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Quint took her hand and led her aboard. When they were settled in and buckled up, the crew cleared the hangar, and the engines spun up.
In only a few moments, they were rolling smoothly across the perfectly paved airfield and taxiing onto the runway. Amara was unused to the speed with which the jet took off, and found herself squeezing Quint’s hand hard as they gained altitude.
She felt like some sort of astronaut training in the centrifuge, but Quint seemed perfectly at ease. After only a few moments of rapid altitude gain, they began the slow climb to cruising altitude, chatter from the pilots barely audible through the door. The two crew members who sat near the back during take-off stood and began their preparations and checks.
After they leveled off, Amara studied the offered menu and selected a modest breakfast of strawberry oatmeal and a large, peeled orange. The powerful citrus scent that filled the small cabin was evidence of the superior quality of the food offered, and the quickness with which it was prepared was enough to tell Amara that this was the usual way of things.
She stirred the oatmeal and moved the fragrant orange pieces around her plate, but didn’t eat. She’d had no appetite since losing Hampton. And now, the prospect of actually finding her baby had her stomach roiling.
They sat in silence, Amara staring out of the cabin window, watching the clouds below as soft, quiet jazz played over the speakers. Quint stared down at his phone intently, looking more like a college student preparing for a final exam in a class he’d never attended than his usual confident, assured self.
It was a look she’d seen on his face here and there since Hampton’s kidnapping, usually when he was looking at his phone. She’d never worked up the courage to ask him what exactly it was he was so interested in, but the silence between them felt strange.
“Hey, Quint?” she asked.
His eyes immediately darted up from the phone to meet hers, his brow raised. “Yes?”
Her own eyes widened a bit in surprise at how fast he broke away from whatever enrapturing information he was poring over. “Ah, I was wondering, what is it you’re looking at, exactly? You’ve spent a lot of time staring at your phone lately.”
He placed it on the table, leaned back, and waved a hand. “I’m going over the intelligence reports my contacts gathered about Frederik and the Orlandos. I hadn’t expected the family to be as large as it is. Did he ever mention his family to you?”
She shrugged. “He said they were pretty well-off. That smug attitude of his would have been enough to tell me that, but he said something about being from a famous family.”
Quint gave a low hum. “Famous? Mmm. Infamous, maybe. A lot of rumors go around about them, but I’m not paying attention to those. Hearsay runs rampant about wealthy people and families. I’m sure you’ve seen some of the things the tabloids have published about me, both before and after the plane went down?”
“Yeah. It was hard to check out at the grocery store or go into gas stations. Everywhere, the headlines were just … wrong. All of them. They were making things up to sell papers, and it only got worse when they found you.” A slight smile touched her lips. “You know, one of them said you’d been abducted by aliens and dropped in the middle of the desert?”
He shook his head in disbelief. “No, I hadn’t seen that one. Maybe I’ll grab an issue when we get back with Hampton. I should pay more attention to those, if they’re going to be that entertaining. Incredible.”
After placing his untouched sweet roll aside, Quint put an arm around her shoulders and gave a gentle squeeze.
He looked deeply into her eyes. “You know everything’s going to be all right, don’t you? I have all the information I could possibly want on him. I may not know his exact location, but he practically flew directly to his family’s house. There’s no way he’s going to stay hidden for long, Amara. We’ll get Hampton back, go home, and forget about this.”
Amara leaned against him, murmuring that she hoped so. Before she knew it, she’d fallen asleep in his arms, the hum of the jets and the music making her more comfortable than she’d been in a long while.
Chapter Twenty Two
AN HOUR LATER, AMARA WOKE suddenly and sat up. A nightmare about spending years away from home searching for Hampton pulled her sharply from her peaceful sleep.
The jet shuddered, shaking hard enough to snap her head from side to side. Maybe it wasn’t the nightmare that had awoken her. She looked at Quint. He was sitting fully upright, eyes closed tightly, one hand clutching his phone like it was a lifeline, and the other like a claw on the seat’s arm rest, knuckles white.
The jet shook again.
One of the attendants rushed up to them. “I’m sorry. The captain says we’ve hit some turbulence. He doesn’t expect it to last long, but in the meanwhile, we all need to buckle up.”
Quint didn’t move or open his eyes.
“Thank you,” Amara said, reaching for Quint’s belt.
The attendant lowered the table, secured it away, and helped Amara buckle in a tight-lipped Quint. All the while, the plane bucked and heaved, making Amara’s teeth chatter and sending the atten
dant stumbling more than once.
Amara clicked her own seatbelt and turned to Quint after the attendant left.
“We’re going to be okay,” she told him, her tone firm and confident. “You said yourself this guy is the best pilot in the region. It’s only a little turbulence.”
Quint nodded jerkily, reassuring Amara that he was with it enough to hear her.
