Up Close and Dangerous (Page 48)

“No, I just got snow in my boot,” she said, disgruntled. She straightened and pulled the sock back on her hand as she glanced up at him. What she saw made her stiffen, as if bracing for a blow.

She had seen his face cold and expressionless, she had seen the way his mouth quirked when he was amused, she’d seen him grin, seen the wicked sparkle in his eyes when he was making some sarcastic comment. This expression, however, revealed another person entirely. His mouth was a grim line, his gray eyes narrowed and lit with a cold fury that sent a chill down her back. His face was white with anger, making his eyes look all the more vivid and piercing. If she had ever seen anyone with a killing expression, she was seeing one now.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” She stood motionless, her eyes wide as she watched him approach.

He reached her and took her elbow in his hand, turning her around and drawing her with him. “Someone tried to kill us,” he said, the words terse. “Rather, I think someone tried to kill you. I was collateral damage.”

Bailey stumbled, shocked speechless for a moment. “What?” she asked incredulously, her voice climbing into a squeak. Her heartbeat leaped into a gallop.

His strong hand held her as she recovered her balance, his fingers tightening on her elbow. “The fuel tank was sabotaged to make it register more fuel than it actually held.”

Her thoughts split in two directions. Part of her mind concentrated on the fuel tank, trying to understand how, while the rest of her brain was preoccupied with his bald statement that someone had tried to kill her. “Me? How? Why do—” She clamped her lips shut on the incoherent babble and took a deep breath. “Start over. What makes you think the fuel tank was sabotaged, and why do you think I’m the target?”

“When the wing was torn off, the fuel tank ruptured.” He paused. “You did know the fuel tanks are in the wings, right?’

“I’ve never given it any thought,” she said honestly. “I don’t care where they are, so long as they hold fuel.” They reached the shelter and stopped, both of them a little breathless from exertion.

Cam turned her to face him, holding both her elbows now. His grim mouth curved into a brief, wintry smile as he looked down at her. “There was a clear plastic bag in the tank. Extremely low tech. You fill the bag with air, close it up, and it takes up volume in the tank. You can trick the valve to show the tank is full when in reality most of the space in the tank is taken up by the bag. And because it’s clear, you can’t see it when there’s fuel in the tank.”

“But…but—why?” Muted anguish filled her tone. This whole experience had been a nightmare, but she’d coped. She’d handled the terror of crashing; she’d handled being solely responsible for their survival that first day. She’d handled freezing cold, miserable wind, lack of food, being sick and feverish, even being dirty; she didn’t know if she could cope with the idea that someone had deliberately tried to kill them. “Why do you think I’m the one—” Her throat clogged.

“Because Seth Wingate called J and L the day before we left, asking about your flight,” he said bluntly. “He’s never done that before.”

The words hit her like a body blow. “Seth—” For all their hostility, she’d never thought he’d physically harm her. She’d never been afraid of him, even though she knew he had a hot temper. She even understood his and Tamzin’s hostility toward her, because she was certain if she’d been in their shoes she’d have felt the same way. That didn’t mean she’d liked it, or them, but she’d understood it. To know that someone hated her enough to try to kill her made her sick to her stomach. She wasn’t an angel, but neither was she a low-life scum who deserved killing.

“No,” she said numbly, shaking her head. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe him, it was that the whole scenario was more than she could grasp. “Oh, no…” In her memory she heard the echo of Seth’s snarled “You bitch, I’ll kill you” the last time she’d talked to him, when she had let him provoke her into taunting him with a possible reduction of his trust fund disbursement. She’d never before responded to any of his jibes and accusations, instead acting as if he hadn’t said anything at all. If that had tipped him over the edge…this was all her fault.

She grasped for any flaw in Cam’s theory, any hole in his logic. “But…but you have more than one plane…. How would he know which one?”

“If you know anything about planes, you could figure out which one we’d use for your flight to Denver. The Lear—nope, it’s the biggest plane, the one we use for cross-country. The Skyhawk doesn’t have the necessary altitude to cross the mountains, so it was either the Skylane or the Mirage. I would have used the Mirage, but it was in for repairs—and now that makes me wonder if the Mirage wasn’t deliberately damaged, forcing us to use the Skylane.”

“But why? What difference would it make?”

“Maybe he’s more familiar with the Cessnas. I do know he’s asked Bret about flying lessons before, and Bret steered him to an instructor. Flying isn’t the same as sabotage, but it shows he was interested. And hell, the information isn’t hard to get. I don’t know how he worked it, if he damaged the Mirage himself, or if he talked to Dennis and found out the Mirage was in for repairs. The only way we’ll find out for certain is to ask Dennis—or go straight to the cops and let them do the asking, which is my preference.”