“What’s the bad news?” she asked, eyeing her pack and wondering how tightly he was gripping it.
“We’re running out of time. Come on. Let’s get on board.”
* * *
The large aluminum hangar door was already open, the Cessna Skyhawk ready to go, having been kept inside the bay to keep ice and snow from accumulating before takeoff. No sign of the dispatcher, but Kane wasn’t going to let that slow him down.
He stepped back and took Arden’s arm, ignoring the tension in her muscles and the paleness of her face.
“You ready to take off?” someone called.
He turned, watching as the dispatcher walked toward him, a sub sandwich in one hand, clipboard in the other.
“No,” Arden responded.
“Yes,” Kane corrected.
“Good. Good. You leave now and you’ll beat the storm. Otherwise, you’ll probably be stuck here for the night.”
“That won’t work for us,” Kane said, with a sense of urgency. “My friend’s ex is hot on our heels. I need to get her out of here quickly.”
The man nodded his head. “Understood, no problem. Go ahead and load up. I’ll contact the tower and tell them you’re waiting to be cleared for takeoff.” He rushed to his desk, taking a bite of sandwich along the way. Once he’d settled into his chair, he turned to his computer and began typing.
Kane pulled Arden the remaining short distance across the hangar’s concrete floor to his plane. There was no sign of the sedan through the open bay doors, but he was certain it would be only a matter of minutes before it would reach the airfield. They needed to be on the plane and on their way before then. “Let’s go,” he said, sidestepping one of the main wheels and tossing her pack and his duffel onto the rear bench seat of the plane.
Arden stopped short, planting her feet. “Go on without me. I’ll find a place to hide.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Yeah. It is.” She darted away, but he’d anticipated the move and snagged her arm, then, in deference to the cat still hiding under her coat, in one quick motion he hefted her into his arms like a groom carrying a bride over the threshold. He could feel her trembling. This was no joke. She was terrified, and for about two seconds, he thought about finding another way.
Unfortunately, doing that would probably get them both killed. It would more than likely get the guy with the sandwich killed, too.
Kane wasn’t in a dying kind of mood, and he sure didn’t need any more innocent blood on his hands. He’d had enough of that to last a lifetime. It’d been thirteen years since Evan Kramer had died in his arms and he could still remember the sticky slickness of his second cousin’s blood on his hands, the harsh rasp of lungs as he gasped his last breath. A moment in time, a lifetime of regret.
He hoisted Arden up through the open doorway. She was lighter than he expected and, despite her struggling, he still managed to set her down gently on the floor of the plane’s cargo area before jumping in after her. Forcing her to do something that obviously terrified her made him feel like the worst kind of jerk, even if his options were less than limited.
“Get out of your coat, and get that carrier off your chest.”
Stooping in the threshold of the plane’s open door, Kane yelled out, catching the dispatcher’s attention once more. “We don’t want to bring any trouble down on you, but her ex is dangerous. Be on the alert.”
“Got it. I’ll lock it down after you leave. And your return flight plan’s been approved by air traffic control, so you’re good to go. Let’s get you out of here before he shows up.”
Kane yanked the plane’s door shut; the hatch clicked in place as he locked it. When he turned back, Arden was still rooted to the same spot. He quickly unzipped her coat, dropping it on the bench seat with their bags, then helped her remove the carrier from her chest. Cradling the cat in his left arm, he guided her to the front passenger seat, gently pushed her into it and strapped her in with the safety harness. Arden remained quiet as he set the cat’s carrier in her lap and wove the lap belt through the blue carrier straps to secure the animal.
Her silence was disconcerting.
She hadn’t been at a loss for words since he’d found her at the cottage. The fact that she wasn’t talking now was something he’d worry about after he got them in the air.
He stowed Arden’s pack and his duffel behind the bench seat, retrieved her jacket and draped it over her lap and chest. She’d closed her eyes and was breathing deeply, mumbling something he couldn’t hear.
That was better than silence, but it still wasn’t good.
Being ten thousand feet in the air with a woman in full-out panic wasn’t much better than being on the ground with a couple of thugs who wanted them dead.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said, dropping into the pilot seat and starting the engine.
“I told you, I don’t fly,” she responded, her eyes still tightly shut.
At least she was talking and coherent.
“You do now.” He checked the flaps and instrument control panels then pulled the safety harness over his shoulders.
“Oh Christmas tree, oh Christ-mas-tree,” she sang, her voice high-pitched and a little off-key.
Maybe she wasn’t coherent after all.
“Arden?” He touched her shoulder. Her muscles were taut, her entire body tense.
“Thy leaves are so un-change-ing,” she continued. Her voice warbled on the last note, but she kept right on singing. “Oh Christmas—”
“Arden? Are you going to be able to keep it together?”
“I am trying to get to my happy place.” Her eyes flew open, and he was looking straight into her sky-blue irises. “You are making it very difficult.”
“Your happy place is Christmas?”
“It sure isn’t this dinky tin can that you plan to fly us out in.” She closed her eyes again, continuing her song. “Not only green when sum-mer’s here...”
She hit the last note and the cat yowled, joining the song with earsplitting intensity.
At least neither was trying to claw a way out.
He guided the plane out of the hangar, radioing the dispatcher for permission to take off. They began taxiing down the runway. With this load, the plane required about eight hundred feet of runway for takeoff. Maybe a little less if the conditions were perfect.
Tonight, the wind was blowing, a light mix of sleet and snow splattering the windshield.
In the distance, the sedan sped through the airfield gates, then veered toward them, high beams on, picking up speed as it approached. He could only hope they’d beat it down the runway. The plane picked up speed. Six hundred feet. Seven hundred. Kane pulled back on the controls just as the sedan reached the runway. It stopped and the doors flew open.
But Kane was past them, the wheels lifting from asphalt, the plane soaring into the sky. Below, the men were firing. The distinctive metallic pings as several bullets pierced the plane’s fuselage left no doubt that some of the rounds had hit their mark.
“Oh Christmas tree, Oh Christmas tree, such pleasure do you bring me!” Arden was nearly screaming the song now, the cat still yowling, the engine roaring.
But they were up, so far away from the gunmen the bullets were ineffective. Whatever damage had been done was done. He assessed the instrument panel, looking for potential trouble.
Arden had stopped her quirky