Triple Exposure (12 page)

And such a long, long fall should the sky grow weary of their weight.

“Maybe you should make that call first.”

“What do you care,
Just Zeke
?” Her forehead crinkled, but her voice remained mild. “Last I heard, I’d ruined your life.”

He looked down at the hands he’d braced on his knees. “Maybe it’s not so bad as all that. And about the other day, I’m sorry. Sorry I shook you up like that. I came off a little—”

“You came down on me like a tornado, the way I remember it.” She offered a wan smile. “And you had every right to. Listen, Zeke, I had an idea that you wouldn’t want me taking that picture. But from the moment I saw you there and framed the shot, I knew it would be the best I’ve ever taken. Could be the best I ever
will
take. So, yes, I buried it deep in that proof stack in the hope you wouldn’t see it. That wasn’t right, and I
am
sorry I misled you. But I won’t ever be anything but proud of that photo.”

In her voice, he heard an echo of his own passion for his work; in her eyes, he saw a reflection of the same fears he kept buried. Fears that the ugliness of the past would overtake him, that he was helpless to outrun it no matter how many miles or years might pass. It was not pity, though, but the core of strength that drew him to her, that had him gripping her thin shoulders and leaning in to claim a kiss.

He felt the shock of it rush through her, felt the charge slingshot through his own nerve endings as she pushed against him,
into
him, as if she felt the same need, the same affinity, that soared through his every cell. It had been so long since his hard-won control had snapped—so long since he’d felt the lush heat of a woman’s mouth opening to his tongue. One hand slid greedily down her back while the other traced the curve of her waist. He felt her nails on his back, beneath the tail of his untucked shirt.

When she murmured deep in her throat and thrust a hip against his hard length, Zeke pushed a hand between them
to squeeze the softness of one of her small breasts. But it wasn’t enough—not nearly—and he ached to push her back right there, to spread her out on the table and tear his way through her clothing. He needed to taste the swell that he was holding, to feel her smooth skin beneath his body, to take her fast and rough and—

He jerked back, a hairsbreadth from the point of no return. Flushed and trembling, she pushed her hair behind her ears and stared, her breathing rapid.

“We can’t,” she said.

“Not here,” he agreed. Bad enough that someone could have seen the red-hot kiss they’d shared. If things had progressed a minute longer, they might have caused Patsy to douse them with a bucket of ice water.

“Not
anywhere
.” She shook her head, her eyes round behind the lenses that had slid down to the end of her nose. “This was—it can’t be.”

Worried, he thought. Frightened. He had scared her, coming at her with all the finesse of some slobbering horndog. Raking his hand through his hair, he tried to sort his tangle of emotions into words.

Before he could manage, she was turning, then jogging toward the airstrip. Retreating to the comfort of her father after all.

He followed at a distance, telling himself he only did it for her safety, in case the woman who had threatened her was even closer than imagined. And maybe, maybe Rachel would look back to see him. Maybe send a smile ghosting his way to let him know she was all right.

She never turned or slowed, but instead made a beeline to where her dad and Lili Vega were checking out a red-and-yellow glider at the runway’s end. Nearby sat the tow plane, in position to pull the gleaming dragonfly aloft, and Zeke spotted several others watching, from a pair of men in coveralls who were working on a small plane to a lone man smoking outside a hangar that housed a private jet.

They were waiting to watch Rachel, Zeke realized, so she
must be flying right away. At the thought familiar yearning deepened into an envy that surprised him.
What would it
be like
?

She was safe here, with all these people, and soon she’d be beyond the reach of even the most determined stalker. With a deep breath, he turned away and started toward the highway that would take him back where he belonged.

He had only made it as far as the picnic table when he heard the tow plane’s engine. He hesitated, willing himself to keep going, then abruptly turned around and said, “To hell with it.”

The glider’s rudder waggled, and tiny Lili waved her arm, signaling the pilot—Walter must be flying—that his daughter had given the all clear to proceed. Breath held, Zeke sank down onto the table’s top as the tow plane started to roll along the runway.

Behind him, keys jingled, and Patsy said, “Thought you went back to work.”

He glanced her way long enough to take in her bland expression. Clearly, she hadn’t seen what he’d been doing with her stepdaughter in this very spot not ten minutes earlier. Grateful, Zeke returned his attention to the red-and-yellow glider as it picked up speed behind the powered plane.

He shrugged. “As many lunch breaks as I’ve spent watching them work on that thing, seems only right that I should see it fly.”

The glider’s longer wings lifted it before the tow plane’s wheels first left the tarmac. Together, the two aircraft ascended, the former crop duster pulling the old glider into a wide spiral that kept both circling higher yet still easily in sight. Using a hand to shade his eyes, he tracked them.

“Guess that relic can fly after all.” Patsy’s keys tinkled once again, but her tone had flat lined with disinterest. For all the time she spent in the company of pilots, her feet were firmly rooted to the ground. “I’m heading back to town now, but I could swing you by your place if you’d like a ride.”

He shook his head and remained planted. “Thanks, but I’d just as soon walk. As soon as my lunch has finished settling.”

“You don’t need to make excuses,” she said. “You’re watching out for Rachel, aren’t you? Making sure she’s all right after that phone call. Never realized you were such a gentleman at heart.”

He smiled, recalling his recent, less-than-civilized behavior. “I try to keep it quiet. Otherwise, the ladies wouldn’t give me any peace.”

She laughed, a sound much like a rusty door hinge. Behind The Roost’s sign, one of the owls groused noisily at the disturbance to its sleep.

“You don’t like the noise,
move
,” Patsy called to her unwelcome tenants. “And take your nasty leavings with you.”

When Zeke looked at her, she said, “Every morning I have to pick up those disgusting packs of hair and bones they cough up.”

He nodded, understanding owls and their gruesome litter.

“You have yourself a good day,” she said.

Moments after she drove off in her gray Impala, he looked up to see the tow plane and the glider. As the red-and-yellow craft shrank from his vantage point, he told himself that there was no sense dawdling, that Rachel would be fine now.

That she had left her problems—him included—far below.

Rachel released the tow rope and then smiled at the perfect separation. As the Pawnee wheeled to the right and downward, its engine noises fell away, leaving only the rushing of the air she sliced through. She pushed open the sliding window to her left and stuck her cupped hand outside the canopy to allow the cool wind to push it upward like a tiny, auxiliary wing.

Her father and his assistants had done a fine job on the restoration. The sailplane responded with elegant efficiency as she turned beneath a thick cloud where large birds circled. Her heart leapt eagerly as the glider’s long wings caught the thermal. Gaze flicking to the merry upward spin of the altimeter, she allowed the events of the past hour to fall away beneath her. The tense silences with Patsy, the threat of the phone call, the combustion of an unexpected and spectacularly reckless kiss: she left it all behind to think of later.

For now, she soared with a pair of red-tailed hawks tumbling playfully beside her. Below, the blue shadows of huge clouds slid across the desert landscape, offering her details missed in the bright, reflected sunlight.

And in that instant, she understood that this vantage, this
play in contrasts had informed the vision she applied to terrestrial camera shots. Slipping through the skies, as much as countless classes and the years she had apprenticed with others had made her the photographer she was.

It was an unexpected realization, since flying was the thing she’d always taken for granted, the life she had returned to by default. She’d come reluctantly this time, troubled by the idea that every minute she spent in the air took her a minute farther from her dreams of succeeding in her chosen field.

But it didn’t have to be an either/or proposition. She would sharpen her photography skills by reclaiming her place beside her father. And it was no betrayal if she loved her time spent airborne almost as much as he did.

Buoyed by the thought, she looked forward to an afternoon of soaring—a plan she altered when a spark of distant lightning caught her eye. Though still miles off, the storm was clearly moving her way.

She was sorry to end the flight so quickly, but long ago, her dad had made her promise never to risk a tangle with a tempest. An experienced glider pilot friend of his—a man Rachel had met a few times—had misjudged the weather and been sucked into a thunder cell, where his fragile craft was snapped to pieces by its winds. It had taken days to find the wood-and-cloth wreckage in the desert, weeks more to find the broken body where it had landed miles away.

Rachel remembered having nightmares in the months after the crash took place. Tumbling through space, through stinging hail and bursts of lightning, she’d awakened in a cold sweat, time and time again.

Yet she knew this storm was still miles off, so she felt no panic or particular hurry as she reduced airspeed and guided the sailplane toward the landing strip. Once again, the old German glider responded dutifully, and she knew a moment’s selfish pleasure that she had been the first to fly the phoenix since its resurrection.

It was the last conscious thought she had, less than fifty
feet above the runway, before a loud
crack
gave her a split second’s warning. Her canopy snapped up and back, some piece flying from it to slam into her face. The shock of the blow knocked her head to the right and eclipsed her vision with a splash of red-and-black pain. Blinded, she felt the glider’s nose drop like a rock.

Panic slicing through her, she hauled back on the stick. A wingtip was first to touch the tarmac, first to snap and spin the craft to the left. Yet instead of flipping, the glider’s wheels struck hard and slid sideways, bumping roughly as something on the underside gave way with a crunch.

With the sound of splintering, the sailplane shuddered, snagged, and jerked to an abrupt halt. Rachel sat stunned, her pulse roaring in her ears, her surprise at her survival so overwhelming she couldn’t think, react, or feel pain. Until she reached up to clear the hair and blood from her eyes and touched—oh, God, what
was
that—on her forehead.

Screaming, she fought to get out, forgetting the harness that strapped her into her seat. Screaming for what felt like an eternity before she heard someone shout her name.

Zeke joined all those running, pounding toward the spot where Rachel’s sailplane had come to rest. Panic careened through him as her shrill cries reached his ears, but screaming meant she was alive. Meant that at least the impact hadn’t killed her. Zeke passed several other people as his long legs picked up speed, but he noticed one man, the man who had been smoking outside the jet hangar, running in the opposite direction. Probably going to call an ambulance.

Zeke saw the twisted canopy, saw the snapped wingtip propping up the damaged plane. Spotted Rachel’s father bending over her, with Lili Vega pale and panting right beside him.

Rachel’s screams faded to groans, and Zeke caught his first glimpse of her face, masked in streaming blood from a deep gash on her forehead. The sight drew him up short and slammed his heart against his ribs.

Walter Copeland handed Rachel a folded cloth out of his pocket and put it in her hand. “Press this to that cut, Rusty, and tell me where else it hurts.”

“There was a crack,” she cried, “and then the canopy just flipped back. Something flew off. Hit me in the face. I couldn’t see, but—Why on earth would it fail like that?”

“Forget about that now.” Despite the emergency, his voice was firm and calm. “Just settle down and think a minute. Does your back hurt? What about your neck?”

“No. No. Just here.” With her free hand, she gestured toward the wound that she was blotting while Lili stepped aside to take a call on her cell phone. “Help me get out, will you? Could you unhook the harness?”

“Hang on a minute,” said her father.

Lili snapped her phone shut. “Bobby’s called an ambulance. Maybe you shouldn’t move until they get—”

But Rachel was already struggling free, assisted by her father. Trembling violently, she swayed on her feet—with Walter’s steadying hand on her arm—as she turned to survey the damage to the sailplane. “It’s wrecked, Dad. All that time and work, and it’s—”

“I don’t care about the damned plane,” Walter told her. “Planes can be restored, replaced. Not daughters.”

“You’re
alive
, Rach,” Lili stressed. “It’s a miracle you and the plane both didn’t end up smashed to pieces. If you hadn’t leveled it at the last second—”

Rachel took a step or two before sinking to the runway, her left hand still pressing the cloth to her forehead. “I could really use something for a headache right now.”

“Maybe you should lie down,” her father suggested. “Lie still until the paramedics come to check you out.”

“I—I’ll be all right,” she told him. “Just give me a few minutes.”

“Might have a concussion.” Though Zeke hadn’t meant to speak up, the concerned comment slipped out before being echoed by several others who had shown up.

But Rachel, hearing Zeke’s voice, looked up at him, a
question mingling with the pain in her eyes. Was she surprised that he’d come running with the others? Did she still believe—even after the kiss they’d shared at the table—that he felt nothing toward her except anger over the photograph she’d taken?

They didn’t talk—there were too many people around for him to call attention to himself with conversation. But he stayed anyway until the ambulance arrived and two men checked her vitals.

“Can you tell me what today is?” asked a heavyset paramedic whose name tag read
Garza
.

Rachel correctly answered two or three such questions before losing patience. “Can’t you just give me some aspirin?”

“You’re going to need a few stitches, minimum, to close up that cut,” Garza pointed out, “and after what you’ve been through, I’d strongly advise a thorough examination at the hospital. But it’s up to you. If you don’t want to go—”

“She’s going,” said her father.

Rachel blinked rapidly, and beneath the streaks of blood, her pallor stood out. Either she was feeling worse, thought Zeke, or she had the good sense to realize arguing would do her no good.

“You stay awake,” said Garza’s partner, a blond kid who looked only a year or two past high school. But he sounded concerned as he said, “Don’t go passing out—or puking in the ambulance if you can help it.”

Zeke edged closer, unable to keep his distance. “Take care of yourself,” he said.

“I’ll try,” Rachel murmured as she was loaded for the half-hour drive to Alpine.

Before the ambulance doors closed, Walter Copeland covered the receiver of the cell phone he’d been using and said, “Patsy’s on her way. Soon as she gets here, we’ll meet you at the emergency room.”

“She doesn’t have to come.” Rachel’s voice was strained. “I’ve put her out enough lately.”

Walter grimaced. “She
wants
to, Rachel. She was pretty upset when she heard.”

“About the hospital bill, most likely,” Rachel answered before the ambulance doors swung shut.

“Hell of a way to get the last word, Rusty,” Walter groused as the vehicle rolled away, lights flashing. Turning, he brushed past Zeke on his way to join Lili. Bobby appeared from a nearby hangar to meet him.

By this time, thicker clouds had rolled in and thunder rumbled uneasily around them. As the first chill raindrops plunked down, the remaining onlookers dispersed, save for Zeke, who lingered, as Walter and his employees looked over the wreckage.

The wind carried snatches of their conversation to him.

“I know we checked those canopy hinges and the latch—I checked and double-checked them personally.” Bobby spoke quickly, clearly agitated. “How the hell could they have worked loose on that short flight?”

“Never seen anything like this before,” said Lili. “Never even heard of it.”

“Don’t touch anything,” Walter told them. “The NTSB will be sending a team to try to figure out what happened, whether it was a parts failure—”

“Or their usual ‘pilot error’ bullshit.” As the rain picked up, it popped against the glider’s fuselage and partly obscured Bobby’s irritation. “She was ready for this, Walter. I’ve watched out for her same as you have, and she was—”

Reluctant as he felt, Zeke made himself step forward. “Someone threatened her today. At The Roost, she picked up the phone. Rachel said it was a woman who’s been calling her.”

Walter looked up, jaw gaping, apparently surprised to see him still there, or possibly to hear him, since in all the years the two men had lived in the same town, they had only passed a few words. “One of those damned cranks from Philadelphia?”

“Rachel thinks she’s here now, in Marfa. She heard a
train over the phone, and we could hear it at the same time from town.”

Lili looked skeptical. “You’re not suggesting—?”

“You know, I saw a stranger around earlier,” said Walter. “A fellow I’ve never seen before, hanging out over there.” He cocked his head in the direction of the jet hangar.

“I saw him there, too,” Zeke offered. “Leaving the area while everybody else was rushing this way. I figured he was calling for an ambulance.”

“Could it have been a woman?” Lili’s voice rose with excitement. “Could she have just been posing as a man?”

Bobby narrowed his blue eyes, looking murderous. “What did this guy look like?”

Zeke thought for a moment. “White and in his forties, I think. Brown hair with hardly any gray, a little longer than yours. On the thin side, like a runner’s build, but definitely male. Hard to say about the height. Maybe five-ten or six feet or so. Wearing—um—nothing that stood out much. Dark jeans, I think, with a blue shirt.”

Walter wiped the rain from his face. “He was smoking when I saw him.”

Lili’s eyes flared and she snapped her fingers. “I remember seeing him, too. I thought he must be one of the bizjet people, since he didn’t wave when I did. But I didn’t think anything of it because he had this look, like he belonged.”

“More than likely, he did,” Bobby said. “Lots of people come and go around here. Place might be small, but we don’t know all the new folks.”

“If he called for an ambulance, maybe he left his name,” Walter suggested. “I’ll check into it later. But there’s Patsy, with the car. I need to go and see about my daughter. If you two—” he glanced from Bobby to Lili “—could put a tarp over the cockpit before it gets soaked and get the Transportation Board to send a Go Team, I’d appreciate it.”

“Just let us know how she is.” Bobby clapped his boss’s shoulder. “And tell her she’s in our prayers. I’ll cancel the Odessa flight. I’ll be here if you need me.”

Lili opted for a tight hug. “She’s going to be all right, Walter. But you call us the minute you know anything.”

Zeke wished he had a phone—or enough of a claim on Rachel to warrant being kept informed. He reminded himself that he’d set up his life as a loner on purpose—the lust-spawned kiss they’d shared entitled him to nothing. Less than nothing.

But it wouldn’t stop him from worrying about her or from wondering if her
accident
had been an accident—or the work of either the stranger at the airport or the anonymous female caller, who had traveled all the way to Marfa to threaten Rachel’s life.