Emily Locke 01 - Final Approach

altitude!”
    Then he pantomimed raising his shirt to flash me.
    I’d heard stories of women skydivers flashing the pilot to get an extra couple thousand feet of air. Whether this actually happened—or worked—I didn’t know.
    I flipped him off.
    Booing and laughter erupted in the fuselage.
    I thought about Trish and the similarities between Mattie’s abduction and Casey’s. My conspiracy theories seemed alternately plausible and insane.
    Now there was a new, sickening question. Had Jack and Annette been murdered? The suggestion had me out of my head with grief and rage.
    Linda, seated behind me, tapped my shoulder.
    “Trish won’t go for it when she’s flying,” she said. “The boys have tried to flash her, but they got nothin’ she wants to see.”
    I turned around and looked past Scud, at the pilot’s seat. Vince was flying today, the noise in his headset apparently shielding him from the nonsense. I wondered how many times he’d been flashed.
    David was in front of me, near the door. In front of him, Rick was in the spotter’s position. Everyone on board was in two neat rows, facing the door in the back of the plane. Each of us was wedged between the legs of the jumper behind us. Our seatbelts, which were actually more like floor-belts, since there were no seats, were all unfastened.
    I stared at the back of David’s helmet and thought about him and Trish. She wasn’t working today. What was she doing instead? David was doing a four-way with Linda, Big Red, and me.
    Vince let Rick know it was time for the spot. His group shuffled onto their knees, putting goggles into final positions and double-checking throw-out handles and chest straps.
    “Door!” Rick yelled, and those of us near him yelled it again to make sure jumpers behind us heard.
    Rick slid the Otter’s door overhead like a garage door and frigid, deafening wind rushed inside. The rest of us moved into semi-standing positions and crouched under the low ceiling of the fuselage. Rick gave two heading corrections, both for five degrees left, and when he was satisfied, he climbed out and gripped the bar on the outside of the door while the rest of his group moved swiftly into position. With an efficient “Ready, Set, Go,” they dropped out of sight and the Otter lurched upward with its lighter load.
    Our group was next. Big Red and David climbed out immediately, Big Red in the front-float position, David in the rear. I crouched beside Linda in the door, my left hand gripping Big Red’s chest strap, my right clutching Linda’s shoulder gripper.
    She started the count.
    On her Go, I left the Otter behind. A big planet holding all my unanswered questions was headed straight for me.
    ***
    “So, how long have you known Trish?” I asked David as he drove us into town. He’d volunteered to pick up lunches for the group, and I’d offered to give him a hand.
    David did some mental arithmetic.
    “Coming up on five months. She moved in after two.” He looked at me sideways, like he thought I’d disapprove.
    I shrugged. “Who’s to argue with love? My friend got engaged on her third date.”
    “Yeah? How’d that work out?”
    I thought of Jeannie’s ex-husband, Travis, a fledgling car salesman who turned out to be so stupid he wouldn’t have known a credit report if it stuck to the bottom of his shoe. “It didn’t. Now she sleeps with men on the third date instead.”
    He laughed.
    I picked up a photograph of David and Trish that was tucked in the dash. I could make out the scripted T on her wrist.
    “I noticed Trish’s tattoo the other day,” I said. “I meant to ask her about it.”
    “She and her brother got those when their dad died,” he said. “Their old man had the same one.”
    I thought about that.
    “What’s her brother like? You met him yet?”
    David pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall offering Pizza Hut or Subway. He shook his head and seemed to struggle for words.
    “He’s got problems. In and out of trouble with police…”
    He eased into a parking space. I wanted to hear more, but didn’t want to interrogate him.
    “They say every family has one,” I said.
    He smiled.
    We got out of the car and I followed him toward the Subway.
    “Mark’s problem is serious,” he confided. “Drugs.”
    He held the door for me at the sandwich shop and I stepped inside. A young Hispanic boy at a booth with his family said, “Coach Dave!”
    His parents turned, and David said hello to everyone as we stepped