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CHAPTER
1
Twenty years later
Kirsty Fox strode through the Mediflight West hangar. Four years on at the Port Augusta headquarters, she still wasn’t over the thrill.
As far as adventures went, this one was a cracker. She’d even broken her never-hang-around-for-long rule for this job.
‘Where’s my clipboard?’ she said.
John, retired paramedic, head sausage-turner for the monthly barbecue, and logistics legend of the two aircraft and ten personnel who connected patients from remote South Australia to the hospitals in the city, stood up from behind the clutter on his desk.
‘Emergency pick-up of Mrs Ullrich,’ he said. ‘She’s gone into labour a month sooner than she’d planned, and her husband’s having kittens by the sound of him.’
Kirsty lifted her eyes from the flight plan long enough to shoot John a grin. ‘Isn’t that always the way? You know I’m supposed to be off duty on Fridays, right?’
‘Missing out on a hot date, love?’
‘I wish. No—I’m supposed to be in Adelaide. Mum’s been calling me nonstop and wants me to go see her. She’s probably behind on her rent again and needs me to negotiate.’ Or pay it.
Terri had been three years off the pokies, but her ability to stick at a job was a work in progress.
‘You’re a good daughter, Kirsty.’
She smiled. ‘True. And bad luck doesn’t follow me around the way it follows Mum.’ Because she didn’t let it. ‘So, who’s on board with me today?’
‘The new doctor. Don’t freak him out with turbulence this time,’ John said. ‘It took maintenance a week to get the smell out of the carpet.’
She snorted. She had a perfect flight record, as John well knew. She gave him a wave, then set off for the gleaming King Air B200 aircraft and began her walkaround. Tyres, excellent. Rivets on the newly repainted wheel strut looked good as new. Propellors were free of nicks, the windscreen was free of cracks.
‘We getting in the air anytime soon, Fox?’ said a voice behind her.
‘When my checklist is ticked, Carys,’ she said, leaning forward to swivel the cargo hatch lock. Righty-tighty, lefty-loosey … the lock was secure.
‘You and that bloody clipboard.’
Kirsty turned and grinned at her friend. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment. All right, on you go. Let’s get this ambo in the air.’
The rookie doctor was already aboard, clutching an airsick bag and looking greener than his Mediflight uniform. Kirsty hauled the stairs up, locked them, and made her way up front to the cockpit.
She rested a hand on the doc’s shoulder as she passed. ‘Forty minutes’ airtime,’ she said, ‘and John’s weather printout is saying clear skies all the way. It’s a perfect day for a perfect flight.’
‘Great,’ he said weakly. ‘I love flying.’
Yeah, she thought. If he kept telling himself that, one day it might even be true.
Unlike her. She’d loved flying from that childhood moment when she’d scabbed a ride in a crop duster, on that Marla property. The day she’d earned her pilot’s licence had been the luckiest day of her life, and everything had been bang-on perfect since.
Well, mostly perfect, if she discounted the occasional financial bail-out of her mother.
She squeezed her way into her seat, scanned the dashboard left to right—trim tab controls set, flight tracker on, oil pressure perfect—and fired up the twin Pratt & Whitneys.
The rumble and whine filled the plane, and she reached for the headset she’d left on the empty co-pilot’s seat. Just as her fingers hooked into the headstrap, her phone lit up with a call from a screened number.
The boss, she thought, with some last-minute plan change.
‘Kirsty Fox,’ she said, pressing the phone close to her ear to drown out the propellors spinning only a few feet from her.
