A Kiss in the Dark (28 page)

Sedona frowned. “No. Of course not. Why would I think that?”

“Because that’s what they all think.”

Sedona spread her hands. “Well, not me. Look, I’m not here to interrogate you. I’m just trying to get an understanding of the whole process, and wanted to ask what it is plane captains do before a jet launches. You know, what kinds of safety checks you perform.”

He stopped and narrowed his eyes at her. “Why?”

Okay, the kid was beginning to irritate her. “Because I happen to have a…good friend test-flying these jets, and it sure as hell would make me feel better to know you and the other guys are doing everything you can to keep him safe.”

He stopped, hands braced on his hips, and stared at her, and suddenly he looked weary and resigned, and much older than she’d originally thought.

“Look, it’s a tough job. We work long days, sometimes sixteen-hour shifts. We’re each assigned our own aircraft, and it’s our job to make sure they’re safe to fly.”

“So you perform inspections?” Sedona prompted.

He squinted up at the sky and then back at her face. “Yeah. We do constant inspections. We check fluid levels, prepare the cockpit for flight and make sure there’s no FOD, stuff like that.”

“FOD? As in foreign object damage?”

He gave her a look that said he knew she was fishing. “Yes. Exactly like that.”

Sedona refused to be intimidated. “So you would notice if a ball bearing, for example, was rolling around inside the engine compartment?”

Airman Laudano compressed his lips. “Yes, ma’am. I would. I’m the final set of eyes for the aircraft. The safety net, so to speak. The plane, the pilot and the mission rest solely on how well I do my job.” He practically bit each word out.

“And do you do your job well, Airman?”

He gave her one long, contemptuous look and then turned on his heel and began walking away. “Speak to my XO. Ma’am.”

XO? Ah, military-speak for commanding officer.

“I may just do that,” she murmured.

As she turned thoughtfully away, she saw two men standing outside the Coyote hangar. Even from a distance, she recognized one of them as Captain Dawson. She squared her shoulders. He might intimidate her, but it wouldn’t prevent her from asking about Airman Laudano’s competency as a plane captain. Even as she made up her mind to do so, Captain Dawson turned away and entered the hangar. As she walked across the tarmac, Sedona recognized the second man.

“Excuse me, Lieutenant Palmer?”

He turned toward her with a smile. “Miss Stewart. We meet again.” The surprise in his voice was unmistakable. “What brings you over to this part of the base? I’d think the engine inspections would keep you busy enough.”

Sedona laughed. “Oh, they do. I was actually taking a look at the two compromised Coyotes that just came in.”

His smile grew quizzical. “Were they helpful to you?”

“Yes, actually, they were.” She hesitated. “I was just curious as to which of your plane captains were responsible for overseeing the jets that crashed or had in-flight problems.”

“Miss Stewart,” he began, but Sedona cut him off.

“Please, Lieutenant, I’m not jumping to any conclusions. I just thought…” She paused, and then plunged ahead. “I just thought Airman Laudano seemed a little…well, hostile, when I spoke to him.”

Lieutenant Palmer’s eyebrows shot up. “You spoke to my guys?”

Sedona frowned. “Is there a problem with that?”

“I guess not. It’s just that…well, the kid’s been under a lot of pressure, there’s no question about it.” He removed his hat and rubbed the back of his head. “Airman Laudano is one of our best plane captains. Unfortunately, he’s dealing with some personal issues. So if he seems a little unfriendly, please try to understand.”

“Can I ask what those personal issues are?”

The officer held her gaze. “I’m not at liberty to discuss it.”

“Wow. It must be pretty serious, then. What is it? Drugs?”

Lieutenant Palmer frowned, pinched the bridge of his nose, and looked away, not answering.

Sedona gaped at him. “That’s it, isn’t it? Why is he still working on your flight line?”

“He hasn’t been convicted, and his blood tests came back clean.” The lieutenant’s voice was soft, but had a steely edge. “His performance since the incident has been exemplary, and when he’s not on duty, he’s confined to quarters. It’s not a problem.”

“Not a problem? I can’t believe your pilots are willing to have somebody under suspicion of drug possession oversee their aircraft.” Hello! When had the navy surrendered its common sense? With guys like Airman Laudano on the flight line, who needed al-Qaeda?

“Look, maybe it’s better if you just stay away from my guys, okay? The last I heard, your job was to inspect the engines on the grounded jets, not act like some CSI investigator.” Lieutenant Palmer stared with hard eyes over her shoulder toward the flight line, where even now the airman was performing a wing inspection on one of the Coyotes. “Airman Laudano is one of our best plane captains.” He shifted his gaze to Sedona. “And just for the record, none of the planes that experienced problems were under his jurisdiction.”

He turned to walk away, and Sedona only just prevented herself from grabbing his arm to stop him. “So whose planes were they, Lieutenant?” she called after his retreating back.

Lieutenant Palmer kept walking, but gave her a warning look over his shoulder. “Stay away from my men, Miss Stewart.”

She stood for a moment, debating what to do. She couldn’t very well demand information from Captain Dawson, but somehow she would find out whose jets were being compromised. She didn’t know whether it was sheer coincidence that all the affected jets originated here at Lemoore, or something more ominous, but until she figured out what was going on, there was no way Angel was going up in one of Airman Laudano’s jets.

12

A
NGEL
STOOD
BESIDE
the Coyote and stared across the tarmac toward the row of buildings and hangars that bordered the flight line. Even from a distance, he recognized the woman who stood on the walkway, hands on her hips, talking with Ken Larson. If the brightness of her hair hadn’t given her away, her long-legged, straight-backed stance would have.

“Sir!”

Angel dragged his gaze away from Sedona and Ken and looked at his plane captain, a kid named Wheeler.

“She’s ready, sir!” The kid had to shout over the whine of the engines from two nearby Coyotes, fired up and ready to roll.

Angel had just completed his walk-around visual inspection of the jet he was preparing to test-fly when he’d spotted Sedona striding along the flight line with Larson. She’d said they were nothing more than coworkers, but as he watched, they stopped walking and Larson moved closer to her.

What the hell was going on? Their faces were scant inches apart. They were arguing about something. The hostile body language was unmistakable. But when Larson shoved a finger in Sedona’s face, Angel saw red. He shoved his flight book at the plane captain.

“This’ll just take a minute,” he growled, but hadn’t gone more than two steps when Wheeler caught his arm.

“Sir?”

“Let go, Wheeler,” he commanded, his voice low and tight. It’d take no more than five minutes to sprint across the tarmac that separated him from Sedona. He could almost feel the satisfaction of smashing a fist into the other man’s face.

“Sir.”
Wheeler’s tone was urgent, breaking through the haze of anger that clouded his mind. “The jet’s ready to go. You’ll miss your window.”

Angel knew the kid was right. He had a flight test to conduct, and walking over to kick Larson’s ass would not only put him behind schedule, it would raise red flags all over the command. The last thing he needed was to attract negative attention from top brass. They’d stick him in a cubicle somewhere and he’d spend the rest of his military career pushing paper. No thanks.

As he watched, Larson turned away from Sedona and continued walking. After a moment, she followed.

Angel spun on his heel toward his jet. “All right, fine,” he muttered. “I’ll take care of it later. Let’s roll.”

Whatever was going on between Sedona and Ken Larson would have to wait until he returned to the hotel. But it sure as hell looked to be more than a difference of opinion between coworkers. If Angel didn’t know better, he’d think the guy had a thing for her.

Had Sedona lied to him? She’d admitted to traveling with Larson before. Maybe the last time she’d traveled with him he’d been the one she’d performed private strip dances for. Hell, for all he knew, she made a habit of screwing different men each time she went on business travel. He might be nothing more than her latest conquest. Just the thought made his chest tighten and his hands curl into fists.

The only thing he knew for sure was that something was definitely going on between Sedona and Larson, and he would find out what. Frustrated, he jerked his helmet on and fastened it. Right now he needed to concentrate on doing his job.

It took all his discipline to climb into the cockpit, fasten his seat belt and focus on performing his flight-readiness checks. Even so, he found it impossible to put Sedona completely out of his mind.

He loved takeoffs. Craved the dizzying speed of accelerating down the runway until that final instant when his wheels left the ground and he wasn’t just airborne—he was flying. But as the earth fell away beneath him and he shot upward through the drifts of clouds, he couldn’t fully appreciate the beauty that surrounded him.

Damned if he wouldn’t rather be on the ground.

He looked down at the tiny patch of earth that was Lemoore Naval Air Station. Where was Sedona right now? Was she with Larson? Images of the two of them together swamped his imagination. He pictured Sedona clinging to the other man, making needful little noises as he pleasured her. His hands tightened on the throttle and he banked sharply, pushing the aircraft through her paces.

He glanced down at his gauges, noting the numbers on the tiny digital clock rapidly rolling away the microseconds. The entire test flight would take no more than two hours. He’d spend several more hours completing paperwork and briefing the admiral. It was still early afternoon. With luck, he’d be back at the hotel by supper time.

It couldn’t be soon enough for him.

* * *

I
T
WAS
ALMOST
ten o’clock when Angel set his empty beer mug down on the bar and pushed his stool back. He hadn’t wanted to go out with the guys again, but having already turned them down the last two times, he couldn’t do it a third. He’d used the base facilities to shower and change his clothes, and had gone along to their favorite club, the 4-Play. But he hadn’t been able to relax and after an hour or so, gave up the pretense.

“Sorry, but I’m calling it a night,” he said, pulling several bills from his wallet and tossing them on the bar. “But you guys hang around. The next one’s on me.”

“Hey, man, why you leaving? Got a hot babe waiting for you, Diablo?”

Angel glanced at the man next to him, a fighter pilot he’d trained with nearly twelve years ago. Steve Platt, call sign “Splatt,” grinned at him.

“Yeah, something like that,” he answered, unwilling to share anything about Sedona with them. They’d use it against him, and even if their ribbing was meant good-naturedly, it would only come back to bite him in the ass. He might not know Sedona as well as he’d like to, but he knew her well enough to guess what her reaction would be to a squadron of Coyote fighter pilots knowing she was intimately involved with him. She’d completely freak. Then she’d unload him like yesterday’s trash.

“Hey, Diablo! Where you going?”

Angel looked at his friend, Tony Gregory, call sign Tuna. It stood for the The Ugliest Naval Aviator.

His own call sign, Diablo, or devil, was one he’d grown accustomed to, whether he liked it or not. It was a tribute to his Spanish heritage, and a deliberate play on his name. Call signs weren’t something you got to choose. You just hoped you got one you could live with, especially since they were often derogatory and cruel approximations of physical limitations or sexual inadequacies.

No one could ever call the navy overly cerebral with the selection of call signs. With his beaky nose and oversize ears, Tuna might be a homely man, but he was an expert pilot, and had been Angel’s wingman on several sorties off the deck of the USS
Abraham Lincoln.

“I have a morning test flight, so I’m bugging out early.”

“Man, no wonder the top brass is always on your ass,” Splatt commented. “Don’t you know this is considered a team-building experience? Don’t you want to show them you’re not really a lone wolf? That you can follow direction and be a team player? C’mon, man, don’t be such an asshole.”

“Don’t forget,” called Tuna, “twelve hours from bottle to throttle!” He lifted his own beer bottle in a mock salute. “That’s why we’re not on the books until tomorrow afternoon.”

He waved away the good-natured protests and ribald comments and worked his way through the crowded bar. Two attractive young women sat at a small table near the door and eyeballed him as he drew closer. When one of them gave him a flirtatious wink and shifted on her bar stool to reveal a slim length of bare leg clad in minuscule shorts, he just smiled at them.

They were young and pretty and obviously looking for some action, but Angel wanted more. With a sense of shock, he realized it was true. Generally speaking, he had no problem with one-night stands. But now he wanted more than just a night of hot sex with a stranger, no matter how beautiful she might be.

He wanted a woman with substance. He wanted an intelligent, self-confident woman who could hold her own in a discussion that involved something besides superficial nonsense. A woman who was self-absorbed and demanding didn’t interest him. He wanted a woman who wouldn’t exploit her femininity or compromise her identity to get ahead. He wanted a woman who made him laugh. A woman who made him burn.

A woman like Sedona.

He couldn’t stop thinking about her. The afternoon briefings had dragged on and on until Angel thought he’d howl with frustration. When they had finally finished for the day, he’d called Sedona’s room but she hadn’t answered. Where was she? She’d said she’d be back at the hotel by six o’clock.

She’d said she would wait for him, but he hadn’t planned on being out this late. While he didn’t expect her to just sit around and twiddle her thumbs until he showed up, he couldn’t imagine where she might be.

Angel caught a cab the short distance from the bar to the hotel. The vehicle pulled up to the front doors and he paid the driver. Then he glanced at his watch. It was nearly 10:30. Would she still be awake? Did he dare wake her up if she wasn’t?

Hell, yes.

He’d thought about nothing else the entire day. He strode through the hotel lobby, ignoring the loud music and voices that drifted toward him from the lounge, which was in full swing at this time of night. As he rode the elevator to the third floor, he blew out his breath. He was nervous, which was completely ridiculous. Of course she’d be there.

He half expected Sedona to be stretched out on his bed, waiting for him, but when he finally entered his room it was dark and quiet. Pushing down his disappointment, he dropped his flight bag onto the bed and flipped on the lights. The connecting door was closed. The message waiting light on the bedside phone was dark. No messages.

Okay. No problem. He’d just open the door and tell her he had to see her. If she was asleep, he’d wake her up. If she was grumpy, he’d make it up to her.

But when he opened the door, it was to find her side of the connecting doors closed. What the hell? Hadn’t she said just that morning that she’d keep her door open for him? Frowning, he turned the knob, relieved when the door pushed open beneath his hand. At least she hadn’t locked it. That was a good sign, right?

Cautiously he stepped into her room. The bedside light was on, but he knew immediately she wasn’t there. The alarm clock radio played softly in the background. A pair of pajama bottoms lay crumpled on the floor beside the bed, and the matching top had been tossed carelessly on top of the blankets. The room still bore the light, floral fragrance that he’d come to associate with Sedona.

The bed looked as if it had recently been occupied. The covers were thrown back and the pillows were stacked on top of each other and pushed against the headboard. A book lay open and facedown on the sheets with an odd-looking, flat-edged pencil next to it.

Curious, he picked it up. It looked like a drawing pencil. He turned the book over and saw it was a hardbound sketchbook. He stared at the drawing on the open page, and his heart skipped a beat.

It was a picture of his face, captured in amazingly lifelike detail. He wore a small smile, and he thought if he touched his fingers to the paper, he might actually feel the indents of his own dimples. In the background of the picture, she’d drawn an F/A-44 Coyote jet, sitting on the deck of an aircraft carrier. The picture was incredibly realistic. From a distance, he might have believed it was a photograph.

Amazed, he flipped through the book. A scrap of paper fluttered out from between the pages and landed on the bed. Picking it up, he saw it was a photo of himself. He recognized it as a clipping from a navy magazine. The Public Affairs office had done a brief story about the pilots who served aboard the USS
Abraham Lincoln,
and accompanied the story with a group photo of the pilots. It wasn’t a great picture of him, and the quality was poor.

Replacing the clipping, he realized there were more sketches of him. In one, he stood in the doorway of an aircraft hangar with his head bent, while an unseen breeze rippled the fabric of his flight suit.

The last picture was of him from the waist up, nude. She’d drawn the texture of his skin so that it gleamed, as if he’d just been sluiced with water. He had his arms bent behind his head, and she’d sculpted the muscles of his stomach, chest and arms with unerring accuracy. The image of him looked out of the picture, directly at the artist. His lips were tilted in the slightest of smiles, so that only a hint of his dimples showed. She’d stopped the drawing low on his hips, just shy of actually showing his credentials, but there was no mistaking the barest hint of his pubic hair.

The picture was alluring. Erotic.

There were more than a dozen pictures of him, each crafted with infinite detail and obvious care. He’d guess some of them had been done months ago, maybe even before he’d been deployed aboard the
Lincoln.

Had she been that aware of him back then? During those six months that he’d first worked with the Defense Procurement Agency, he’d hardly known she existed. The thought was completely humbling, even as alarm bells jangled in his head.

Sedona had obviously harbored a huge crush on him. What were her feelings now? If her most recent drawings of him were any indication, they definitely hadn’t waned. Any idiot could tell how she felt about him just by looking at her artwork.

Christ, he needed a drink.

He placed the sketchbook carefully back where he’d found it and returned to his room. Opening the small fridge, he saw it contained soda, a small bottle of wine and a couple nip-size bottles of sweet liqueur. He definitely needed something stronger. He needed a double shot of bourbon.

He headed down to the hotel bar. He’d have one drink, and then go back upstairs and wait for Sedona to return. He crossed the lobby; the music and noise of the lounge area was raucous. In the short time they’d been at the hotel, he hadn’t been to the bar, and he stood for a moment just inside the entrance to get his bearings and let his eyes adjust to the dim lighting.

As he wove his way through the small tables, he recognized several of the patrons as members of the inspection team. But it wasn’t until he was almost to the bar that he saw her.