Emily Locke 01 - Final Approach

“If I were visiting a drop zone and didn’t use all my tickets, I’d cash them in before leaving. But, if it were my home DZ, the place I jumped most of the time, I’d save them for next time. Since whoever bought that ticket left with it, I bet it was a regular, somebody who knew he’d be back.”
    I looked at the picture again. The ticket was the size of a business card and looked like it was generated from a desktop printer. Some of its characters were blurred, I assumed from its stay in Karen Lyons’ mulch bed.
    ULF CO ST SK DIV NG
    $17
    “Gulf Coast Skydiving,” Richard read out loud, filling in the smudged characters. “A mom and pop operation about ninety minutes south of Houston. Your home for the next few days.”
    “What do you want me to do?”
    “Introduce yourself and make friends. Tell me who seems unusual. Find out if anyone’s left town recently. Does anyone have trouble with the law? That sort of thing.”
    “You’re not coming with me?”
    “I was there already, asking questions. If somebody there is involved, or somebodies, it’s better they don’t know you’re with me.”
    I cringed. “I’m not ‘with you,’ Richard.”
    He took back the photograph and closed it in his briefcase hard enough that the tray table under it bobbled.
    Awkward silence followed. Cold-shouldering is worse on an airplane because you have to sit so close.
    I pouted. He ignored me. He reached for a magazine in the seat back and thumbed through a few pages before giving in and speaking first.
    “I’ll think about how we might get a look at those waivers. But, until we can get names, I’d like to work on faces. We’ll—”
    A mild patch of turbulence cut him short.
    When it passed, he started over. “We’ll hide a camera on you and then show pictures of the jumpers to Karen Lyons. Maybe she’ll see a familiar face.”
    “I’ll be in and out of a jumpsuit all day. Anything I wear will get covered up or hurtle toward earth at a hundred-twenty miles per hour. What kind of hot shot camera do you have?”
    Richard slumped. He tapped the rolled magazine in his palm. I enjoyed watching him re-plan because re-planning meant his first idea had been wrong and it felt good to make Richard be wrong. But then I felt a little guilty, since I knew all along his scheming would be unnecessary.
    “Relax,” I said. “Skydivers are hams. The most subtle way to take pictures is to tell them to say ‘Cheese.’”
    After that, we didn’t talk much. Richard leaned his head back and closed his eyes. His face looked gray.
    I thought about what was in store for me at Gulf Coast Skydiving. Would I fit in as easily as I hoped? Could I be a convincing liar? And how well could I judge people, anyway? The last question worried me most, considering who I was sitting next to.

Chapter Four
    In Houston, Richard put me up in a hotel near his office. He made arrangements by cell phone on our way from the airport, dropped me off at the entrance, and told me he’d come back first thing in the morning for a working breakfast. Then he peeled out of the hotel drive so fast you’d think I was a bucket of festering biological waste.
    It was four o’clock Central Time. Going home to an empty house back in Cleveland was no treat, but checking into an empty hotel room was worse. I was already lonely and bored, wondering how to pass the rest of the day without a car to explore town. Movie channels would offer no relief. There could be nothing showing I hadn’t already seen in four years of spending Friday and Saturday nights alone on my couch.
    I checked in and found my room. With the day mostly over, the responsible thing to do would be to work on Bowman’s monthly reports, but what I really wanted to do, although I wasn’t sure why, was have a look at my old journal. The record from
then
—when I still believed Richard was a good guy, there to serve and protect. I pulled it from my gear bag, and stared at its worn cover. I’d stopped journaling years ago, when it seemed little in life was worth remembering anymore.
    I sat on the edge of the neatly made bed and thumbed to the day I’d first met Richard, back when life was good and my family was alive. He was a cop, answering a call. I was traveling on business, killing time. Funny how life tosses folks together.
    ***
    April 8—11:30 a.m.
    Asphyxiating from bus fumes
    I’m curbside, at Austin Bergstrom airport, waiting for the bus that will take me to my rental car. Tried to