‘I suppose.’
My mood was getting heavier by the moment. I did not want to go home. I did not want to go anywhere. It was as if the weather had turned gray, and I was cold and alone and could escape none of it. My mind churned with questions and answers, and deductions and screams. Whenever it went still, I saw him. I saw him in smoldering debris. I saw his face beneath heavy plastic.
‘. . . Kay?’
I realized McGovern was talking to me.
‘I want to know how you’re doing. Really.’ Her eyes were fastened to me.
I took a deep, shaky breath, and my voice sounded cracked when I said, ‘I’m going to make it, Teun. Beyond that, I don’t know how I’m doing. I’m not, even sure what I’m doing. But I know what I’ve done. I’ve ruined everything. Carrie played me like a hand of cards, and Benton’s dead. She and Newton Joyce are still out there, ready to do something bad again. Or maybe they already have. Nothing I’ve done has made a goddamn difference, Teun.’
Tears filled my eyes as I watched a blurry Lucy checking to make sure the fuel cap was tight. Then she began untying the main rotor blades. McGovern handed me a Kleenex. She gently squeezed my arm.
‘You were brilliant, Kay. For one thing, had you not found out what you did, we wouldn’t have had a thing to list on the warrant. We couldn’t have even gotten one, and then where would we be? Yes, we haven’t caught them yet, but at least we know who. And we will find them.’
‘We found what they wanted us to,’ I told her.
Lucy had finished her inspection and looked my way.
‘I guess I’d better go,’ I said to McGovern. ‘Thank you.’
I took her hand and squeezed it.
‘Take care of Lucy,’ I said.
‘I think she does a pretty good job of taking care of herself.’
I got out and turned around once to wave goodbye. I opened the copilot’s door and climbed up in the seat, then fastened my harness. Lucy slipped her checklist out of a pocket on the door, and went down it, zeroing in on switches and circuit breakers, and making sure the collective was down, the throttle off. My heart would not beat normally, and my breathing was shallow.
We took off and nosed around into the wind. McGovern watched us climb, a hand shielding her eyes. Lucy handed me a sectional chart and said I was to help navigate. She lifted into a hover and contacted Air Traffic Control.
‘Wilmington tower, this is helicopter two-one-niner Sierra Bravo.’
‘Go ahead, helicopter two-one-niner, Wilmington tower.’
‘Requesting clearance from university athletic field, direct to your location for ISO Aero. Over.’
‘Contact tower when entering pattern. Cleared from present position, on course, stay with me and report down and secure at ISO.’
‘Two Sierra Bravo, wilco.’
Then Lucy transmitted to me, ‘We’ll be following a three-three-zero heading. So your job after we gas up will be keeping the gyro consistent with the compass and helping out with the map.’
She climbed to five hundred feet and the tower contacted us again.
‘Helicopter two Sierra Bravo,’ the voice came over the air. ‘Traffic is unidentified and at your six o’clock, three hundred feet, closing.’
‘Two Sierra Bravo is looking, no joy.’
‘Unidentified aircraft two miles southeast of airport, identify yourself,’ the tower transmitted to all who could hear.
We were answered by nothing.
‘Unidentified aircraft in Wilmington airspace, identify yourself,’ the tower repeated.
Silence followed.
Lucy saw the aircraft first, directly behind us and below horizon, meaning its altitude was lower than ours.
‘Wilmington tower,’ she said over the air. ‘Helicopter two Sierra Bravo. Have low-flying aircraft in sight. Will maintain separation.
‘Something’s not right,’ Lucy commented to me, turning around in her seat to look behind us again.
24
IT WAS A dark speck at first, flying after us, directly in our path and gaining on us. As it got closer it became white. Then it turned into a Schweizer with sunlight glinting of f the bubble. My heart jumped as I was seized by fear.