Death Echo

16

DAY TWO

NEAR ROSARIO

4:10 P.M.

The Learjet turned in the late afternoon sunlight and lined up for its final approach to the asphalt strip at the Lopez County Airport. The co-pilot stuck his head through the open cockpit doorway.

“Short-runway landing coming up,” he called back into the cabin. “Come and get this sweet little thing before she ends up as part of the electronics.”

“I’m on it,” Joe Faroe said before his wife could get up.

He put aside his laptop and went forward to grab his daughter, who was examining every ripple and shadow on the plane’s floor. He swung her up easily into the crook of one long arm.

“Did you find any yummy cigarette butts or globs of things better left unidentified?” he asked her.

She drooled and patted his mouth.

“Haven’t you ever heard of don’t ask, don’t tell?” Grace said without looking up from the computer on her lap.

“Don’t you listen to her, sweetie,” Faroe said. He lowered Annalise into the special airline seat and fastened her restraint. “You always want to come to Daddy and tell all, especially about boys.”

Grace shook her head. “You just keep dreaming, darling. You’re cute.”

Faroe stretched, then sat in the seat next to Annalise and fastened his own seatbelt. “You’re the only one who thinks so.”

She flashed him a look out of dark eyes that made him wish he was alone with her. In bed.

“That’s because I know you so well,” Grace said.

He smiled slowly. “I love you.”

“Same goes. And the light of your life is chewing on her restraint.”

He looked over at Annalise. “Gumming it, actually.”

“Bleh.”

“Good for her immune system,” Faroe said.

Grace rolled her eyes. “Give her a cracker.”

“She’ll just turn it into mush and smear it over everything in reach, including her loving daddy. They’ll bill us extra for cleaning the plane. Why don’t they make kids’ chewies as tough as the ones for dogs?”

“Do you know what dog chewies are made of?”

“Pig ears.”

“And bull pizzles.”

“What?” Faroe asked.

“Penises. From male bovines.”

“Tell me you’re joking.”

“Not.”

“Cover your ears, sweetie,” Faroe said to Annalise as he reached into the bag beneath her seat. “Your mama’s talking dirty. Here you go, beautiful.”

Chubby fingers wrapped around the thick cracker Faroe held out. She shoved a corner of it into her drooling mouth and gummed blissfully.

“You strapped in?” he asked Grace.

“The instant I got back from the head.” She finished the document page and went on to the next as the pilot announced the upcoming landing. She had one more recommendation to file before she could devote her full attention to the brushfire presently burning St. Kilda’s ass. “Someone should just blow that place to the darkest reaches of hell.”

“Which place?”

“Silnice hanby.”

“The Highway of Shame,” Faroe said.

“Where young girls sell themselves to old men and sadists for a handful of rotten food,” Grace said wearily. “Then there are all the weapons, nuclear and otherwise, that trundle along that freeway to hell. Not to mention the traffic in children destined for foreign whorehouses.”

Faroe looked at his daughter and silently vowed it would never happen to her.

“It’s why we keep working bad hours,” Grace said, understanding her husband.

“It’s never enough.”

“No,” she agreed. “It’s never enough. But it’s all we have.”

“I still want you the hell away from Seattle.”

“We’ve been over this so often I feel like a digital recording. If you’re here without me and Annalise, it’s news to anyone who’s watching you. Deal with it, Joe. A lot of bad people care about where you are and what you’re doing.”

“But-”

“As the unforgettable Alara said, if we go in soft, we have a fallback position.”

“I don’t like it having you and Annalise here. If Alara is right, it’s too damn dangerous.”

“You think I like having Annalise here?” Grace looked at their sleeping child. “But liking it doesn’t matter.” She let out a long breath. “I believe in St. Kilda. So we do what we can do. If that goes to hell, we do something else.”

“Fast,” Faroe muttered.

And pray that fast was quick enough.