Greg Iles - 24 Hours

“See, I don’t think it would,” Hickey said. “Hurt him that much, I mean. And the reason is interesting. See, you’re not his blood.”

She refused to look at him.

“If you died, he might miss you for a while. But the fact is, you’re just his wife. He can get another one. Damn easy, with all the money he’s got. A lot newer model, too. Hell, he might be tired of you already.”

Karen said nothing.

“But your little girl, now, that’s different. That’s blood of his blood. That’s him, the same way Mama and me were joined. And nearly six, that’s old enough for him to really know her. He loves that kid. Light of his life.”

At last she turned to him. “What are you telling me? Are you saying you’re going to kill Abby?”

He smiled. “I’m just explaining a concept to you. Hypothetically. Showing you what’s wrong with your idea from this morning.”

“This morning you told me I didn’t need to worry about that. You said nobody was going to die.” And somebody already has, she reminded herself, thinking of Stephanie.

Hickey tapped the wheel like a man content. “Like I said. Hypothetically.”

As soon as Will completed his turn and settled the Baron back over the oncoming traffic, he saw the small white car Cheryl had seen. Box-shaped and splotched with primer, it was piddling along compared to the other traffic, constantly being passed on the left. Cheryl was right: it was a Rambler. Will reduced power, slowing the plane until it was practically drifting up the interstate toward the car.

Then he saw it.

A small head in the passenger compartment of the Rambler, sitting close to a huge figure behind the wheel. A figure so large that it seemed to dwarf the car itself. The child was moving in the front seat, and as the Baron closed on the Rambler, Will made out the form and face he would have known by the dimmest candlelight. A relief unlike anything he had ever known rolled through him. Abby was alive. She was alive, and nothing on God’s earth would keep him from her now.

“Hello, Alpha-Juliet,” he said softly. He waggled his wings once, then again.

“What are you doing?” Cheryl wailed as the plane rocked left and right like a roller coaster. “I’m going to puke!”

“Waggling my wings,” he said with a smile.

Huey and Abby were singing “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider” when the airplane first appeared. It was flying straight toward them at treetop level, just to the right of the interstate.

“Look!” Huey cried. “A crop duster!”

“He’s not supposed to fly that low,” Abby said in a concerned voice. “I know, because my daddy flies an airplane.”

The plane shot past them. Abby whipped her head around and watched it climb, then vanish beyond her line of sight.

“I rode a airplane once,” Huey said. “When Joey took me to Disneyland.”

“You mean Disney World.”

“No, they got two. The old one’s in California. That’s the one we went to. Joey says they’re both the same, but I think the one in Florida’s bigger.”

“I think so, too.” Abby patted Belle in her lap. “I met the real Belle there. And the real Snow White.”

“The real ones?”

“Uh-huh. And I got dresses just like they had.”

Huey’s smile disappeared. He reached into the side pocket of his coveralls, fished around, then brought out his empty hand.

“If I made you something,” he said softly, “would you like it?”

“Sure I would.”

“It probably wouldn’t be near as nice as all the things you got at home.”

“Sure it would. Presents you make are always better than ones you buy.”

He seemed to weigh her sincerity about this. Then he reached back into the pocket and brought out what he had spent the previous night carving.

Abby opened her mouth in wonder. “Where did you get that?”

“I made it for you.”

“You made that?”

What had been a chunk of cedar the day before had been transformed by Huey’s knife into a figure of a bear holding a little girl on its lap. The fine detail made Abby’s Barbie look like a bland store mannequin. The little girl on the bear’s lap had hair falling to her shoulders like Abby’s, wore a jumper like hers, and held a small doll in her hands. But what riveted Abby’s attention was the bear itself. It wore no clothes, but on its face sat a pair of heavy glasses, just like Huey’s. The bear was clearly watching out for the little girl.

“You really made that?” she asked again.

Huey nodded shyly. “Beauty and the Beast. You said it was your favorite. I tried to make it as pretty as I could. I know you like pretty things.”

She took the carving from his hand. The wood was still warm from Huey’s pocket. But more than that, it felt alive somehow. Hard and soft at the same time. As though the bear and the little girl might move in her hands at any moment.

“I love it,” she said. “I love it.”

Huey’s eyes lit up. “You do?”

Abby nodded, her eyes still on the figures.

“Maybe you’ll remember me sometimes, then.”

She looked up at him with curiosity in her eyes. “Of course I will.”

Huey suddenly cried out and hit the brake pedal. Abby grabbed the dashboard, fearing they were about to smash into something.

“He’s going to crash!” Huey yelled.

The airplane was back, only this time it was right over the road and zooming straight at them. The cars ahead were slowing down, some even pulling onto the shoulder. The plane skated to Abby’s right, toward the trees, but it was getting larger every second. As she stared, its wings rocked up and down: first the right wing, then the left, then both again.

A strange thrill went through her. “He wiggled his wings!”

The plane’s engines began to overpower the sound of the car. Its pilot rocked the wings again, as though waving right at Abby, then rocketed over the car. She clapped her hands with delight.

“My daddy does that! Just the same way! My daddy…”

Her face suddenly felt hot, and she had to squeeze her legs together to keep from wetting herself. Her daddy was in that plane. She knew it. And nothing in her life had ever felt quite the way that knowing that did. She reached out and touched Huey’s arm.

“I think everything’s going to be okay now.”

As the Baron blasted past the Rambler, Will saw Abby’s face pressed to the glass of the passenger window. Tears temporarily blinded him.

“I told you!” Cheryl cried. “You saw them?”

“Yes,” he said, wiping his eyes with his sleeve.

“What are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to land.”

“On the road?”

“Absolutely.”

Cheryl’s face went so white that Will thought she might pass out.

“Tighten that seat belt.”

As she scrabbled at her belt, Will climbed to five hundred feet and took the Baron to a hundred and eighty knots.

“Where are you going? You said you were going to land. You’re leaving them behind.”

“We’ve got something to do first. I want you to watch for a silver Camry.”

Cheryl’s hand flew to her mouth. She had heard Zwick on the radio, and she knew who was driving a silver Camry.

“Keep it together,” Will said. “Everything’s fine.”

He hated to let the Rambler out of his sight for even one minute, but he could cover five miles of interstate in ninety seconds, and if Hickey was close enough to give him problems on the ground, he needed to know.

“When you land,” Cheryl said, “what about the cars and stuff? I mean, there’s eighteen-wheelers down there.”

“I’ll try not to hit them.”

“Jesus Christ. How did I get here?”

“Joe Hickey put you here. It’s that simple.”

“I see a Camry! It’s silver. It’s the old kind, the swoopy one that looks like a Lexus.”