Truth, Lies, and Second Dates

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  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

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  For my husband, as usual, for a great title, as usual.

  You know what a great pilot would have done? Not hit the birds. That’s what I do every day: not hit birds. Where’s my ticket to the Grammys?

  —CAPTAIN CAROL BURNETT, 30 Rock

  Fate was cruel to play this trick on her, although if she were honest she knew she only had herself to blame. She had taken the chance and now she had to pay the price.

  —EMILY ARDEN

  When pilots have a bad day at work, it’s not a small thing. The margins for error are microchip thin and the smallest of vagaries can result in a catastrophe.

  —JANE MACDOUGALL,

  “‘I Got Everyone Home Today’: How Real-Life Pilots Feel with Our Lives in Their Hands,” National Post, September 2016

  Half a pound of tuppenny rice

  Half a pound of treacle

  That’s the way the money goes

  Pop goes the weasel.

  Every night when I go out

  The weasel’s on the table

  Now I take a stick

  And I knock it off

  Pop goes the weasel.

  —“POP GOES THE WEASEL”

  Forensic pathology is the branch of medical practice that produces evidence useful in the criminal justice administration, public health and public safety. Under this definition are three key elements: Cause of Death, Manner of Death and Mechanism of Death.

  —“AUTOPSY PROTOCOL,”

  INDIANA STATE CORONERS TRAINING BOARD

  Slough (plural sloughs): A type of swamp or shallow lake system, typically formed as or by the backwater of a larger waterway, similar to a bayou with trees.

  —WIKTIONARY

  Author’s Note

  This is the third book in the Danger series, which came about because my editor and I love romance tropes and wanted to write a love letter about … well … love. And tropes! (But also love.)

  Tropes are walking, talking figures of speech. A trope is when you’re watching a new show about a cop who’s set to retire next week/month/year, and you immediately understand the cop will never retire. It’s when the pretty teenager in a horror movie says, “I’ll be right back!” and you know you’ve seen the last of her. It’s a way for the writer to let the audience know what to expect without having to, you know, write.

  A trope is the thing that brings you back to the same genre again and again, because the stuff you loved in the first book will pop up in other books and you’re always chasing that feeling, the giddy excitement of reading about a hero and heroine, or hero and hero, or heroine and—you get the picture, whoever they are—and you know they are destined for love, and you want to watch. (Not in a creepy way.) Even more: you want to fall in love, too.

  And that’s how the first two books in this series came about. Romance novels that pay respect to romance novels, where the readers are in on the joke. Unless you skipped my Author’s Note, in which case you’re not in on the joke and you think I hate romance novels and I cannot help you.

  This time I switched it up a bit and made it about horror/ serial killer tropes, too, because I’m a weirdo and romance and horror are my first loves.

  For those of you in a hurry, there’s a trope list at the end. This is partly to make it easier for my readers, but also because I like making lists. (The strangest things give me a thrill, for which I make no apologies.)

  While researching this book, I discovered that the minimum age for a commercial pilot is eighteen. Now think about a teenager piloting a five-hundred-foot-long wide-body carrying seven hundred passengers and try not to lose your shit. (It’s impossible, right? Just typing that gave me the chills. My beloved and intelligent son is nineteen, but the thought of him piloting a wide-body … and now I’ve got the chills again.)

  New Jersey gets a bad rap but is in reality a beautiful state.

  MAGE, the Massachusetts Association for Gifted Education, exists and they do great work. You can check ’em out here: www.massgifted.org/events.

  Circus Day at Hazelden is, unfortunately, a real thing.

  Hazelden is also a real thing and, Circus Day aside, is a wonderful nonprofit dedicated to helping addicts reclaim their lives. You can check them out here: www.hazelden.org

  Not to sound like a commercial, but J.Jill clothing really is comfortable, you really can crumple it into a ball and it’ll still look great, and they ship anywhere overnight.

  Again, not to sound like I’m hawking clothing, but the designer my fictional airline hired is a real person: Lisa Hackwith of Hackwith Design House. Simple, stylish, comfortable, a little pricey but nothing you need a second mortgage to finance. Check her out here: hackwithdesignhouse.com/product-category/sustain-shop/.

  Some of Ava’s pilot announcements are based on this article from Snopes.com: www.snopes.com/fact-check/pilot-light/. I don’t know about you guys, but I love a pilot with a sense of humor.

  Unfortunately, in our post-9/11 world, most airlines don’t let civilians into the cockpit when the plane’s in the air. For the purpose of this story, I ignored that regulation. You don’t own me, FAA! But thanks for helping keep the skies safe.

  Nepal’s Lukla Airport is apparently one of the worst airports to fly into. It’s elevated, it’s in the middle of the mountains, the runway is unbelievably short, there aren’t any lights, there’s very little electricity (!!!), and there are no air traffic controllers. It’s basically nightmare fuel for pilots.

  There isn’t a comedy club in Boston called Konichi-ha, but there should be.

  I love Minnesota, even if Ava does not. Just wanted to get that on the record. Don’t @ me.

  Prologue

  Ava Capp came awake in another anonymous hotel room and thought, If this was a book, I’d be thinking about how empty and aimless my life as a single woman is and how I need to make a change. If this was a book.

  She shivered; Blake was awake and was doing that thing where he ran a finger up and down her spine like an erotic chiropractor. “God. You know that gives me the shivers.”

  A deep chuckle from behind her. “More effective, perhaps, than an alarm.”

  The voice. Ummmm.

  Blake Tarbell, careless heartbreaker, had many fine qualities, beginning with the Voice and ending somewhere lower. He was a guaranteed good time when she was in port, which made him valuable, but not indispensable.

  Meanwhile, his spine skimming was turning into buttock grabbing, which she would normally welcome. However.

  “Forget it.” Ava flopped over and sat up, moving so quickly Blake put out a hand. Whoa. Easy. No need to sprint just because you don’t want to have That Particular Conversation. “I’ve gotta get back, so just holster the morning wood already.”

  He smiled and let his hand drop. “Holster it where?”

  “Dunno. It’s a guy thing; you figure it out.” She bounded from the bed, alread
y running through checklists (and creating new ones) in her mind, and grinned to see Blake shiver. He’d once accused her of being a morning person in the same tone people accuse politicians of grifting, like it was that bad.

  She ducked into the hilariously opulent bathroom (loads of free toiletries plus a bidet plus a towel warmer, which was wasted on her because she used room temperature towels like a savage) and figured today would likely be the last time she saw Blake. She felt bad that she didn’t feel bad.

  As was their habit, they’d met in the lobby for drinks (never dinner). As she had explained the first time she let him pick her up, “Don’t ask me out. Don’t buy flowers. That’s not what this is.”

  “What is it, then?” he’d asked, amused. They’d met at McCarran four months ago: she was a pilot for Northeastern Southwest (“We fly everywhere!”); his flight had been delayed. He was gorgeous and smart and a practiced flirt (being one herself, she could spot the breed). They’d had drinks and then they’d had each other.

  “What is it?” she parroted. “This is me enjoying myself. This is you being the sexual equivalent of a Fun Run. Less talking, Blake, and a lot more stripping.”

  Finished with her minimal makeup and reminiscing, she stepped back into the bedroom. “I need to get moving if I’m going to make the run to Boston.” She was slipping into the clean set of civvies she’d brought—she kept clean uniforms at LAX and MSP, among other things—while Blake watched her with a heavy-lidded gaze. “God, sometimes I think it’d be easier to keep a spare set of clothes and some toiletries here.” She looked up at the exact moment, caught him. “Ah-ha!”

  “What?”

  She pointed at him with one hand while zipping her slacks with the other. “You should see the look on your face. I’ve only seen people go pale that fast when the oxygen masks drop.” She could see him preparing a denial and cut him off before he embarrassed himself. “S’fine. Really. I was teasing. I know you’re cemented in your bachelor ways.” I am, too.

  He opened his mouth again.

  She shook her head, which made her curls bounce, which reinforced the love/hate relationship she had with her hair. What sick twisted god had given her blond curls and sallow skin? Long limbs but fragile ankles and wrists? She’d shatter like a bathroom mirror if she tripped at the wrong moment in the wrong place. A love for flying but a hatred for enclosed spaces? “Nope. Don’t even try that. And don’t go on about how you’re just waiting for the right girl, and maybe that girl could be me—”

  “I wouldn’t have used the word girl,” he pointed out.

  “It’s fine. This”—she gestured, indicating him, the suite, the empty champagne bottle, the remote control, yesterday’s panties—“What we do? It’s great, really. It’s just … I need something more. And … there’s this woman—oh. You didn’t know?” He hadn’t, she realized. And he was getting That Look. The wait, I could have been in a threesome with two hot women expression, like he was simultaneously thrilled and crushed. And like she’d ever have sex with a girlfriend solely for the amusement of a random man. “I’m pretty flexible between the sheets.”

  “Figuratively and literally. Why would you wait until now to bring that up?”

  She laughed, bent, kissed a stubbled cheek. “For a chance to see that look on your face. Hey. You’re great, Blake. This was, too, y’know? But I never go back for seconds.”

  “Fourteenths.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Right. But I want to keep liking you, if not fucking you. So: you don’t pretend you’re going to miss me, and I won’t pretend you can’t fill my spot in your sex suite with one text.”

  He grinned, and she almost wavered. Of the many things she liked about Blake, his smile was in the top five. “Fair enough.”

  She had everything together—overnight bag, purse, the Godiva sack (they’d devoured the chocolate-dipped fruit, but there were some truffles left)—and slipped into her shoes. “Might not see you again. But if we do, it’d be great to keep it friendly, okay?”

  “You’re wrong,” Blake replied.

  Wait. What? She was halfway to the door, then stopped and turned. “Wait. What?”

  “I will miss you when you’re gone,” he said solemnly, still sitting in a puddle of sheets.

  “Awww.” She came back, kissed him again, the last kiss. “But not for long, I bet.”

  She left. A remarkably painless breakup. If that’s what it even was. Though she’d fudged a little. The woman she’d told him about wasn’t a girlfriend. For one thing, they’d never dated. For another, she was long dead.

  One

  THE LIST

  Pre-flight

  Don’t mock Ghost Baby

  Hot chocolate

  “Hey, Ghost Baby.”

  “Dammit, Cap Capp!”

  Nuts. Need a new list already. Ava tried to pretend the thought of coming up with a new list so early in the day made her sad. “C’mon, Graham,” she said as he fell into step beside her. “It all worked out fine. Nobody died. Nobody was even inconvenienced.”

  “Oh, like it was my fault that idiot thought babies needed to be stowed with laptops,” G.B. (known by Graham Benjin until last August, now forever known as Ghost Baby) retorted.

  “You’re doing that thing where you respond to a point I didn’t make. And maybe don’t refer to our customers as idiots? Also, lighten up. It was her first flight.” Ava chuckled into her hot chocolate. “Why wouldn’t she think a small snug dark cave above her seat was the perfect place to stow her dozing infant?”

  G.B. muttered something under his breath, hands stuffed in his pockets to the wrist. He was a tall, dark-skinned man in wonderful shape who bore more than a passing resemblance to the actor Terry Crews (except with hair). He got jittery and snappish before every flight, which was tolerated as he magically transformed into an efficient and unflappable crew chief once he boarded. (Except when he thought the flight was haunted by a baby ghost. But even then, it had to be said, he kept his cool.)

  “You’re just upset because it took you so long to find the poor thing.” This was tactful in the extreme, because when G.B. couldn’t immediately find the baby, he had wondered aloud if he was hearing a ghost and pondered the pros and cons of an in-flight de-haunting.

  (“Not an exorcism?” Ava had asked, amused.

  “In flight? Ridiculous. Too many variables and we’re fresh out of Bibles.”)

  “There are so many things that upset me about that flight. I don’t have the time and you don’t have the patience for me to go into any of it.”

  “Sounds about right,” she agreed. “I assume we’re doing a Sorkin walk-and-talk to pre-flight because you’re running my flight crew?”

  “Yeah. A bunch of us lost the coin toss.”

  “You’re full of shit. I’m a great captain and you love flying with me.”

  “First, low bar. Second, love is an exaggeration. Third…” G.B. had slowed, then opened the door to the crew room for her. “Why are you in such a good mood? Is this my cue to make inappropriate guesses about your sex life?”

  “Better not.”

  “Aw, c’mon, roomie. Spill.”

  “I let you camp on my couch for two weeks and that was months ago!” she protested. “That doesn’t mean we’re roommates.”

  “And after the Easter thing last year.”

  “Well.”

  “And we’ve shared hotel rooms too many times to count.”

  “Three, G.B. We’ve shared rooms three times, and the fact that you can’t count that high is deeply troubling to me as your captain and your…”

  He raised his eyebrows expectantly.

  “… occasional roommate.” She sighed, giving in.

  “Ha! Also, after you.”

  She swept inside and tossed her now-empty cup of hot chocolate into the garbage. “Morning.”

  A chorus of “Good morning!” and “Hi, Captain Capp!” greeted her. Her senior first officer, India James, was printing off the flight plan and waved. “W
eather looks good, Cap.”

  “I love when the weather looks good.” She parked her carry-on to the left of the table and dropped her purse on the chair. “How’s your newest?”

  “Fat,” India replied with satisfaction. He was a brown-eyed blond who hailed from Chicago, almost exactly her height at five feet, ten inches and—pardon the cliché—skinny as a rail. In fact, by comparison rails looked a little thick. “Ninety-fifth percentile.”

  “Excellent.” India’s new daughter had been born five weeks premature. He and his wife were taking great pride in the infant’s journey from scrawny wrinkled preemie to cheerful blond butterball.

  “Do you tell her she should enjoy the fact that it’s only acceptable to be fat until you hit first grade?”

  “No, G.B.,” India replied patiently. “I talk to her about the stock market and how I think the economy is going to rebound.”

  “Weird.” Then, to Ava: “Cap, this is Becka Miller, who lost a bet with God and must now fly with Northeastern Southwest—”

  “We fly everywhere!” everyone else sang, which was terrific.

  “It wasn’t a bet with God,” said the team’s newest flight attendant, a redhead whose hair was so vibrant, it was hard to look her in the eyes. “I’ve wanted to do this since I was a teenager. It’s very nice to meet you, Captain Capp.” Becka said this with more intensity than Ava was used to, but she shrugged it off—some people were nervous around captains.

  “Back atcha. Don’t mind G.B. He’s exhausting but skilled, so it all works out. Eventually. Probably. Look, nobody wants to do all the paperwork necessary to fire him, so we’re all just dealing.”

  “Had to ruin it. Had to tack something on at the end. Just couldn’t help yourself.”

  “Nope. Couldn’t.” As she turned away to consult with India, she heard Becka hiss to G.B. “She’s the one who did the belly landing!”

  “Hey, I was there, too. I was integral—I had the booze cart.”