Lena Diaz - Arresting Developments

Transponder. Was it working? It was part of the instrument panel that had gone on the fritz. But the system had built-in redundancies to insure it could survive most crashes and send out a signal if it received a ping from a transmitter, like the kind a rescue plane would send. He studied the wreckage, looking for any telltale signs of smoke. There were none. After waiting a few more minutes, he decided to chance a closer look. It should be safe, as long as he kept an eye out for any warning signs of an impending fire—and stayed away from the jet fuel.

He worked his way to the cockpit, approaching from the far side this time since it seemed fuel-free there. The instrument panel was a disaster. No way to tell if the transponder was working or not. If it wasn’t, that was more of an inconvenience than a concern. It wasn’t like he was in an uninhabited area. Mystic Glades couldn’t be more than two, three miles away.

Of course, the trick was making sure he headed in the right direction. But he could use the sun to figure out which way to go. Navigating by sun or stars was a rusty skill, but one that had been ingrained in him during his pilot training in the navy. Still, there was no point in risking getting lost if a rescue effort was under way. Which, based on the anticipated arrival time in his flight plan, should be soon.

Knowing the National Transportation Safety Board would immediately take possession of the plane and site for their investigation into the cause of the crash, he figured he might as well take advantage of his time alone to do some of his own investigating.

Getting to the engine compartment wasn’t as difficult as he’d anticipated, since the access panels had been peeled back like the top of the plane. Since the plane was upside down, he ducked down and looked for anything obvious. Most of the engine was intact. Only a few parts had been ripped away or crushed on impact. Everything looked normal.

Except for the electrical tape.

What the...? There were two long pieces of tape, or rather, one long piece that had been burned in two. He pulled out his cell phone and took some pictures, then zoomed the screen. Wait, no, that couldn’t be. He shoved the phone in its holder.

Bracing himself on a twisted piece of metal, he followed the piece of tape. One end was attached to the edge of the engine compartment. The other was wrapped around a bundle of wires—a crucial bundle that provided power to instrument panels, including the transponder and the engine. Someone had pulled those wires free of their normal harness and used the tape to hold them in place. Which pretty much guaranteed that during flight, with the heat and vibration from the engine, the tape would fail. The wires would have dropped down onto the hot manifold. If the heat seared through their protective coating, that would have caused a catastrophic failure. Judging by the burn spots on the wires, that’s exactly what had happened.

Since electrical tape wasn’t standard equipment in any engine compartment, especially a brand-new plane, he could only reach one logical conclusion.

Someone had tried to kill him.

* * *

AMBER CROUCHED BEHIND a large fern that protected her from the sharp ends of a massive saw palmetto, totally mesmerized by the way the sun slanted off the golden skin of the impressive male specimen thirty feet away. She didn’t know why he’d taken off his shirt, but she certainly wasn’t complaining. The way his muscles rippled beneath his skin as he walked was fascinating, and an amusing contrast to his dark blue dress pants and expensive-looking but thoroughly ruined dress shoes. Since his footprints were the only ones she’d found after she’d reached the plane crash site, he must be the pilot. And the lack of bodies in and around the plane reassured her that no one else had been onboard. No one had died.

But based on how he was limping, she wasn’t sure that would hold true for long.

His right leg seemed to be the one that he was favoring. From the rips in his pants, she assumed he’d been hurt during the crash and wasn’t just suffering from some kind of disability. Unfortunately, the smears of mud on his back and chest meant that he may have washed himself in one of the brackish pools of water near the plane. If he’d done the same to his injuries, he might have introduced some nasty bacteria into his system. People who got lost in the Glades tended to succumb to exposure or infection just as often as other causes. If he didn’t get medical attention soon, he might become one of those statistics.

So far he was heading in the right direction, toward Mystic Glades. As long as he continued that way, he’d reach town before nightfall. Her former townspeople might not exactly welcome strangers, but they would never turn away someone in need. Whoever was running The Moon these days would have some kind of medicine or potion to treat him. Or maybe Freddie would drive him to the nearest hospital in her ancient Cadillac, assuming the thing was still running. Either way, the pilot would get the help he needed. There was no reason for Amber to let him see her. All she had to do was keep following him, and somehow steer him if he went off course.

* * *

SOMEONE WAS FOLLOWING HIM.

Normally, Dex would have called out to whoever was hiding in the bushes, padding after him in the mud, keeping a good thirty or forty feet back, from what he could figure. But that was before he’d realized someone was trying to kill him. Knowing that had changed his perspective a hundred-eighty degrees.

He couldn’t imagine his nemesis—whoever that might be—calculating the exact location where he might be when the wires in his Cessna burned through. There were too many variables for that. But it hadn’t exactly been a secret at the office that he was flying to Naples, and that he was going to then drive up to Mystic Glades. Maybe whoever wanted him six feet under had planted someone near Mystic Glades to finish him off if their plan failed and he didn’t crash. Or, in this case, if he did crash and the impact didn’t kill him.

A faint crackling noise sounded behind him, like a twig breaking in half. He pretended not to notice and kept going. He needed to wait until he was near a larger clump of trees instead of just the small groupings he was passing now as he slogged through the marshy grasses. Then he’d catch his pursuer.

Just thinking about someone hiding out here like a coward to attack him was pissing him off. That and this awful heat. He wiped sweat from his brow, surprised to find his hand wet enough to shake off droplets. When had it gotten this hot? Yeah, it was probably around noon, but still, the cooling marsh breezes had been comfortable an hour ago when he’d started on this trek. Now it was as if someone had turned the sun up twenty degrees and was trying to cook him.

His shirt. That had to be it. Without his shirt to protect him from the sun, he was baking out here. Maybe he should sit in the shade for a few minutes and cool off. No, not with someone following him. He had to take care of that problem first. Then he’d sit and cool off.

A group of trees about thirty feet ahead looked like the perfect place to catch his follower unaware. The trees suddenly wavered and shifted. What the...? He stopped, wiped more sweat from his brow and shook his head. He blinked a few times until the trees stopped dancing around. The heat. It had to be the heat. He idly leaned down and rubbed the growing ache in his right leg, then wobbled forward.

He reached the trees and ducked behind the largest one and then crouched down to wait. He pulled out his cell phone, ready to snap a picture when his pursuer came into view, figuring that if he lost this upcoming battle at least there’d be a picture of his attacker for police to find later. It would be a small victory to hold on to as he breathed his last breath. For some reason, that seemed funny—in addition to being pathetic—and he almost laughed out loud, just barely keeping it together, reminding himself he couldn’t risk alerting his prey.