Emily Locke 01 - Final Approach

Right?”
    She nodded.
    “But Marie told me they don’t do night jumps here anymore.”
    We stood in the middle of the dusty road and looked at each other, watching pieces fall into place in each other’s minds.
    ***
    “I suppose it could be other planes from that airport,” Richard said, when I brought him up to speed. I’d tugged my cell phone from my pocket as soon as Jeannie and I made amends. We were walking back to the hangar.
    “Could be,” I said, “But this airstrip looks more like a hobbyist’s parking lot than anything else. The only planes in the air all week have been Rick’s.”
    I studied the vacant metal buildings and hangars as we passed them. All were chained shut. One had a faded metal sign bolted to the door:
Man with shotgun guarding premises three nights each week. You guess which nights.
    No lights were on inside any of the buildings, and no cars were outside either. Small planes around them were all tied down. Grass stood tall around their landing gear, telling me they hadn’t been moved for a while. What better place for criminals to set up shop?
    I told Richard what David said about Trish’s brother.
    “I’ll check the name Mark Dalton and cross-reference it with the restaurant in Austin,” he said. “Let’s see if Trish’s brother is the manager you remember from Mattie’s case.”
    “You got anything on Craig Clement?”
    “Not yet. He’s tough. I do have a good start on David Meyer, though. He has a government job, so there’s a nice paper trail on him.”
    I filled Richard in about David’s troubles at CPS.
    “Hard to do much on a Sunday,” he said. “I’ll call tomorrow when folks are back at work.”
    I realized tomorrow was Monday. I was supposed to be back at my own desk at eight o’clock. That further soured my mood.
    “Anything else?” he asked.
    There was something else. Richard had played a part in setting Wesley Reed free and had inadvertently contributed to the catastrophe that broke my family. But his own family had been threatened and I should tell him I understood—even if I wasn’t sure I could forgive. But this didn’t seem the right time.
    “No,” I said. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
    I closed my phone and turned to Jeannie. “Got a few problems.”
    “Don’t we all.”
    “Tomorrow I might get fired. And the boogie’s almost over, so tonight we’ve got no place to stay.”

Chapter Twenty-one
    That evening there was a lull while the plane got refueled and Vince took a dinner break. It was the first chance I’d had to speak with him alone. We sat on the wooden Cessna mock-up in the training room adjoining the hangar, and he unwrapped a Butterfinger and popped the top on a can of Sprite.
    “I fixed that guitar string you broke at the beach,” he said.
    Windsocks swelled and deflated on their posts in the landing field. The sun crept toward the horizon, but was still high enough to warm my face and arms. Skydivers with nothing else to do tossed a Frisbee. Another group drove golf balls.
    “Figure we’ll squeeze in one more load, then call it good,” he continued. “Wanna get some coffee afterward? I’ll even let you play for me.”
    It sounded better than what I had planned.
    “Can I take a rain check? Tonight’s not good.”
    Vince snapped his fingers, like he’d remembered something.
    “Right,” he said. “Your job.”
    “What?”
    “The new NASA job starts tomorrow. Red mentioned it. Good luck.”
    Lying to Vince felt unnatural and wrong. I looked at him. He tipped his Sprite to offer a sip. I shook my head.
    “I have an early morning too,” he said. “Taking the Otter back to Tulsa.”
    I wanted to get at what was nagging me, but felt like a big fat hypocrite. Even if Vince had broken my confidence, it would be minor compared to the pack of lies I’d told. Or, more accurately, the pack of truths I’d withheld.
    I asked anyway.
    “Vince, last night in the parking lot…Did you mention our talk to anybody?”
    “Of course not,” he said. “Why?”
    I believed him.
    “It’s nothing,” I said. Speculating about how Scud knew Annette’s name might make me look like a head case. “All that stuff’s private to me, that’s all.”
    He placed a hand on my back and made small, comforting circles before patting it lightly and drawing away.
    Someone outside ran to catch the Frisbee, reached too far, and tripped. He rolled in the grass and rebounded to his feet.
    I could tell without looking that Vince