Emily Locke 01 - Final Approach

a distance of 4.2 miles. That warranted overpriced cookies from the mini-bar. I headed upstairs to claim my reward.

Chapter Five
    Tuesday morning, the only indication I was in the right place was a faded wooden sign nailed to a post that said “Gulf Coast Skydiving. Howdy, Y’all!”
    With an impressive lack of verbiage, Richard had pushed a Houston area map and a set of car keys across the breakfast table at my hotel. The car was his teenaged son’s. It was my loaner. The map led to the drop zone, about seventy miles south of Houston, six miles from the Gulf of Mexico.
    I eased onto the dirt road and watched a plume of dust rise behind me in the rearview mirror. Ahead, down a half-mile stretch of pitted dirt road, a compound of small airport hangars was clustered in a field. I grew anxious thinking about what and who I would find.
    Private planes were tied down between hangars, but the place looked otherwise deserted. I figured the owners of the little planes must be weekend hobbyists, busy today at work.
    Then a Cessna came into view, making a final approach to a grass runway. It dropped out of sight behind hangars at the end of the drive. I checked the sky. Four parachutes swirled overhead.
    The road dead-ended in a grass lot next to the largest hangar. Enormous sliding doors, large enough to pull a plane through, were wide open on both sides. I looked straight through the building to the landing field behind it, where orange windsocks flared sideways, then flopped beside their posts. The Cessna was taxiing back.
    I parked next to a dusty Mustang with a license plate that said SKYD1VR and got out of the car.
    It felt good to stretch. I pulled my gear bag from the backseat and was about to head for the hangar when I had a shameful thought. My chances of befriending jumpers, at least the men, might improve if I took off my wedding rings. I slipped them off and shoved them deep into the pocket of my jean shorts. The naked sensation on my finger felt dishonest, and I longed for Jack. I imagined he’d understand; maybe even scold me for not doing it sooner.
    Inside the hangar I found an office, where a friendly looking hippie in his mid-forties was going over student rates with a caller on the phone. He wore a Dave Matthews Band concert shirt, cutoff jeans, and Teva sandals. A skinny ponytail snaked down his back. He winked at me and gestured he’d be a minute, then flipped through some paperwork stacked behind the counter.
    I set my gear down and inspected pictures hanging on the office’s scuffed walls. One showed silhouettes of a beautiful round formation at sunset. I estimated it as a forty-way. Several photos captured the exaggerated smiles of tandem students in freefall, their instructors giving two thumbs up behind them. A collage showed various jumpers with pie smeared on their faces. I remembered my own hundredth jump from back in the Stone Ages, it seemed. My friends had gotten me with six key-limes, a vanilla crème, and a cheesecake. I smiled, remembering Jack. Later that night, when we’d gone to bed, he’d gotten me with a chocolate pie.
    I scanned one photograph to the next. Who in those pictures knew something about Casey?
    The man behind the desk hung up. “Thanks for waiting. What can I do ya for, hon’?” His smile was warm; it reminded me of my dad’s.
    I explained I was new in town and needed a re-pack. Unlike the main canopy, which we pack ourselves, reserves have to be packed by a certified rigger every ninety days.
    He shook my hand. “Rick Hanes. My wife and I own this shack. What brings you from out of town?”
    “Work.” I’d hatched a cover story during my lonely night in the hotel and felt a little self-congratulatory because my burst of foresight was about to pay off.
    He leaned on the countertop between us, resting on his elbows.
    “What line of work?”
    I’d once heard it’s best to stick with what you know. “Chemistry.”
    An eerily silent tabby cat sprung onto the countertop to investigate me. I started petting it.
    “That’s Otter,” Rick said. “Showed up one day and never left.” He stroked her under the chin, then turned toward the window. “Who you working for?”
    Cat hair began to stick to the palm of my hand.
    “NASA.”
    It seemed easier to function inside a huge, open-ended lie than small, specific one, so I’d selected a fake employer accordingly. For good measure, I’d even Googled the surrounding area and decided on a pretend waterfront