Up Close and Dangerous Read online

  That was the correct response from a man who’d had to make hard decisions before, but Karen didn’t like having her theory shot down. She’d accepted that Cam was dead, but she hadn’t yet accepted that there was no one she could blame for it. “Stick your heads in the sand then,” she snapped, and stalked out of Bret’s office.

  Bret sighed and dropped heavily into his chair. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “She’s having a hard time accepting this. We both are, I guess. I pulled all the Skylane’s service records and repair write-ups, and the mechanic and I have gone over them looking for something, anything, that could indicate what went wrong. It’s hard, not knowing what happened.”

  “I’m sorry,” said MaGuire. “I wish I could do more. These situations, where we know they’re gone but we can’t find them, are the toughest we deal with. People need to know. One way or another, they need to know.”

  “Yeah,” Bret said heavily. As if compelled, he picked up the Skylane’s file and opened it again, leafing through each copy of the maintenance reports, the fueling slips, the myriad pieces of paper required on each of their aircraft. Karen had everything on computer, backed up at an online data bank, but in the early days they’d lost all their records because of a catastrophic computer crash and filing their tax reports had been a nightmare. Since then they’d also kept a paper file, regardless of how redundant and archaic. Bret and Dennis had even compared each report with the computer file, to see if anything had been left out or entered incorrectly, something they hadn’t breathed a word of to Karen because she’d have taken their heads off for even suggesting she’d made an error.

  MaGuire watched him with sympathy, knowing how difficult it was to accept that sometimes shit did just happen, with no rhyme or reason.

  Suddenly Bret stiffened, and flipped back to the beginning of the file. MaGuire frowned, reading his body language, and went to stand beside him. “Don’t tell me you found something.”

  “I don’t know,” said Bret. “Maybe I read it wrong. It was the fueling report for that morning.” He leafed through the file again, pulling out the paper that was third from the top and staring at it. “That’s wrong!” he said forcefully. “That’s just fucking wrong!”

  “What is?”

  “This is! Look at the number of gallons pumped. There’s no way.”

  MaGuire looked at the fuel report. “Thirty-nine gallons.”

  “Yeah. The Skylane’s usable capacity is eighty-seven gallons. This doesn’t make sense. The fueling order was to fill the tanks. With a full load, he’d have had to refuel in Salt Lake City, so there’s no way he’d take off with less than half what he needed to get there. Even if he had, when he saw the reading he’d have radioed in and refueled at Walla Walla, not flown right past it.”

  “Yeah.” MaGuire frowned at the report, thinking hard. Karen had come to the doorway and stood there, watching and listening, every cell of her body broadcasting her alertness. “We need to get in touch with the fuel company, find out what their records show. Maybe this is an error.”

  Fueling was handled by a licensed contractor. A phone call elicited the information that their records indicated thirty-nine gallons had been pumped into the Skylane at 6:02 the morning of the flight, and the reports from that day had matched the pump’s total. More phone calls, and soon they were talking to the truck’s operator, who said flatly, “I filled the tanks, just the way the order reads. I checked the valve, and I visually verified. I even thought it was unusual that so much fuel had been left in the tanks, but thought a charter might have been canceled after the plane was already fueled.”

  A plane, especially a charter or commercial plane, didn’t carry unnecessary fuel. Fuel was heavy, and the more a plane carried, the more power was needed to get it where it was going. Usually the refueling order was for enough to get the plane to its destination, with a little extra in case it had to be rerouted or circumstances called for a delay in landing. “Little” was a relative term, of course, but Mike, who had flown the Skylane to Eugene the day before, would never have taken on over half a tank more than what was needed. To be certain, Bret pulled the fuel records from the day Mike had flown the plane. There was no way he could have flown to Eugene and back, and had that much fuel left.

  “So what does this mean?” Karen fiercely demanded. “Cam thought he had enough fuel to get to Salt Lake City, but didn’t? Somebody tampered with his fuel gauge?” Her fists were clenched, her knuckles white.

  MaGuire’s face looked as if it had grown additional lines and wrinkles. “It means there’s a possibility the fuel tanks looked full when they weren’t.”

  Bret closed his eyes. He looked sick. “The simplest way is to put a clear plastic airbag in the tank,” he told Karen. “Fill it with air, no one can see it, and the tank won’t hold as much fuel as it should. It isn’t complicated.”

  “I told you!” she said, trembling with pent-up fury. “He must have had something in mind or he wouldn’t have called that day!”

  “I think we should see if there are any security tapes,” MaGuire said briskly.

  24

  SETH HAD FILLED OUT THE REQUIRED PAPERWORK FOR becoming an employee of the Wingate Group, met his supervisor, was shown where to report, and given an employee badge. Grant Siebold had greased the way for him, he learned; he didn’t have to piss in a cup for a drug test the way every other new employee did. He assumed the “omission” would be discovered at a later date, after any drugs he’d smoked or swallowed would have had time to clear out of his system. He got the message, loud and clear: if he ignored this obvious warning and continued with his old ways, when his urine tested positive for drugs he’d be kicked out on his ass.

  He’d have to do some online checking, see how long marijuana showed up in the system. Thank God, smoking a little weed was as deep as he’d waded in the drug pool; his preferred anesthesia was alcohol. But even that was off the table now.

  Then he went shopping. He’d seen the dress code, even in the mail room: dark pants, white shirt, tie. The shoes could be lace-ups or loafers, but nothing resembling an athletic shoe. Black socks.

  He had always despised the corporate drones and their boring dress code, but now he applied himself with a vengeance to looking just like them. A trip to Nordstrom’s, where he resisted the more stylish choices, accomplished that. On the way home he listened to his voice mail messages. Most of them were from people he’d partied with, wanting to know where he’d been last night. He didn’t return any of the calls. Tamzin’s he deleted without bothering to listen to them.

  He remembered that he didn’t have any food at home, so he detoured to a grocery store. Again, what he bought was out of his norm, because he didn’t even go down the wine or beer aisles. Oatmeal. Cereal. Fruit. Orange juice. Milk. Coffee. His stomach turned flips at the thought of putting any of that in his mouth, but he knew he’d have to eat. Crackers and canned soup rounded out his planned menus.

  Life as he’d known it was over. If he were to survive, he couldn’t afford any more wrong choices or irresponsible behavior. Bleakness filled him like a rainy day, stretching in an endless parade of weeks, months, years, that all looked exactly the same and promised not one minute of sunshine. So be it. He’d earned the grayness.

  After he got home and had put the perishables in the refrigerator, he stripped off his clothes and lay down on the bed, hoping he could nap. The sleepless night he’d spent had left him exhausted, but he couldn’t go to sleep. Memories marched through his head like army ants.

  He must have dozed eventually, because the ringing of the phone jarred him into a sitting position. Grabbing the phone, he focused blearily on the Caller ID. His pulse gave a leap when he recognized the number. He punched the talk button and said, “Bailey?” in a cautious, incredulous tone.

  “Bailey!” Tamzin gave a tittering laugh. “Good God, wash your mouth out with soap!”

  Fuck. Seth sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Tamzin. What are you doing