Saint Rose, Louisiana, Trixie decided, was the Parson’s Mill of the South. Really, it seemed odd there were even two cemeteries in such a tiny town. The first thing that struck her as she clambered out of their rented Malibu was the intense wave of heat. Even though the sun was setting, she guessed the temperature to still be well into the 90’s. “This is insane,” she told Regan as she pulled her hair up off her neck. “How do people actually live in a place this hot? Hell’s got nothing on the deep south.”
“You get used to it after awhile. The same way we get used to the snow and cold in winter.”
“I’ll take the snow, thanks. At least we can bundle up to stay warm. There’s only so many layers of clothing you can take off to stay cool before you’re stark naked.”
He looked over at her, flashing her a wicked smile. “Now you’re just making me want to convince you we should move to Florida, Wildcat.”
“Uh, huh.”
He walked around the car and grabbed her for a quick kiss. “Would you at least promise that you’ll always wear as little as possible to bed at night?”
“Only if you promise the same.”
“Deal.”
They found the entrance to the cemetery facing an unlit road that appeared to get minimal use. There was a gate, but it hung open, loose at the hinges. Trixie panned her flashlight around, taking in the broken and crumbing gravestones and overgrown sites. “This isn’t good,” she murmured. “I hope we can find what we’re looking for and it hasn’t been worn down so much that we can’t even read it.”
“Don’t jinx us, baby,” he cautioned, not certain whether or not he was actually joking as he said the words.
The marker for Neall Regan was near the main walkway through the center of the cemetery. At some point, it had fallen slightly forward and tilted to one side. Although there was a jagged crack along the top, they could still make out the inscription. Regan exhaled hard as he read the dates. “Right birthday. Wrong year. Again. I’m guessing this means we still haven’t found the last grave. And what do you make of ‘Seasons change and time slips by. My soul drifts through a golden sky’?”
“Sounds like part of a poem. Rhyming lines. Cryptic meaning.”
“It must be the clue?”
She snorted softly and nodded. “Presumably. Unfortunately. Poetry is definitely not my thing. You know who does really like it, though? Dan.”
“Dan?”
“Yeah. You know. Dan. Stands about this tall. Sprung from the same gene pool you came out of.”
“Dan likes poetry?”
“Hmmm, hmmm. Sleepyside High has a big poetry unit in junior year English. Just about everybody dreads it, but your wacky nephew got totally into it. I dunno. It was kinda cute. He even tried his hand a writing a few verses. I guess he didn’t tell you about it, though.”
“Uh. No.”
She had walked around the stone as she spoke and was now peering closely at the base.
“Is there anything there?” he asked her as she slowly straightened.
“Yes. Two words.”
“And they are?” he prompted as she stood staring at him, expression blank.
“Granite Quarry.”
“That’s really it?”
“Yeah. That’s it. That’s what we have to work with.”
~~~~~~~~~~
“I always wanted to visit New Orleans,” Trixie said as she balanced herself on a low brick wall. “Too bad it’s not under much better circumstances.” She held up her hand to shade her eyes from the early morning sun as she watched a riverboat chugging along the Mississippi, packed with tourists gathered along the rails. The sky overhead was a pale blue without a single cloud in sight. She sighed, knowing it was going to be another scorcher of a day.
“Maybe we can come back sometime for a real vacation,” Regan suggested. “If you want.”
She stretched her arms behind her and tried not to groan out loud. Their accommodations the night before had proved to be the worst they’d found yet since leaving New York. She was aching in places she hadn’t even known could hurt. “Only if you promise we stay somewhere that doesn’t have a bed less comfortable than a pile of rocks.”
“You can consider that a given.”
“Okay. So, here’s what I’m thinking. According to this guidebook, the Riverwalk is a popular shopping mall that attracts plenty of visitors. Let’s head in that direction and if we think we’re being followed, maybe we can disappear into the crowd. There’s an internet café inside. We can go online and see what we can find out about granite quarries and that golden sky poem.”
Regan nodded, his eyes scanning their immediate vicinity. “There are tricks to losing yourself in a crowd. One of the best ways to do it is find a large group of people and walk alongside them. Make it look like you’re with them. It has to be the right kind of group, though. A pack of teens - especially all boys - will attract a lot of unwanted attention if there are any cops around.”
Trixie stared at him, not certain what to say. There were times when she simply forgot about his awful history. His years of living on the streets. He gave her a gentle smile and took her hand, and she knew he was well aware of where her mind had wandered. He pulled her up and kissed her lightly. “C’mon, Wildcat. Let’s go find this mall and internet café.”
~~~~~~~~~~
“As far as I can tell, no one’s paying us any particular attention. It probably would be a good idea not to stay here for very long, though.” Regan leaned up against the tall table, waiting as Trixie plugged in her laptop.
“I know. I’ll be as quick as possible. If I can’t come up with anything within fifteen or so minutes, then I suggest we move on. If we have to, we can rent another motel room, even if we don’t actually stay the night there.” She looked over at the young woman behind the counter. “You’d better go order something, or we might be told to leave.”
“I’ll get a cup of coffee. Do you want anything?”
“Um… one of the blackberry muffins and a bottle of water.” She flashed him a somewhat distracted smile of thanks as she set up an account to go online. Using the credit card in Sarah White’s name, she purchased a half-hour block of time.
Regan waited while two elderly women debated the merits of ordering a “light breakfast” or sharing a large pastry and later seeking out an early lunch. He kept his focus on Trixie, watching her as she worked. She frowned at her screen, then quickly typed something and her expression changed to one of pensive thought.
By the time he’d purchased their order and returned to the table, she’d shut her laptop and was staring fixedly out the large window at the bustling activity on the river below. “Wildcat?”
“So… turns out this was a much easier clue to solve than I’d thought. Really, I don’t know where we’d be right now without the internet, but with it… Yeah. The line on the marker. ‘Seasons change and time slips by. My soul drifts through a golden sky.’ It is part of a poem. From an early 1960’s book by an obscure poet named Mary Sturgis. She was born in Colorado and as a young woman, she published this book of poems raving about her home state. This one in particular? It’s called Telluride. And as it turns out, there’s a company there in the town. A monument company with the sorta quirky name of Granite Quarry. This isn’t a cemetery this time, and I don’t know what we’re supposed to find at Granite Quarry, but I think it’s pretty evident that’s where we’re supposed to go next.”
“Okay. Is there a problem, though? You look… worried.”
“Aside from the fact that I don’t know what we’re supposed to find? Regan, according to my map search, it’s about a twenty-two hour drive to Telluride. And once there? Who knows where we’ll be sent next. We’re running out of time. I want to…” She cut herself off, shaking her head. “No. I don’t know.”
“What is it, baby? What do you want to do?”
“I want to risk putting in a call to Mr. Wheeler. I don’t think it would be safe to take a commercial flight. I’m pretty sure someone knows our fake identities and we’d be flagged as soon as we bought our tickets, but maybe he could arrange a private flight for us. I just don’t know if we can afford to give up almost a full day to driving, even if we pushed on through without stopping. We don’t know how many more clues we have to follow or how much more time we need.”
“We don’t have a phone,” he pointed out. “We could look for a pay phone, but those aren’t very common anymore, now that so many people have cell phones. I don’t know how hard one would be to find.”
“Actually, I was thinking of purchasing one of those prepaid, disposable phones. I’m sure we could find a shop around here somewhere that sells them.”
“There was a sort of drug store and gift shop down near the mall entrance. They might have them.”
“Okay. As soon as you’re finished your coffee-“
He set the mug down on the table. “We can go now. This tastes like crap. I wasn’t going to finish it anyway.”
~~~~~~~~~~
“It’s a nice plane,” Trixie said as she strapped herself into her seat. “I don’t know what I was expecting when Mr. Wheeler told us he’d hired a pilot who usually takes people skydiving.”
“Well, we’re no frills,” Philip Chen called from up front, “so don’t be expecting any in-flight service.” He turned to look over his shoulder, grinning. “I usually don’t have to provide beverages and peanuts because my passengers bail on me before that time would come.”
“No worries,” she said, returning his smile. “We brought our own snacks. And we really appreciate you doing this.”
“Sure thing. Sit back and relax and we should be touching down right around dinner time.”
“A nap would be nice,” she admitted as she looked back at Regan. “I know we didn’t do a lot today other than sit and wait for this flight, but I still feel worn out.”
“It’s been a helluva week, Wildcat, and it’s still not over. Get some sleep if you can.”
She nodded and leaned her head back, closing her eyes. “Wake me when we land,” she murmured wearily.
~~~~~~~~~~
The small explosion violently shook the entire plane. Trixie sat up with a startled jerk as Regan launched himself from his seat.
It took less than ten seconds for him to determine two things. One, the plane’s console had blown out and was useless and two, Philip Chen was dead. His blank staring eyes and large chest wound let Regan know the man was past help. He whirled around. They had minutes – at the most – to save themselves.
“Wh – what happened?” Trixie asked, confused. The plane was descending at a rate that made her stomach twist in knots.
“Looks like sabotage.” He yanked open a narrow cabinet door to find exactly what he was hoping to find. Several packs neatly stacked. For a moment he considered the options, realizing almost immediately that they really only had one. He could strap Trixie into her own parachute, but it was highly possible she would fail to pull the cord when she needed to. It was also likely she’d not be able to control her landing enough and they could be separated by an appreciable distance. The only logical choice was a tandem-style jump.
“Baby, listen to me,” he said firmly. “Our pilot’s been killed and this plane is going to crash. We have to jump.”
“What?” Trixie exclaimed, wide-eyed. “Jump? We’re going to jump?”
Regan grabbed a parachute and swung it around. It occurred to him that if it was improperly packed, they could be plunging to their deaths, but he still preferred the odds of their survival with the chute over the chance they could live through the plane slamming into the side of a mountain.
Trixie was breathing too hard, her mind racing with horrifying thoughts and visions. “How do you even know what to do? What if you don’t put it on right or you pull the wrong cord or-“
He glanced up at her. “Baby, we don’t have any time to argue or discuss this. Put your backpack on and tighten it as much as possible. You’re going to have to trust me. Remember when I got you down the cliffs back home because I’d scaled them before? What did you ask me? If I had suicidal tendencies? When you and the Bob-Whites were off on all your adventures, I went on vacations of my own, too. I’ve been skydiving several times. I’m not claiming to be an expert, but I’m not wholly clueless here, either.” He was strapped in by the time he was finished speaking. He held out one hand. “Come here.”
He felt every second passing as he bound her to him, using the extra harness and the rope from the chute’s bag. He knew they were almost out of time. Four long steps had them to the front of the plane. Trixie clung to Regan, her fear and panic highly evident.
“Wildcat," he said, forcing a calmness to his voice.
She clutched the straps on the parachute and shuddered.
“I’ve got you, baby. I promise. Just close your eyes.”
It took all of his strength to pop open the door. The rush of air was shockingly cold and for a moment, he felt frozen in place. Far below them, dark green forest stretched away in all directions. He drew in a deep breath and sent up a heartfelt prayer before leaping from the disabled plane. Though Trixie was bound to him as securely as possible, he wrapped his arms tightly about her. She screamed as they tumbled away in a free fall, the sound torn from her throat with a power only complete terror could create, and yet it was almost instantly lost in the roar of wind that surrounded them.
He mentally counted seconds, hoping he was waiting the right amount of time without waiting too long, then reached up and yanked on the cord to release the chute. Their descent was slowed with a jarring jerk and Trixie screamed again. Regan blinked hard against the stinging in his eyes. He scanned the area below them, looking for any break in the trees that might indicate a safe place to land, knowing that though they'd escaped likely death in a fiery crash, they were by no means out of danger just yet.
Trixie slowly opened her eyes, squinting hard. They seemed so far above the world, with the horizon curving off in the distance, a brilliant blue dome above the emerald green below. The sunlight sparkled on the snowy peaks that stretched off in both directions, and an inexplicable peacefulness welled up in her. There was an un-realness to it all. They were drifting along and she had no sense of time, speed, or distance. Everything was clear, clean, and more beautiful than she thought she could ever put into words.
It wasn’t until she could begin to make out individual trees that she could tell how fast the Earth was rising up to meet them. With a gasp, she shut her eyes tight and pressed her face against Regan’s chest, waiting for the moment they hit the ground.
He’d spotted the field at enough distance that he was able to angle them around, guiding their descent until they were over an open space and not in danger of crashing into any trees. Their landing was harder than he would have liked, sending them both into a tumbling roll, but they came to a stop with him on his back and her on top, and for a moment, all he could do was breathe in and out, acknowledging how grateful he was that they were alive. He could feel Trixie shaking and hear her quiet sobs. He held her tight as she cried and gave her time to regain her control.
~~~~~~~~~~
Matthew hung up the phone with a shaking hand. He sat back in his seat, wondering how he would find the courage to deliver the devastating news. God. How was he going to tell Trixie’s family? And Honey? And what about Dan? What could he tell them all that allowed for any bit of hope? The plane had dropped off the radar about thirty minutes before it was due to land and they’d lost all contact with the pilot. No one knew where they were or what had happened to them.
He sighed heavily and pushed away from his desk. This wasn’t the sort of thing you told someone over the phone. He would visit Crabapple Farm first and explain the situation to Peter and Helen. After that, he would decide his next move.
~~~~~~~~~~
Regan poked at the fire, carefully shifting a branch. He glanced at the sky. The sun would be setting soon and there was no saying whether or not their smoke had been enough to catch the attention of anyone in a fire lookout tower. Trixie sat at his side, staring silently at the flames. “Are you all right?” he asked her quietly.
“I didn’t know you knew how to use a couple of rocks to start a fire. I’ve only ever seen that in movies and stuff.”
He smiled faintly at that. “Basic survival skills I learned as a kid.”
“How come you never told me you’ve been skydiving?”
“I… I don’t know. I guess it never came up?” He paused to consider it for a moment. “I think – this is going to sound silly, but I think there were times when I was jealous of the Bob-Whites and maybe I was a bit lonely? I had to be the grown-up all the time, so when there were chances to go off and do something just for fun, I took them.”
“What else did you do?”
“Hmmm. Rock climbing. Skydiving. Kayaking. I tried scuba diving once, but I couldn’t get into it. Joan and I went hot air ballooning a few times, though I don’t know if that really counts in the sense that you’re asking me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?” he asked, puzzled by her apology.
“I feel like I was so wrapped up in my own life and the Bob-Whites and… well, maybe I didn’t really see you as a person, with a life of your own. You were the guy in charge of the horses and Dan’s uncle and a friend, of course, but…” She shrugged slightly before continuing. “I never really stopped to consider what you did when we weren’t around. And that’s really self-absorbed and-“
“Wildcat. Stop. It’s all right.”
“I did always know you were there. I mean, like if we needed you. If I needed you. I always knew I could go to you for help. I think there was always a bit of hero worship going on, honestly.” Her brow furrowed and she looked up at him. “I guess there still is. I joke about it sometimes… but you’re my rock and my hero and I can’t imagine what I’d do without you.”
He reached out and lightly skimmed his fingers across her cheek. “I am so sorry you’ve been pulled into this nightmare, baby. I don’t particularly feel heroic… I feel like thanks to my family, I’ve endangered you and put you at risk and there’s really no way I can make up for any of it.”
She swallowed hard and looked away. “There’s… there’s something I need to tell you.”
“What?”
“I was gonna tell you tonight. I thought we’d get to Telluride and get a hotel and then I would tell you, but now… Well. We’re probably spending the night here and I guess I should just go ahead and say it.”
“Wildcat? You’re starting to alarm me.”
“When I called Mr. Wheeler, he told me something and I was hoping I’d be able to come up with a good way to tell you.”
“I’ve been fired?” he hazarded.
“Uh, no. Regan, I… Maggie’s dead. She was found at the bottom of her cellar stairs. She was in critical condition and taken to a hospital, but she didn’t make it and it’s been ruled an accident but I guess everyone thinks it was murder.”
“They killed Mairéad?”
She nodded, and he could see tears gathering in her eyes.
“Dammit,” he growled. “She didn’t deserve that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. This… What the hell was my father thinking?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if we’ll ever know.”
“What good did it do to kill an old woman like that? It doesn’t even make sense!”
“It’s because we’re dealing with more than one group here. There are people who want us to find the bomb for them and people who want to stop us. I’m pretty sure Mr. Wheeler’s phone must be tapped. How else would they have known to sabotage our plane? And that makes me think at least some of the people involved are government agents of some kind. At this point? I don’t even know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are.”
“We’re the good guys, Wildcat. And I don’t trust anyone else. Why do you think some people want to stop us, though? It seems like all parties involved should want us to succeed so they can try to get their hands on the damn thing.”
“I’m not totally sure. I have a theory.”
“And that is…?”
“I think the people who want us to find it are connected to the government in some way. They want their toy back. I think the people who don’t want us to find it must be connected to the team of researchers your father was working with. For some reason, they don’t want this bomb to ever see the light of day. They want it to remain hidden forever. Now, I guess in a way that would be okay, if it was only because they didn’t want anyone to ever be hurt by it, but since they’re the ones who have killed people and tried to kill us, I don’t think their reasons are all ‘save the world’-ish. There’s something more personal involved.”
“If they find us, the ‘tried to kill us’ will become ‘trying again,’” Regan said darkly.
“I know. And I realize that at least some of the people involved may not fall into either of those groups. It could be some kind of terrorists or something. Remember, I was warned about ‘foreign interests.’ We don’t have enough to go on yet to know for sure. What we do know is someone wants to stop us at all costs and someone else wants us to succeed in a very short amount of time. Time that’s running out and we’re stuck out here in the middle of nowhere.”
He sighed and pulled her closer to him. “We’ll find a way out of this, baby. I saw more than one fire tower when we jumped. Someone will spot the smoke. If not tonight, then in the morning.”
“Yeah. In the meantime, I’m really glad you had the presence of mind to make me jump with my backpack. At least we have the water and candy bars I put in there for our in-flight snacks. That’s better than nothing.”
~~~~~~~~~~
“We don’t know anything yet,” Peter said, hearing the unsteadiness in his voice. “All we know for sure is that the plane it missing.”
“Doesn’t that mean it crashed?” Bobby demanded. He looked back and forth between his parents and could see they were trying to cover up how upset and worried they were.
“It… might have,” Peter conceded. “Or it could be that they flew to an unknown destination off the radar for some reason.”
“You mean like a hijacking?”
“Possibly. Or they may have had some sort of mechanical malfunction and made an emergency landing.”
Matthew quietly shut his phone and stepped back into the kitchen. “That was the latest update I could get,” he explained quietly. “There are some initial reports of a small plane going down in an ‘uncontrolled descent’. Apparently a group of hikers called it in. Emergency services hasn’t located it yet.”
Helen put her hand to her mouth to hold back a scream. She was only distantly aware of her husband’s arms around her as she silently cried.
“You get used to it after awhile. The same way we get used to the snow and cold in winter.”
“I’ll take the snow, thanks. At least we can bundle up to stay warm. There’s only so many layers of clothing you can take off to stay cool before you’re stark naked.”
He looked over at her, flashing her a wicked smile. “Now you’re just making me want to convince you we should move to Florida, Wildcat.”
“Uh, huh.”
He walked around the car and grabbed her for a quick kiss. “Would you at least promise that you’ll always wear as little as possible to bed at night?”
“Only if you promise the same.”
“Deal.”
They found the entrance to the cemetery facing an unlit road that appeared to get minimal use. There was a gate, but it hung open, loose at the hinges. Trixie panned her flashlight around, taking in the broken and crumbing gravestones and overgrown sites. “This isn’t good,” she murmured. “I hope we can find what we’re looking for and it hasn’t been worn down so much that we can’t even read it.”
“Don’t jinx us, baby,” he cautioned, not certain whether or not he was actually joking as he said the words.
The marker for Neall Regan was near the main walkway through the center of the cemetery. At some point, it had fallen slightly forward and tilted to one side. Although there was a jagged crack along the top, they could still make out the inscription. Regan exhaled hard as he read the dates. “Right birthday. Wrong year. Again. I’m guessing this means we still haven’t found the last grave. And what do you make of ‘Seasons change and time slips by. My soul drifts through a golden sky’?”
“Sounds like part of a poem. Rhyming lines. Cryptic meaning.”
“It must be the clue?”
She snorted softly and nodded. “Presumably. Unfortunately. Poetry is definitely not my thing. You know who does really like it, though? Dan.”
“Dan?”
“Yeah. You know. Dan. Stands about this tall. Sprung from the same gene pool you came out of.”
“Dan likes poetry?”
“Hmmm, hmmm. Sleepyside High has a big poetry unit in junior year English. Just about everybody dreads it, but your wacky nephew got totally into it. I dunno. It was kinda cute. He even tried his hand a writing a few verses. I guess he didn’t tell you about it, though.”
“Uh. No.”
She had walked around the stone as she spoke and was now peering closely at the base.
“Is there anything there?” he asked her as she slowly straightened.
“Yes. Two words.”
“And they are?” he prompted as she stood staring at him, expression blank.
“Granite Quarry.”
“That’s really it?”
“Yeah. That’s it. That’s what we have to work with.”
~~~~~~~~~~
“I always wanted to visit New Orleans,” Trixie said as she balanced herself on a low brick wall. “Too bad it’s not under much better circumstances.” She held up her hand to shade her eyes from the early morning sun as she watched a riverboat chugging along the Mississippi, packed with tourists gathered along the rails. The sky overhead was a pale blue without a single cloud in sight. She sighed, knowing it was going to be another scorcher of a day.
“Maybe we can come back sometime for a real vacation,” Regan suggested. “If you want.”
She stretched her arms behind her and tried not to groan out loud. Their accommodations the night before had proved to be the worst they’d found yet since leaving New York. She was aching in places she hadn’t even known could hurt. “Only if you promise we stay somewhere that doesn’t have a bed less comfortable than a pile of rocks.”
“You can consider that a given.”
“Okay. So, here’s what I’m thinking. According to this guidebook, the Riverwalk is a popular shopping mall that attracts plenty of visitors. Let’s head in that direction and if we think we’re being followed, maybe we can disappear into the crowd. There’s an internet café inside. We can go online and see what we can find out about granite quarries and that golden sky poem.”
Regan nodded, his eyes scanning their immediate vicinity. “There are tricks to losing yourself in a crowd. One of the best ways to do it is find a large group of people and walk alongside them. Make it look like you’re with them. It has to be the right kind of group, though. A pack of teens - especially all boys - will attract a lot of unwanted attention if there are any cops around.”
Trixie stared at him, not certain what to say. There were times when she simply forgot about his awful history. His years of living on the streets. He gave her a gentle smile and took her hand, and she knew he was well aware of where her mind had wandered. He pulled her up and kissed her lightly. “C’mon, Wildcat. Let’s go find this mall and internet café.”
~~~~~~~~~~
“As far as I can tell, no one’s paying us any particular attention. It probably would be a good idea not to stay here for very long, though.” Regan leaned up against the tall table, waiting as Trixie plugged in her laptop.
“I know. I’ll be as quick as possible. If I can’t come up with anything within fifteen or so minutes, then I suggest we move on. If we have to, we can rent another motel room, even if we don’t actually stay the night there.” She looked over at the young woman behind the counter. “You’d better go order something, or we might be told to leave.”
“I’ll get a cup of coffee. Do you want anything?”
“Um… one of the blackberry muffins and a bottle of water.” She flashed him a somewhat distracted smile of thanks as she set up an account to go online. Using the credit card in Sarah White’s name, she purchased a half-hour block of time.
Regan waited while two elderly women debated the merits of ordering a “light breakfast” or sharing a large pastry and later seeking out an early lunch. He kept his focus on Trixie, watching her as she worked. She frowned at her screen, then quickly typed something and her expression changed to one of pensive thought.
By the time he’d purchased their order and returned to the table, she’d shut her laptop and was staring fixedly out the large window at the bustling activity on the river below. “Wildcat?”
“So… turns out this was a much easier clue to solve than I’d thought. Really, I don’t know where we’d be right now without the internet, but with it… Yeah. The line on the marker. ‘Seasons change and time slips by. My soul drifts through a golden sky.’ It is part of a poem. From an early 1960’s book by an obscure poet named Mary Sturgis. She was born in Colorado and as a young woman, she published this book of poems raving about her home state. This one in particular? It’s called Telluride. And as it turns out, there’s a company there in the town. A monument company with the sorta quirky name of Granite Quarry. This isn’t a cemetery this time, and I don’t know what we’re supposed to find at Granite Quarry, but I think it’s pretty evident that’s where we’re supposed to go next.”
“Okay. Is there a problem, though? You look… worried.”
“Aside from the fact that I don’t know what we’re supposed to find? Regan, according to my map search, it’s about a twenty-two hour drive to Telluride. And once there? Who knows where we’ll be sent next. We’re running out of time. I want to…” She cut herself off, shaking her head. “No. I don’t know.”
“What is it, baby? What do you want to do?”
“I want to risk putting in a call to Mr. Wheeler. I don’t think it would be safe to take a commercial flight. I’m pretty sure someone knows our fake identities and we’d be flagged as soon as we bought our tickets, but maybe he could arrange a private flight for us. I just don’t know if we can afford to give up almost a full day to driving, even if we pushed on through without stopping. We don’t know how many more clues we have to follow or how much more time we need.”
“We don’t have a phone,” he pointed out. “We could look for a pay phone, but those aren’t very common anymore, now that so many people have cell phones. I don’t know how hard one would be to find.”
“Actually, I was thinking of purchasing one of those prepaid, disposable phones. I’m sure we could find a shop around here somewhere that sells them.”
“There was a sort of drug store and gift shop down near the mall entrance. They might have them.”
“Okay. As soon as you’re finished your coffee-“
He set the mug down on the table. “We can go now. This tastes like crap. I wasn’t going to finish it anyway.”
~~~~~~~~~~
“It’s a nice plane,” Trixie said as she strapped herself into her seat. “I don’t know what I was expecting when Mr. Wheeler told us he’d hired a pilot who usually takes people skydiving.”
“Well, we’re no frills,” Philip Chen called from up front, “so don’t be expecting any in-flight service.” He turned to look over his shoulder, grinning. “I usually don’t have to provide beverages and peanuts because my passengers bail on me before that time would come.”
“No worries,” she said, returning his smile. “We brought our own snacks. And we really appreciate you doing this.”
“Sure thing. Sit back and relax and we should be touching down right around dinner time.”
“A nap would be nice,” she admitted as she looked back at Regan. “I know we didn’t do a lot today other than sit and wait for this flight, but I still feel worn out.”
“It’s been a helluva week, Wildcat, and it’s still not over. Get some sleep if you can.”
She nodded and leaned her head back, closing her eyes. “Wake me when we land,” she murmured wearily.
~~~~~~~~~~
The small explosion violently shook the entire plane. Trixie sat up with a startled jerk as Regan launched himself from his seat.
It took less than ten seconds for him to determine two things. One, the plane’s console had blown out and was useless and two, Philip Chen was dead. His blank staring eyes and large chest wound let Regan know the man was past help. He whirled around. They had minutes – at the most – to save themselves.
“Wh – what happened?” Trixie asked, confused. The plane was descending at a rate that made her stomach twist in knots.
“Looks like sabotage.” He yanked open a narrow cabinet door to find exactly what he was hoping to find. Several packs neatly stacked. For a moment he considered the options, realizing almost immediately that they really only had one. He could strap Trixie into her own parachute, but it was highly possible she would fail to pull the cord when she needed to. It was also likely she’d not be able to control her landing enough and they could be separated by an appreciable distance. The only logical choice was a tandem-style jump.
“Baby, listen to me,” he said firmly. “Our pilot’s been killed and this plane is going to crash. We have to jump.”
“What?” Trixie exclaimed, wide-eyed. “Jump? We’re going to jump?”
Regan grabbed a parachute and swung it around. It occurred to him that if it was improperly packed, they could be plunging to their deaths, but he still preferred the odds of their survival with the chute over the chance they could live through the plane slamming into the side of a mountain.
Trixie was breathing too hard, her mind racing with horrifying thoughts and visions. “How do you even know what to do? What if you don’t put it on right or you pull the wrong cord or-“
He glanced up at her. “Baby, we don’t have any time to argue or discuss this. Put your backpack on and tighten it as much as possible. You’re going to have to trust me. Remember when I got you down the cliffs back home because I’d scaled them before? What did you ask me? If I had suicidal tendencies? When you and the Bob-Whites were off on all your adventures, I went on vacations of my own, too. I’ve been skydiving several times. I’m not claiming to be an expert, but I’m not wholly clueless here, either.” He was strapped in by the time he was finished speaking. He held out one hand. “Come here.”
He felt every second passing as he bound her to him, using the extra harness and the rope from the chute’s bag. He knew they were almost out of time. Four long steps had them to the front of the plane. Trixie clung to Regan, her fear and panic highly evident.
“Wildcat," he said, forcing a calmness to his voice.
She clutched the straps on the parachute and shuddered.
“I’ve got you, baby. I promise. Just close your eyes.”
It took all of his strength to pop open the door. The rush of air was shockingly cold and for a moment, he felt frozen in place. Far below them, dark green forest stretched away in all directions. He drew in a deep breath and sent up a heartfelt prayer before leaping from the disabled plane. Though Trixie was bound to him as securely as possible, he wrapped his arms tightly about her. She screamed as they tumbled away in a free fall, the sound torn from her throat with a power only complete terror could create, and yet it was almost instantly lost in the roar of wind that surrounded them.
He mentally counted seconds, hoping he was waiting the right amount of time without waiting too long, then reached up and yanked on the cord to release the chute. Their descent was slowed with a jarring jerk and Trixie screamed again. Regan blinked hard against the stinging in his eyes. He scanned the area below them, looking for any break in the trees that might indicate a safe place to land, knowing that though they'd escaped likely death in a fiery crash, they were by no means out of danger just yet.
Trixie slowly opened her eyes, squinting hard. They seemed so far above the world, with the horizon curving off in the distance, a brilliant blue dome above the emerald green below. The sunlight sparkled on the snowy peaks that stretched off in both directions, and an inexplicable peacefulness welled up in her. There was an un-realness to it all. They were drifting along and she had no sense of time, speed, or distance. Everything was clear, clean, and more beautiful than she thought she could ever put into words.
It wasn’t until she could begin to make out individual trees that she could tell how fast the Earth was rising up to meet them. With a gasp, she shut her eyes tight and pressed her face against Regan’s chest, waiting for the moment they hit the ground.
He’d spotted the field at enough distance that he was able to angle them around, guiding their descent until they were over an open space and not in danger of crashing into any trees. Their landing was harder than he would have liked, sending them both into a tumbling roll, but they came to a stop with him on his back and her on top, and for a moment, all he could do was breathe in and out, acknowledging how grateful he was that they were alive. He could feel Trixie shaking and hear her quiet sobs. He held her tight as she cried and gave her time to regain her control.
~~~~~~~~~~
Matthew hung up the phone with a shaking hand. He sat back in his seat, wondering how he would find the courage to deliver the devastating news. God. How was he going to tell Trixie’s family? And Honey? And what about Dan? What could he tell them all that allowed for any bit of hope? The plane had dropped off the radar about thirty minutes before it was due to land and they’d lost all contact with the pilot. No one knew where they were or what had happened to them.
He sighed heavily and pushed away from his desk. This wasn’t the sort of thing you told someone over the phone. He would visit Crabapple Farm first and explain the situation to Peter and Helen. After that, he would decide his next move.
~~~~~~~~~~
Regan poked at the fire, carefully shifting a branch. He glanced at the sky. The sun would be setting soon and there was no saying whether or not their smoke had been enough to catch the attention of anyone in a fire lookout tower. Trixie sat at his side, staring silently at the flames. “Are you all right?” he asked her quietly.
“I didn’t know you knew how to use a couple of rocks to start a fire. I’ve only ever seen that in movies and stuff.”
He smiled faintly at that. “Basic survival skills I learned as a kid.”
“How come you never told me you’ve been skydiving?”
“I… I don’t know. I guess it never came up?” He paused to consider it for a moment. “I think – this is going to sound silly, but I think there were times when I was jealous of the Bob-Whites and maybe I was a bit lonely? I had to be the grown-up all the time, so when there were chances to go off and do something just for fun, I took them.”
“What else did you do?”
“Hmmm. Rock climbing. Skydiving. Kayaking. I tried scuba diving once, but I couldn’t get into it. Joan and I went hot air ballooning a few times, though I don’t know if that really counts in the sense that you’re asking me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?” he asked, puzzled by her apology.
“I feel like I was so wrapped up in my own life and the Bob-Whites and… well, maybe I didn’t really see you as a person, with a life of your own. You were the guy in charge of the horses and Dan’s uncle and a friend, of course, but…” She shrugged slightly before continuing. “I never really stopped to consider what you did when we weren’t around. And that’s really self-absorbed and-“
“Wildcat. Stop. It’s all right.”
“I did always know you were there. I mean, like if we needed you. If I needed you. I always knew I could go to you for help. I think there was always a bit of hero worship going on, honestly.” Her brow furrowed and she looked up at him. “I guess there still is. I joke about it sometimes… but you’re my rock and my hero and I can’t imagine what I’d do without you.”
He reached out and lightly skimmed his fingers across her cheek. “I am so sorry you’ve been pulled into this nightmare, baby. I don’t particularly feel heroic… I feel like thanks to my family, I’ve endangered you and put you at risk and there’s really no way I can make up for any of it.”
She swallowed hard and looked away. “There’s… there’s something I need to tell you.”
“What?”
“I was gonna tell you tonight. I thought we’d get to Telluride and get a hotel and then I would tell you, but now… Well. We’re probably spending the night here and I guess I should just go ahead and say it.”
“Wildcat? You’re starting to alarm me.”
“When I called Mr. Wheeler, he told me something and I was hoping I’d be able to come up with a good way to tell you.”
“I’ve been fired?” he hazarded.
“Uh, no. Regan, I… Maggie’s dead. She was found at the bottom of her cellar stairs. She was in critical condition and taken to a hospital, but she didn’t make it and it’s been ruled an accident but I guess everyone thinks it was murder.”
“They killed Mairéad?”
She nodded, and he could see tears gathering in her eyes.
“Dammit,” he growled. “She didn’t deserve that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. This… What the hell was my father thinking?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if we’ll ever know.”
“What good did it do to kill an old woman like that? It doesn’t even make sense!”
“It’s because we’re dealing with more than one group here. There are people who want us to find the bomb for them and people who want to stop us. I’m pretty sure Mr. Wheeler’s phone must be tapped. How else would they have known to sabotage our plane? And that makes me think at least some of the people involved are government agents of some kind. At this point? I don’t even know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are.”
“We’re the good guys, Wildcat. And I don’t trust anyone else. Why do you think some people want to stop us, though? It seems like all parties involved should want us to succeed so they can try to get their hands on the damn thing.”
“I’m not totally sure. I have a theory.”
“And that is…?”
“I think the people who want us to find it are connected to the government in some way. They want their toy back. I think the people who don’t want us to find it must be connected to the team of researchers your father was working with. For some reason, they don’t want this bomb to ever see the light of day. They want it to remain hidden forever. Now, I guess in a way that would be okay, if it was only because they didn’t want anyone to ever be hurt by it, but since they’re the ones who have killed people and tried to kill us, I don’t think their reasons are all ‘save the world’-ish. There’s something more personal involved.”
“If they find us, the ‘tried to kill us’ will become ‘trying again,’” Regan said darkly.
“I know. And I realize that at least some of the people involved may not fall into either of those groups. It could be some kind of terrorists or something. Remember, I was warned about ‘foreign interests.’ We don’t have enough to go on yet to know for sure. What we do know is someone wants to stop us at all costs and someone else wants us to succeed in a very short amount of time. Time that’s running out and we’re stuck out here in the middle of nowhere.”
He sighed and pulled her closer to him. “We’ll find a way out of this, baby. I saw more than one fire tower when we jumped. Someone will spot the smoke. If not tonight, then in the morning.”
“Yeah. In the meantime, I’m really glad you had the presence of mind to make me jump with my backpack. At least we have the water and candy bars I put in there for our in-flight snacks. That’s better than nothing.”
~~~~~~~~~~
“We don’t know anything yet,” Peter said, hearing the unsteadiness in his voice. “All we know for sure is that the plane it missing.”
“Doesn’t that mean it crashed?” Bobby demanded. He looked back and forth between his parents and could see they were trying to cover up how upset and worried they were.
“It… might have,” Peter conceded. “Or it could be that they flew to an unknown destination off the radar for some reason.”
“You mean like a hijacking?”
“Possibly. Or they may have had some sort of mechanical malfunction and made an emergency landing.”
Matthew quietly shut his phone and stepped back into the kitchen. “That was the latest update I could get,” he explained quietly. “There are some initial reports of a small plane going down in an ‘uncontrolled descent’. Apparently a group of hikers called it in. Emergency services hasn’t located it yet.”
Helen put her hand to her mouth to hold back a scream. She was only distantly aware of her husband’s arms around her as she silently cried.