Emily Locke 01 - Final Approach

background.”
    “Okay,” I said. That would be easy to get from the chatty crowd at the DZ.
    Richard continued, “It’s been six days. You know what they say about missing kids and the first twenty-four hours, right?”
    “Their odds plummet after the first day.”
    “Casey’s been gone for six days. Finding out this pilot’s name and story might not be enough.”
    “What are you saying?”
    He regarded me briefly. “How comfortable would you be searching through the drop zone office?”
    My stomach lurched.
    “Define ‘searching through.’”
    The look on his face said it all. He wasn’t going to define “searching through.” I felt bile rise into my throat.
    “If I were to search the office, Richard, what would I be looking for, exactly?”
    “Maybe the name ‘Lyons’ on some paperwork…evidence of a baby being around the place…something fishy in the day planner. Just look for stuff,” he concluded vaguely. “Interesting stuff.”
    I conjured more images of a jail cell.
    “How many offices have you searched in your time, Richard?”
    He shrugged. “Dozens.”
    “Any tips?”
    He grinned. “Don’t get caught.”
    I exhaled. One question remained.
    “When am I supposed to search?”
    Richard gave the tabletop a two-handed smack I read as our conversation-closer.
    “Tonight I guess.”
    Tonight he guessed. Great.

Chapter Thirteen
    That night I lay awake in my tent, waiting for the middle of the night to come, unsure when exactly that was. I had one o’clock in mind, but at that hour, some folks were still loafing by fires. So I pushed it back to two. By then, the airport was silent, except for an occasional exchange between frogs.
    I rolled onto my stomach and unzipped a few inches of the window panel in my tent. No one was around.
    Pop-up campers and tents were set up around the field. A platinum moon, mostly full, illuminated the acreage stretched around me. I pulled on sneakers and let myself out of the tent. Remnants of campfire smoke hung in the air.
    Moisture soaked the toes of my shoes and made my feet cold. The hangar door was slightly ajar so campers could use the showers and restrooms. I ducked inside, where the Cessna was parked for the night. Tomorrow a rented Otter would take its place for the weekend.
    Vagrant jumpers slept on the hangar’s carpeted floor, in the shadow of the plane. I tip-toed around air mattresses and sleeping bags and stalked toward the office, careful not to step on anyone.
    I eased the door open and stepped inside. Thin rays of light escaped from the restrooms at the far end of the office; their doors were cracked open. The only other illumination came from the giant blinking light on the old, cassette-style answering machine.
    The place was stone silent. I scanned the deserted, shadowy office with my hand still on the doorknob and felt like a common thief and first-rate fool.
    A hasty sweep of the countertop revealed nothing in the message pads or ledger. I opened drawers, rifled through notebooks, and thumbed through receipts, but none of the paperwork stood out as a possible link to Casey.
    Beside the phone, old copies of
Parachutist
magazine were wedged between a bookend and a small metal box serving as its counterpart. When I reached for the box, something rustled behind me.
    I pulled my hand back and whirled. It was only Rick’s cat, nosing through a dish of kitty chow. My pulse quickened and pounded behind my forehead. Its rhythm sounded like “Id-i-ot, Id-i-ot, Id-i-ot.”
    I caught my breath and went back to the box, which turned out to be a stash of jellybeans. I helped myself to one and snapped it shut.
    The last place to check was the rigger’s loft. I’d left my own gear there for the night to spare some room in my cramped little tent.
    I crossed the office and slipped inside the narrow loft. There was no way I’d flip any light switches. The best I could do to get some light was to prop the door open with a waste paper basket. A reasonable person would have remembered a flashlight.
    The workbench ran along one wall. Three rigs in various stages of assembly waited on its wooden surface. Tools were meticulously arranged on a pegboard suspended over the bench. A few manufacturers’ guides were opened to dog-eared pages. My own rig hung on the opposite wall, behind a queue of student rigs, all neatly aligned, ready for tomorrow.
    I pulled open a drawer and found some outdated flight logs and a pack of gum. The drawer beneath it had