The Stranger (33 page)

Tammy and Nikolai walked me to the airplane.

“You better take care of my little sister,” I said to Nikolai.

“Done.” Nikolai stopped a few feet behind us to give Tammy and me a little privacy.

“If you need anything,” I said to Tammy, “if you need me to give that new husband of yours a kick in the ass, just call me, okay?”

“Promise,” Tammy said. “Summer?”

“Yes?”

“Do you know what I like best about Nikolai?”

“What?”

“He doesn’t see me as a sick person,” she said. “He’s not blind. He sees my disease, but he looks past it, to see me, who I am, what I’m capable of doing.”

“You chose well, then.” I hugged her tightly, imbuing her with my love, my blessings and my honest wish that, in this new adventure, she’d find the happiness she deserved.

“What about you?” Tammy said. “What do you like best about Seth Erickson, mind you, when you’re not raving mad at him?”

I didn’t have to think about it long.

“Same as you,” I said. “Same thing exactly.”

* * *

A light sprinkle of snow fell from the leaden sky and a gust of wind snapped the weather sock at the end of the runway as we taxied.

“The front is on the move,” Joe Pilot announced. “We’re cutting it close.”

“We have three whole hours before the storm hits,” Alex said, dismissing the pilot’s concerns. “Plenty of time to get this young lady out to Anchorage and on to Miami. Let’s get out of this hellhole.”

By the self-satisfied expression pasted on his face, things were definitely going his way.

On the way back, the clouds closed rank, but the ride was a million times smoother. The calm before the storm had arrived. We flew sandwiched between two dense layers of clouds in a pocket of smooth air. Every so often the clouds would break. A few times, I thought I saw an eagle flying nearby. I couldn’t stop thinking about Seth. His kindness to my sister warmed my heart, yet he had still decided to lie to me, his girlfriend. Could eagles fly this high?

The peaks of the Alaskan Range poked through the clouds like islands in the sea. I turned my attention to my next goal. I didn’t think Alex was simply going to tell me about his trap for Seth. The way I saw it, I had one chance at finding out. If I hadn’t figured it out by the time we got to Anchorage, I’d refuse to get on the plane until he told me. I’d make a scene if I had to and I was willing to risk the consequences to get the information I needed. Alex needed me out of the way, so I had a shot.

We were roughly at the halfway point when the indicators on the instrument panel went offline. The radar quit. Joe Pilot flicked his fingers against the panel, but nothing came back on.

“Mountain Traffic, this is Beechcraft Baron, Eight-Romeo-Papa,” he reported over the radio. “Come in, Mountain Traffic.”

Nothing.

“We must be having some sort of electric short,” the pilot said. “The instruments are playing hooky and the radio is off. Switching off to visual.”

I had no idea of what that meant, but I didn’t like the way it sounded. Neither did I like the coughing fit that rattled the propeller outside my window.

“Uh-oh,” Joe said.

Uh-oh?
It wasn’t a sound you wanted to hear from your pilot when flying over the Range.

“What’s happening?” Alex demanded.

“Stand by.” Joe executed several different maneuvers to restart the stalled engine with little success. The propeller outside my window sputtered some more and then stopped spinning altogether.

“I suppose we’re just going to have to find us a place to land,” Joe muttered.

I croaked. “A place to land?”

“We can’t land in the middle of nowhere,” Alex said. “There’s a storm coming!”

“Since you insisted we had to fly today, we have no choice.” The pilot’s jaw tightened as he clicked on the inert radio. “Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is...”

My ears stopped processing. I got stuck on the word “mayday.” I’d watched enough movies to know I didn’t want to hear those words mid-flight. I tightened my seat belt and started to pray.

“The weather is closed in behind us,” Joe said. “But we’ve got a break ahead.”

The aircraft punched through the opening in the clouds. I spotted the luminous blue glimmer of a glacier below us. A vertical rock face topped with sharp spikes rose on one side. On the other side, a sheer wall of snow and ice cased us into a narrow canyon. The fuselage shook as wind streamed down the canyon and pummeled the plane. Alarms blared. We rattled like peanuts in a can. My mind was both blank and numb. I prayed some more.

The remaining engine held. The pilot banked sharply, dove and aimed for the snow-covered flat ahead. The airplane swooped down, coasting over the terrain, losing altitude in a controlled descent. The pilot fought to keep the plane straight. My eyes registered the long valley at the bottom of the mountains. We were going to make it.

A burst of wind grabbed hold of the plane and rocked it to one side then the other. Joe compensated for the first tilt, but the second burst was too strong. Jagged spires of granite tore off the right wing. The door went with it. With a groan and a screech, the fuselage crumpled around me like aluminum foil. The cold wind punched into the cabin and hit me in the face. I was distantly aware of Alex screaming, but my eyes were fixed on the white face of the mountain, coming straight at us.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The meeting with the governor went well. The signing happened without a hitch and the flight back took a little less than two hours in the Learjet. Spider reached me while in the air.

“I’ve hit the jackpot,” he announced on my screen without preamble. “I hacked into the policy and confirmed a few things after that. You’re not going to believe it.”

My gut twisted. “Hit me.”

The stream of information unfolded in images before me as Spider explained his findings. One by one, the pieces of evidence connected, creating a complicated but complete puzzle which revealed who was responsible for hiring George Peterson and most importantly, why. Jesus Christ. My jaw was about to break. I should’ve seen it before. Summer was not going to like it. I bristled but kept my cool. We’d done the fieldwork; now it was time to bring in the authorities.

“You have enough to justify a warrant,” I said. “Notify the troopers. Have them meet me at the house this afternoon. I want to be there. I’ll contact Robert so he knows what to expect.”

“Got it,” Spider said.

“Anything else?”

“One small thing,” Spider said. “Report on Summer’s ex.”

“Go ahead.”

“Sergio De Havilland was the victim of an unfortunate crime in Rio yesterday. His Ferrari’s tires were slashed in a public parking lot.”

I sighed. “When I said retribution, I didn’t mean petty stuff like that.”

“Oh, that was me being petty, not you.” Spider grinned. “You actually blocked the multi-million-dollar loan that the bank was going to give Pretty Boy in order to cover the deficits in his father’s account.”

I suppressed a smile. “You weren’t supposed to know about that.”

“It was way too interesting not to follow,” Spider said. “Your international leverage is impressive. Now Sergio will have to face his father’s wrath. I hear the old man’s anger is Machiavellian, kind of like yours. If at any point you decide to forgive this guy’s trespasses, you need to let me know.”

“Why?”

“So I can take him off the no-fly list.”

“You grounded him abroad like a terrorist?” Not bad. “I like it.”

“I thought you would,” Spider said, grinning. “This guy is going to be wondering where his luck went for the rest of his life. Remind me never to piss you off, okay?”

“Done,” I said. “I’ll let you know how the takedown goes. Thanks, Spider. You’ve been a real asset.”

As soon as the Learjet landed, I headed straight for home. I’d received security notifications that showed Summer had returned to the cabin earlier in the day. I didn’t blame her. She probably needed a break from Ericksonland. It worked for me. We had a lot to talk about. Besides, I was looking forward to our time alone and craving her like crazy.

But Summer was not in the cabin. She wasn’t answering her cell either. When I contacted Robert, he said he hadn’t seen her since mid-morning. Additional inquiries showed she wasn’t with Louise or Hector Carrera. I grilled Carrera over the cell. He mentioned she had promised to return to the lighthouse with the blueprints for the E&E project and yet she hadn’t. It wasn’t like Summer. Instant worry.

I dialed security while I scoured the house. As soon as the agent on duty picked up, I barked into my cell. “Where the hell is she?”

“Miss Silva left from the Erickson hangars earlier today,” the agent reported.

“Why didn’t you notify me?”

“We did notify you, right away, sir.”

“What the hell?” Had I missed the notifications? I halted in the hallway and scrolled through my messages. “I’ve got an automatic notification from the cabin’s security system at ten twenty-four. I’ve got nothing from you.”

“Sir?” Confusion wasn’t a trait I relished on any of my staff. “We had several communications back and forth with you, where you acknowledged our coms and authorized the subject’s movements.”

I stared at the goddamn cell. “Come again?”

“I’ve got the messages right here.” A keyboard clicked on the other side of the line. “I’ve got your replies as well.”

“I didn’t get your damn messages,” I muttered into the cell. “Whatever instructions you received, they weren’t from me.”

“Let me run a systems check,” the man said. “The only other alternatives involve a communication breach, system security failure, or some sort of an intercept.”

Intercept?

I growled. “Give me a rundown of the original communications.”

“Subject left the big house at about ten hundred,” the man recited. “Arrived on-site twenty-two minutes after that. Cleared security. Entered the house. Remained in the house for approximately ten minutes, rode out to the hangars and boarded E&E’s Beechcraft Baron, Eight-Romeo-Papa, destination Coldfoot, Alaska.”

Coldfoot
,
Alaska?

“Who transported Miss Silva to the cabin and the hangars?” I demanded. “Who authorized the use of the airplane?”

“As reported in our original communications,” the man said. “Miss Silva left with Alexander Erickson.”

Son of a bitch.

“Mr. Erickson?” the security officer said. “According to our records, you were informed of this and you authorized Miss Silva’s actions.”

“The hell I did.”

I clicked off the cell and marched into my bedroom haunted by a horrible sense of déjà vu. My heart pumped in my throat and my stomach clenched. And there it was. The monogrammed card. Right on my pillow. Only it wasn’t from Gina, whose betrayal hadn’t been unexpected or mourned. It was from Summer, whose betrayal set me ablaze.

I was in the Pave Hawk’s cockpit. Alarms blared. The cockpit was on fire. Shawn was gone, leaving behind only gruesome, smoldering remains. Screams came from the cabin. Smoke choked my lungs. I couldn’t see. The helo spun into a death spiral, plummeting to the ground. I fought the dying machine with all I had, lungs burning with heat, body screaming with pain, mind focused on the emergency maneuvers drilled into my brain. The ground was too close, too close. I didn’t know if we could survive the landing...

My knees hit the floor next to the bed. The heat burned through me with the zeal of fire. Sweat broke out on my forehead and pooled over my lip. I didn’t want to read that note. I didn’t want to crash and burn all over again. But I braced myself for the worst, gritted my teeth and snatched the note from the pillow.

The note was identical to the one Gina had left, down to the Erickson seal embossed on the linen stationery. Only this time, Summer’s signature appeared at the bottom instead of Gina’s inconsequential one. Another difference glared at me, a single line inscribed below the signature like an afterthought.
You lied to me
.

She knew. Summer knew. That I had found her sister.

How?

Alex. Son of a bitch. It had to be him. He was the only one with the motivation and the resources to orchestrate the sophisticated maneuvering needed to pull this off. I punched a message into my cell.
We’ve been compromised.
I texted Spider the single command that would neutralize Alex’s technological attack for good:
Seek and destroy
.

With that taken care of, I got up to my feet and I tramped to the office. My meeting notes were scattered in the drawer. They’d been compromised as well. I understood the gist of Alex’s plan.

The fury burning through my veins paralyzed me. I sat down on my chair, crossed my arms on the desk and rested my forehead on my arms. The phone vibrated in my hand.
Shut the fuck up
. I had to think. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. The cell kept buzzing with annoying, humanlike stubbornness. I glanced at the screen. I had several 911s from Jer, Spider, Robert, my office, you name it. I didn’t care. I just sat there, caught in a vortex of rage and confusion, clutching that card until my hand ached.

Like the cell, the damn landline wouldn’t stop ringing. My senses were distantly aware of the racket. The doorbell chimed and somebody pounded on the front doors. I’m not sure how much time passed before Jer burst into my office.

“Bad news,” he said. “You’ve got to come with me.”

“Not now,” I said. “Get the hell out of here.”

“But—”

“Fuck off.” I lifted my head and glowered. “Whatever it is, I don’t give a shit.”

Jer’s jaw tightened. “We’ve got an emergency.”

“You handle it.”

“We need you,” Jer said. “Everyone is waiting for you.”

“Tell them I don’t give a flying fuck.”

Summer was gone. Summer had left me? Knowing her, it seemed impossible, implausible, and yet the reports were clear. She’d gone. With Alex. It was all I could think about.

“So you know?” Jer said. “You know what happened?”

Of course I knew. Alex had persuaded Summer to betray me and Summer, after finding out I’d lied to her, had left. Maybe she had good reason to leave me. Perhaps I deserved this. But she could’ve called me. She could’ve asked me to explain. A huge part of me rebelled at the deliberate cruelty she and Alex had built into their actions.

“Surely there’s something that can be done,” Jer was saying. “The pilot said they were alive when he left the site hours ago.”

I had to cut through a thick haze. “What pilot?”

“The pilot who was flying the Baron when it went down!”

The Baron?
“You mean E&E’s Eight-Romeo-Papa?”

“It’s bad, Seth.” Jer shook his head. “A rescue is simply not possible. The darkness. Hurricane-force winds. They crashed in the Range and there’s a storm about to hit.”

“Crashed?” Had I heard that right? “The Beechcraft Baron crashed?”

“So you don’t know?” Jer’s eyes widened, his mouth twisted with grief. “The plane crashed. Alex was on it. And Seth? There’s something else you need to know.” He paused then forced out the words. “Summer was also on that plane.”