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My guilt over Talia’s death was slowly ebbing away, but there was still a part of me that had a million questions.
Questions that only the user’s manual for the plane itself would help me sort out.
I was still searching through the text, studying the pictures, and graphs, when the sound of rubber soled shoes caught my attention. I glanced up and saw Lana approaching, clipboard tucked under her arm. She smiled at me when I locked onto her gaze. “Darn! I was going to try to spook you.”
I shut the lid of the laptop and gestured at the seat across from me. “Hey, Lana. Thanks for arranging the meeting. Carly has the lunch all ready for when everyone gets here.”
She nodded and set her clipboard on the table. “Perfect. I’ll go settle the bill and then we can go over any notes.”
“Okay.” I polished off my drink, absently staring out the window at the beach as I ran through my findings from the hour spent looking over the mechanical information. There was no way I’d have been able to tell anything was happening to the fuel line until it was too late. Whoever had fucked with the line was a professional. They’d known exactly what to do and where to keep from triggering a sensor. It wasn’t until we reached a certain height that it blew the system enough to cut the engine and send us plummeting to the ground.
The knowledge helped, but it also tightened the grip in my gut that clenched whenever I thought about the fact that someone had intentionally tried to kill me—and had killed Talia—by crashing my plane.
“How have you been?” Lana asked, plopping back into her seat at the table, her cup of coffee sloshing dangerously.
I stared at her for a moment longer than was socially acceptable. I honestly didn’t know how to answer her question.
How am I?
Carly swooped in, holding two silver trays, and set them on the table beside ours, distracting Lana’s attention. I sucked in a long breath and hopped up from my seat. I started to help push the tables together, but Carly batted me away. “No, no. Sit your ass down,” she demanded, pushing my hand away when I reached a second time. “We got this, right, Lana?”
Lana nodded and sprang into action to help Carly organize and merge enough tables and chairs to form a makeshift conference table right in the middle of the cafe. Luckily, it was past the lunch rush, and the other customers were out on the patio, leaving the inside space distraction free.
When they were done, Carly turned to me and waggled a finger in my face. “Holly told me to watch out for you. Aaron, you have stitches in your side. Try to remember that, please.”
I growled my agreement and she walked off, completely unfazed by my irritation.
Lana started setting a meal at each place and Carly returned minutes later with two huge pitchers of iced tea, then came back a second time with cups for everyone. As everything was set up for the meeting, the rest of my staff arrived. I plastered a smile on my face and forced myself to stuff down the frustration that had been building up since Gemma gave me the brush off at the hospital.
“Thanks for coming everyone,” I started, sinking into my seat. Everyone dug into the food right away, but the chatter died off as I started speaking, and all eyes turned to me. “There have been some developments in the situation at the museum, and I wanted to get everyone together to make sure we’re all on the same page.”
I gave them a brief synopsis of the chain of events, how the FBI was now involved, and that while the protesters had been kicked off the property, we still didn’t have an ETA on when we could reopen.
Everyone nodded along and Lana scribbled furiously on her clipboard.
“I have a question,” Jeremy, one of the part-time tour guides said, raising two fingers above the edge of the table. I nodded for him to continue. “Are we under investigation? I mean, if the fuel line was tampered with, won’t they start with the people who had the most access? Us?” He cast a glance around the table.
“Honestly, I don’t know. They only arrived this morning and haven’t exactly been forthcoming on their procedures. However, I’m confident that none of you were involved, so you have nothing to be afraid of—even if they do call you in for questioning.”
Jeremy looked a little more comfortable, but some of the others exchanged glances. I tried to put myself in their shoes. I wouldn’t want to be tangled up with the FBI and drilled with questions, either.
Lana cleared her throat. “If you ask me, they should be investigating that O’Keefe guy. He’s probably the jealous type.”
