting him live because he might yet prove to be useful.

  Goliad had been born in the Texas town of the same name. It was the name on his baptismal certificate. The name stuck, but the baptism didn’t take. His sainted mother had died clutching her rosary and sobbing over the path he’d chosen for his life. It wasn’t the straight-and-narrow one she’d fervently and futilely prayed for.

  Timmy had been inducted into his first gang at the ripe age of eleven after he’d slit the throat of his abusive father and took to the rough streets of Philadelphia, where he was absorbed into the thriving criminal element. Now in his early twenties, he maintained a feral, street-gang mentality.

  They made an odd pair. Goliad carried a handgun but was rarely called upon to use it. His height and breadth of chest made him so physically imposing that few men would think of challenging him.

  The top of Timmy’s head didn’t even reach Goliad’s shoulder. He was small, wiry, and mean. He liked to provoke and was easily provoked. He preferred blades to bullets and never carried fewer than three knives, well concealed.

  As they headed back to where they’d left their car, Timmy asked, “Are you going to tell the boss about the laser?”

  “Haven’t decided yet,” Goliad replied, intentionally leaving Timmy to worry. But he didn’t want to get a knife in the back, so he motioned for Timmy to take the lead.

  “I can’t find my way back to the car in this shit.”

  “Then I guess you’ll stay lost out here in the woods and may never be found.”

  Timmy must’ve sensed the underlying threat. Mumbling about how much he hated nature and missed city life, he plowed ahead, but it was Goliad who set the pace, keeping close behind Timmy, giving him a prod whenever he tripped over something unseen or slowed down to avoid collision with a sapling or boulder that took shape out of the fog, often only inches in front of them.

  “I just want to know one thing,” Goliad said. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  “I’ve got a curious mind,” Timmy said in a whine. “I saw it on TV. A story telling how dangerous lasers were to pilots. Lots of them are getting zapped.”

  “So you thought you’d try it out on this pilot, see if it worked to make him crash.”

  “I just meant to mess with him some.”

  Goliad shook his head over the stupidity. “Where’d you get the damn thing?”

  “Saw UPS delivering a package to a house. Stole it off the front porch soon as the truck drove off. Didn’t even know what was in the carton until I opened it. Bonanza!”

  “When was this?”

  “Coupla weeks ago.”

  “You know, they catch thieves like that on home security cameras.”

  Timmy guffawed. “I know how to dodge those.”

  “You had better hope. Have you shown it off to anybody?”

  “No. Never turned it on before tonight.”

  “You couldn’t have picked a worse time to experiment.”

  “I wanted to see if it would work in the fog. Jesus, what’s the big deal?”

  “The big deal is that the people who hired you are waiting for what was in that airplane.”

  “I didn’t know it would crash,” he muttered.

  “Well, it did. Just be glad that box wasn’t destroyed.”

  “S
ee? No problem. It’ll look like this sorry pilot screwed up, missed the runway in the fog.”

  Goliad feared that it wouldn’t be dismissed as lightly as that. He feared a ripple effect that could result in serious consequences for the people he was paid to protect.

  After having to backtrack only once, they relocated the car. Goliad was the designated driver. Timmy got in the shotgun seat.

  As Goliad reached for his phone, he made a split-second decision to be as short on details as possible. Once he and Timmy returned to Atlanta with that black box, any mishaps they had encountered during the undertaking would be irrelevant.

  He turned on the speaker so Timmy could listen in and placed the call. After only half a ring, it was answered, not by the boss, but by his missus, who was much more excitable.

  In a voice hard enough to chisel granite, she asked, “Do you have it?”

  “Not yet, ma’am.”

  “The plane’s not there yet?”

  “Showed up about half an hour ago.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “It crashed.”

  She gasped.

  Goliad said, “The pilot was about to land, overshot the runway, crashed in the woods.”

  He gave Timmy a look that said he could thank him later for saving his ass. Timmy gave him a thumbs-up.

  “The plane burned, it was destroyed, what?” she asked. “What?”

  “No, it wasn’t destroyed. The box made it okay.”

  There was a pause, an exhale, a huskily spoken, “Thank heaven.”

  “But the doctor beat us to the crash site.” He described the scene that he and Timmy had crept up on. “She and the pilot were talking.”

  “He survived?”

  “Uninjured, best we could tell.”

  “What was she doing at the crash site? She was supposed to meet the plane at the airfield.”

  “I don’t understand that, either,” he admitted. “All I know is, she was there. The pilot gave her the box. It’s as described. About the size of a loaf of bread. Padlocked. They struck off together on foot. They were headed to her car. She was giving him a lift to the airfield office.”

  “So why didn’t you go after them? Richard will demand to know. How will I explain this to him?”