Present Tense (A Parker & Coe, Love and Bullets Thriller Book 2) (3 page)

He probably
could
have at one time, but I knew this wasn't another case of mistaken identity. Far from it. "You said it yourself. Like father, like son."

"Then I won't play that game. But if you think this job will be easy, you'd better think again. There are people out there who have no intention of letting me step foot in a courthouse. They'll put me in a body bag before that happens. Me, and anyone who's with me."

"I'm glad to hear you've been making friends."

"I'm not kidding, Kelsey. And I wouldn't want to see you caught in the crossfire."

I laughed. "You sound like Parker."

"Parker?"

"The guy on the phone. We run a skip tracing business and Wilky hired us to make sure you get to L.A."

Ethan shook his head. "And here I always thought you'd wind up a poet. Or a school teacher."

"Shit happens," I said, trying to sound casual—although
I'd
never dreamed I'd be doing this, either. "And all I care about is getting you to the L.A. County Sheriff's Office."

"That's no way to celebrate a reunion."

I laughed again, but there was no humor in it. I was a mess inside and didn't want to show it. "What do you want—fireworks and streamers and the key to those cuffs? Forget the celebration, Ethan. Let's just think of this as a little bump in the road in our otherwise routine lives."

I glanced toward the cockpit, where Hap had the Thermos tilted skyward, polishing off the last of whatever it was he was drinking. I suddenly realized we were in the air and well underway, leveling off at a high altitude. I had been so wrapped up in my conversation with Ethan that I'd completely blanked on the take-off—and that scared me.

I needed to grab control of myself.

"And what if I try to escape?" Ethan asked. "What then? You shoot me? Is that part of the routine?"

I gave him the sternest look I could muster, but stern had never been my strong suit. Especially around him. "If I have to, yes."

He shook his head. "I don't believe that for a minute."

"We're different people now, remember? I'm not the timid little girl you knew in school. I've been chased after and shot at and learned quite a bit about myself in the process."

"Maybe so, but I'm betting you've never fired that gun at anything more than a paper target."

I gestured to my Glock. "This one? You're right, I haven't."
 

"Just what I thought."

"But I
did
use one just like it to kill someone I once trusted. So imagine what I'd do to the boy who left me behind…"

I would have enjoyed his reaction if I hadn't suddenly been distracted. But as the words left my mouth, I felt a rumble of turbulence and the plane's engine began to whine. I looked up sharply and saw that Hap was now slumped in his chair, no longer manning the controls, the Thermos rolling on the floor beside him.

What the hell? I'd been kidding about the whole nap thing, but had he actually fallen
asleep
?

I got to my feet. "Hap?"

No answer. Turbulence rumbled again, then the plane tilted and started to descend, nearly knocking me off my feet.

Oh, shit.

Ethan swiveled his head toward the cockpit. "Uh-oh. This can't be good."

I moved up the aisle. "Hap! Wake up!" But when I reached him and grabbed his shoulder, I knew I was wasting my breath. He wasn't sleeping. Not the sleep of the living, anyway.
 

His head lolled sideways and I realized he actually
had
needed that defibrillator—but it was too late.

He was Dead with a capital D.
 

Less than ten minutes into our flight, we were headed back toward earth—and there was every indication that our landing would not be smooth.

The plane picked up speed. The view through the front windshield was now eerily absent of blue sky and the earth below was a lot closer than I wanted it to be. We were over a forest now and all I saw were trees.

I turned to Ethan in full panic. "Please tell me you know how to fly this thing!"

"I was hoping
you
did," he shouted. "Get these cuffs off me."

I wasn't sure what difference it would make, but if he was about to die a horrible death, at least he could do it with his hands free. Digging the key out of my pocket, I lurched toward him and unlocked the cuffs. Ethan immediately jumped to his feet and began searching the small cabin.

My voice teetered on the edge of a scream. "What are you looking for?"

"What do you think? Don't these things come equipped with parachutes?"

"How the hell do I know?"

He checked under the pilot's chair and came up holding what looked like an overstuffed backpack. "I think we just got lucky."

He began strapping it on and I said, "What about me?"

He gestured toward the windshield. "Does it look like we have time to search for another one? We'll have to do this together. Come here."

I didn't hesitate. I went to him and he spun me around and pulled me close. He let out the chute's waist strap as far as it would go, then wrapped it around me and pulled it taut. As he fastened the buckle, I felt him pressed up against me and realized that one thing about him certainly hadn't changed: his abs were as hard as ever.

"You ready?" he asked.

"Does it matter?"

We turned together and I reached out, jerked the handle of the cabin door, and tried to push it open, but the damn thing stuck again.

Shit.

Stepping back, I brought up a leg and kicked, hard, jamming my heel against the door. It flew open with a groan, and as I lowered my leg, the plane lurched and I lost my balance and tumbled forward.

Shit, shit, shit.

Ethan snaked his arms around me and held tight as we hurtled together through the doorway and fell into the sky. And if I wasn't screaming before, I definitely was now as the wind hit us with more force than I had expected. It contorted my face, my cheeks flapping like two balloons rapidly losing air. And if I hadn't been so petrified, I might have felt embarrassed.
 

I looked down and saw the blanket of trees rising up toward us. Fast.
 

Too
fast.

"Pull the cord!" I shouted, hoping he could hear me over the wind. "Pull the goddamn cord!"

"Hold on!"

Ethan reached down, leaving me acutely aware that my only lifeline was now a nylon strap and his left arm, which was pressing against my breasts so hard I thought one of them might pop.

I felt him fumble for the rip cord, and had the sudden panicked thought that if this chute was as old as the plane, it might decide not to open. But then a split-second later I heard the whoosh and flutter as it blossomed above us.
 

Ethan slipped his right arm around me again and the wind caught us and jerked us upward, immediately slowing our descent.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you…

We began to drift, the relief sweet, but I knew this wasn't over yet. We had slowed considerably, but we were still headed for the trees, their branches pointy and sharp and not the least bit interested in getting out of our way.

"Brace yourself," he said.

I screamed again and closed my eyes as we dropped into the forest—and believe me, this was a treat only a masochist could love. We hit hard, the trees assaulting us with the kind of relish usually reserved for serial killers, tearing at our flesh as we fell. The chute no longer buffered our descent and we were dead weight, once again picking up speed, branches snapping all around us as we plummeted through them.

If you've ever been thrown off your bicycle into a thicket of bushes, you know how painful it can be. Now multiply that by a thousand and you'll have a rough idea of this experience.

Ethan held tight through it all, refusing to let me go. Then, without warning, the chute caught on one of the branches above us and we came to an abrupt, jerky halt about twenty feet from the ground.

Holy.
 

Shit.

I let out a string of expletives along with the breath I'd been holding ever since we hit the trees. We were alive, and that was good—that was
fantastic—
but every inch of my flesh felt as if it had been assaulted by barbed wire and sandpaper.

We dangled there, looking down at a forest floor covered with leaves and broken branches.

"You all right?" Ethan asked.

"Nothing a bucket of Neosporin won't fix. So what now?"

"Hopefully the ground is soft."

"Right. And I'm the one who gets to test it first."

"We could just stay here with me holding onto your breasts. I used to enjoy that. Still do, come to think of it."

"Don't be an ass."

"I remember a time you
encouraged
me to do it."

"And to think I once worshipped you."

I flinched as a loud
boom
echoed through the forest. Hap and his plane had finally hit. Fortunately, he hadn't been alive to experience the terror, and I was counting myself lucky that we had managed to escape.

As the last of the echoes dissipated and smoke rose in the sky, Ethan said, "I wasn't a big fan of that guy, but he didn't deserve to go out like that."

"He didn't feel anything. He died of a heart attack."

"Is that what you think?"

"You don't?"

"I told you, there are people out there who want me as dead as him. And they almost succeeded."

"Are you saying this was planned?"

"You want to crash a plane, all you have to do is poison the pilot. Be interesting to see what was in that Thermos he was so attached to."

"Oh, give me a break."

"You don't believe me?"

"I think Wilky was right about you. You're a smooth-talking jackal." I looked at the ground below us and pried at one of his hands. "Let me loose, okay? I've had enough of you feeling me up."

"That isn't what your body's telling me."

"Did I say jackal? What I meant was pig. Now let me go."

He pulled his left arm away and I felt him reaching for the buckle that held the strap in place. "You ready?"

"As I'll ever be."

A second later he took his right arm away and the strap came free and down I went. A twenty foot drop might not have seemed like much compared to what we'd just been through, but the ground
wasn't
soft and I landed with a thud that nearly knocked the wind out of me.
 

I was lucky I didn't break anything.

Groaning, I rolled onto my back and saw Ethan high above, pulling himself free of the arm straps.
 

"You might want to get out of the way," he said.

I scrambled to the side and struggled to my feet as he let go and dropped to the ground, hitting it even harder than I had. He grunted, swore under his breath, then rolled over and looked up at me. "That wasn't even remotely pleasant."

I unsnapped the holster clipped to my belt and pulled out my Glock—which had surprisingly survived the journey.
 

I pointed it at him, the words "Don't get any ideas" popping out of my mouth before I could stop them, and I realized that Parker was right.
 

I
had
been watching too many old movies.

"Is this how you treat the man who just saved you from a plane crash?"

"No, it's how I treat the prisoner who decided
he
was the one who needed to wear the parachute."

"That was a tactical choice. Could
you
have held onto
me
?"

He had a point, but I was in too much pain to give a damn. "Just get up and let's go. We need to find our way back to civilization."

I knew we had to be deep in the Sam Houston National Forest. I just didn't know how deep. And chances were pretty good that, before long, news of the crash would reach Wilky—and Parker soon after—and I didn't want Parker thinking I'd gone down with the plane. There wouldn't be any cell service out here, so calling him was not an option. Assuming my cell phone was still in one piece.

"Will you be pointing that gun at me the whole time?" Ethan asked.

"What do
you
think?"

He sighed. "Like I said, this little reunion leaves a lot to be desired."

"Look, Ethan, the last thing I expected was to find you sitting on that plane this morning. But we both chose our roles in this drama, so why don't we pretend we're perfect strangers and just get on with it?"

He pulled himself upright. "Perfect strangers, huh? That's a pretty tall order when I've spent the last eight years thinking about you."

If I had been younger and more naive, I might have fallen for that line, but I wasn't stupid.
 

I rolled my eyes. "Don't start, all right? If I was that important to you, you wouldn't have left in the first place. Now get up and start walking."

"People make mistakes, you know."

"Yeah, and they pay for them, too. Let's go."

"You really
have
changed."

"Up," I said. "Now."

He sighed again and I stepped back, keeping the Glock trained on him as he got to his feet. I was sore all over and the task was more difficult than I thought it would be, but I held it steady.

"Just a word of warning," he told me. "If the people who want me dead figure out that we somehow managed to survive that crash, they
will
come after us."

"I guess I should be thankful Hap didn't offer me a sip of his coffee."

"You think this is a joke, but it isn't."

"I think you'll say or do anything to convince me to let you go."

"Really? I could've jumped out of that plane without you."

"And pass up the opportunity to fondle my boobs? You're a jerk, Ethan, but you're not a killer."

He smirked. "I guess you'd know, wouldn't you? Considering how you're so deadly with a gun."

"You think I was lying?"

"I think you're trying very hard to look tough, but inside you're a scared little bunny who's in way over her head."

Insulting analogy aside, he wasn't far from the truth, but I stayed firm and gestured him forward with the Glock.