I didn’t know what the outcome was going to be, but I was already up grabbing my clothes and items and throwing them into my duffle bags.
“Do you know what he’s flying in? Damn, Harvey, that doesn’t give me more than thirty minutes! All right, yeah I know. I hate to say it but we’re leaving right now, we won’t have time to straighten up the house and I’ll probably leave your truck down at the hanger. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Okay, we’re out of here. I’ll let you know where you can find the plane when-all right, bye.” He slammed the phone down and started grabbing his things.
He didn’t have to say a word; there wasn’t time as we threw our bags together.
“Let’s go,” he said, pushing the last of his clothes down and pulling the zipper.
I was going through my mind making sure I had everything. I had my money and my clothes and other items, so there was nothing I was forgetting as we jumped into the big Dodge and fired it up. We backed out and took off at breakneck speed. There were a few other pilots down at the hanger when we pulled up.
“We’ve got an emergency,” he said as he approached them, “can you guys help me get it out of the hanger?” The men hooked the small tractor they kept at the hanger to the plane and pulled it out into the sunshine. They evidently didn’t like the idea that Ryan was ready to jump into the plane without a preflight check, but then he told them it was a matter of life or death. They helped load our bags and then convinced him that no preflight might also be a life or death matter, but they would help him complete it quickly.
“You can’t just leave the truck parked here,” one of the men said to him as we prepared to board.
“Harvey will be here in about three hours and he’ll move the truck. If that’s not fast enough for you, I left the keys in the ignition, but we have to go,” he said, practically pushing me up the steps into the plane. I went to the front and sat in the co-pilot’s seat. Ryan joined me, starting the engines and then waiting impatiently as they came to life. The men gave him the thumbs-up and he began driving the plane to the air strip. We taxied from the center down to the end and then he turned the plane around and it was only a matter of moments and we were airborne.
As soon as we had climbed thousands of feet and were pointed to the northwest, I was ready to ask.
“Micah is on his way here, isn’t he?”
Ryan glanced at his instrument display, “I should have fueled before we left. We’ve only got enough for another four hundred miles or so.” He was touching the display changing items on screen, but he wasn’t answering my question. “Murfreesboro has a small municipal airport, we’ll stop there. We’ll be there in about forty minutes.”
“Ryan, please.”
He looked at me for the first time since we had boarded the plane, “Yeah, he found us.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Harvey got a call from a friend of his at the airport and said a guy had flown in this morning from Louisiana and had a cop with him. They wanted to know about my plane and then about any small planes that took off in about a two hour time span on Monday. There were only five and they were asking if I was piloting any of them.”
“But you used Harvey’s name on your flight plan, how-”
“I know, but one of the guys in the control room mentioned that Harvey and I were good friends and then someone else mentioned the flight plan couldn’t have been right because they saw Harvey that afternoon. I guess it was all he needed. He’s in a Gulfstream 350, and Harvey said they flew out of there around 8:30 or 8:45. If someone hadn’t called Harvey, you would have seen Micah this morning, and I don’t think he would have been happy to see me.”
My head went back against the seat as my heart continued to pound in my chest, “I never, ever should have agreed to let you help me,” I choked. I could feel the emotions wadded up in my throat, but nothing was rising to my eyes. If Micah didn’t show up with his pistols strapped to his sides, it wouldn’t matter because he would beat Ryan to death, and I know I couldn’t stop him.
“Don’t worry about me,” he said, his hand reaching over and squeezing mine.
“He’s just going to follow us to wherever we go and-”
“Only if he’s a freaking psychic! He can’t follow us this time; we don’t have a flight plan.”
“Will you be in trouble for that?”
“The FAA wants every trip to have a flight plan, but for small aircraft it’s only strongly recommended. They can’t pull my license or anything for not doing it.”
My heart was beginning to slow from its fast pace and air was returning to my lungs. Running away from Micah I had known all along wasn’t going to be easy, but I never expected him to find me so quickly.
Chapter Ten
Micah studied the property records on his laptop. He found Harvey Pinchon’s information at Heaven’s Landing. He knew exactly which house he would be going to when they landed in a few moments. He turned off the computer and closed the lid.
Gwen gave him a sympathetic look as they descended onto the mountaintop airstrip.
He hated that look. He didn’t want sympathy. In fact, he didn’t want her along at all, but he’d made himself bring her so it would be easier to get information at the airport, and so when he found them, she could talk him out of killing Ryan.
They landed and taxied toward the hangers where a group of men were standing.
Micah wasted no time in concocting a believable story. “Hello,” he said as he and Gwen disembarked. “Harvey sent us up here to check on some friends staying at his place.”
“You just missed them,” one man quickly offered. “They flew out of here about fifteen minutes ago.”
“Do you know where they were headed?” Gwen asked.
“No,” another man answered, “but they were in a hell-fire hurry, said it was a matter of life or death. The guy wasn’t even going to do his preflight check, but we talked him into it.”
“He didn’t even fuel up,” the first man added. “He only had about a third of a tank so he won’t go more than a couple hundred miles before he has to refuel. And,” he added, pointing to the big black truck, “He left Harvey’s truck sitting here with the keys in the ignition.”
“I’ll take the truck back up to Harvey’s,” Micah said smoothly.
No one was going to argue with someone his size, nor with a cop, as they watched the two of them get in Harvey’s truck.
Micah had the information from the computer memorized, so it was no problem for him to pull into the right driveway.
“I’m going inside,” he simply told Gwen.
“That’s breaking and entering, Micah, I don’t think-”
“Then stay outside,” he growled back. “See if there is a garage door opener in the-”
Gwen already had it in hand. She had found it in the seat when she climbed in, but hadn’t shown it until now. She hit the button and the door went up.
Micah smiled at the open door inside the garage leading into the house, “You don’t have to come inside.”
Gwen didn’t say anything as she followed.
The house wasn’t messy, but it was obvious they left in a rush. Micah inspected each room; pausing the longest as he looked at the unmade bed. He went into the master bath and then left the room and headed to the kitchen. He pulled out the kitchen garbage can and took off the lid and began pulling out empty Wal-Mart bags. Eventually he found the bag he was looking for as he removed a receipt and put it in his pocket. A little further down, below a couple more bags he stopped and stared for a long moment.
Gwen started to walk toward him when he spewed out an obscenity and slammed his fist through the kitchen wall.
“Micah!”
Three more powerful punches to the wall and she was struggling to get a grip on his arms. “Stop. Quit being an idiot! You’re going to hit a stud in a minute and break your hand!”