Susan Smith - The Timer Game

Mac nodded and stepped inside. He drank coffee out of his thermos as Jeb went through the checklist on the Cirrus. The room had lavender-gray carpeting and two sofas littered with aviation magazines. A bulletin board to the left of a small office was crammed with ads for planes, spaces to lease, and tie-down information.

Mac went to the window and looked out past a row of corrugated metal hangars and shadeports. It was just after four in the morning and the sky held the faint pearl color that came an hour before dawn, suffusing the mountains in pink. A light rain fell. In the distance, tidy homes sat amid a vast desert landscape, and horses drowsed along a corral fence.

Jeb was squatting under the plane with what looked like a shot glass and metal straw, poking the straw up into the underside of the plane, taking a fuel sample. He was based out of Sacramento but Mac always used him for trips when he could pry money out of his expense account. Jeb routinely flew media stars who wanted a low profile, and sometimes celebrity pilots whose insurance policies insisted on the presence of a second pilot on board. Mac had heard he flew with Angelina Jolie, but he’d never hear it from Jeb. And Mac liked that, how discreet and trustworthy Jeb was, and how unswayed by star power. Liked the man.

Jeb held the cup up to the light and checked for contaminants, discarding the thimble of fuel in a quick toss onto the tarmac that left a faint streak of shine. He half waved and mimed checking his watch. He held up five fingers. Mac nodded and turned away from the window.

He knew from experience Jeb still needed to check the control surfaces, making certain the safety wires were secure, tweak the wheel pants to see if they moved, eyeball the static port, a quarter-sized metal piece flush on each side of the sleek white body, to ensure that the pin-sized hole at the center wasn’t blocked. More checks than that, but that was enough to know he had five minutes at least.

He walked to the computer desk and found the mouse amid a stack of papers. He drank the rest of his coffee and sat down, fingers clicking over the keys, looking for breaking news stories, an occupational curse.

He found a Web stream of a local news station out of Tucson, anchored by a stocky man with darkly handsome features and a much younger woman wearing a crisp suit. The female anchor, hair stiff with gel, was introducing a piece out of San Diego. Mac had seen a flash the night before. Something about a California senator’s son being shot in a meth bust gone bad.

He turned up the sound. He knew that part of San Diego, Ocean Beach – a funky hippie holdout with bead shops and tattooed panhandlers usually accompanied by pit bulls. He saw her darting out of a squad car into a jostling thicket of reporters and felt his throat close.

Grace Descanso.

Grace. Her hair was shorter than he remembered. But her face still held a curious mix of intelligence and warmth and a kind of raw sexuality, the kind no woman could manufacture. It came from some molten liquid place deep inside.

It had been over five years since Guatemala, and yet he instantly felt the roiling emotions he’d experienced standing next to her in that makeshift shed assisting her as she doctored, felt the remembered cautious optimism, the laughing connection, and then the quiet certainty, born of hope and fostered in every act of kindness, every molecule of her hard, clean presence, that they belonged together then and always, that neither time nor space nor act of God could separate them.

That she was the woman he was willing to die for.

Die for, perhaps, but not give up the story for.

And so it is, and was, and always shall be, amen.

His career was not a cold thing. It was a sinuous presence, alive, a shape-shifter, luring him always with the next seductive thing just over the horizon, the eternal quest to get to the bottom of things, to get it right.

For a brief moment he’d been certain he could have it all.

She was the one who got away. She was his great What If.

They’d been in a dangerous spot and he’d left her there; he knew it was dangerous and he’d left her there, to meet whatever fate was hers while he went into the next country, and then the next, dogging a lead that melted into lies, that changed form, that became a breathless and sensational story that faded away into a yellow dawn, leaving him stunned and awake for the first time in months, with a bitter taste of fear and regret in his mouth. And afraid for her, for what he’d done. For what he had not.

He’d come back for her then and she was gone and there was nothing but scorched earth, and she’d stayed gone for the longest time and to be honest, It wasn’t all bad , his work murmured, She was a distraction, an inconvenience, a minor character in the play of your life .

And now there she was like some apparition, standing there with her head tucked, rushing away from the cameras into a waiting car.

He watched the piece straight through and turned it off.

Jeb poked his head inside the door. ‘Ready?’

Mac nodded.

Jeb zipped up his leather jacket. ‘We might get whapped around a little up there. Expect some turbulence.’

Mac already knew that.

He’s coming for you. I came to save you, warn you .

It played through her mind all night, darting through her dreams, leaving her troubled and drenched in sweat.

He’s after you. The Spikeman .

A warning, specifically for her. How else would he have known her name?

You need to run, Grace .

And if it was a legitimate threat, it meant she’d killed the only person who could lead her to the truth. She was a sitting duck now, stalled in the crosshairs, easy pickings for whatever fresh lunatic came lurching out of the muck whispering her name.

She gave up trying to sleep as dawn washed the boats in the harbor a pale shade of gold. The water was a gunmetal gray and the sand looked cold. She took Helix outside and walked him quickly, sticking to side streets, eyes darting, looking for danger, wondering if when it came she’d even recognize it. Helix was no help; there wasn’t a person that his joyous broken body didn’t love. The street was quiet when she unlocked the door afterward and let him in, and she was relieved to be done, wondering if that’s the way it was going to be now, always looking behind her, scared.

She took a shower and studied herself in the closet mirror. Her skin looked unnaturally pale, and smudges accented her dark eyes. She lifted her black hair off her neck and studied the damage. The bruise on the right side of her neck was as big as a fist, and her jawline, still strong – although at thirty-two, time was waging its inexorable battle – was faintly discolored. The bruise was turning an interesting shade of purple. She smiled bleakly into the mirror. At least he’d missed her teeth.

He’s the Spikeman. He transmits signals through the wires in my brain .

Yeah, right. Not anymore, sweetheart. She put on a turtleneck.

Jeanne was still sleeping on the foldout sofa in the family room as Grace carried Katie’s clothes into the kitchen and made coffee. She could hear the scratchy sound of Jeanne’s gerbils stirring in their cage. The gerbils were Jeanne’s pets, lab animals from her old life as a medical researcher. They’d never worked at the same place, but when Grace had been ready to get a sponsor, Jeanne’s connection to science had been one of the things that made Grace trust her. Science didn’t lie. Both women appreciated that.

Grace got out a pencil and tablet, her mind blank. Months ago, she’d taken a game from her own childhood and tweaked it, using it to make Katie’s transition into the school week easier. It had morphed into Katie’s favorite, the game they always played on Mondays to get dressed.