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“Where is that plane?” April snaps. “That’s something you can do, Casey. Get that damn plane here. It’s after six.”
She’s right, I realize as I check my watch while leaving. It’s almost six thirty, and there’s no sign of the plane.
While Dalton takes Storm on another round of the perimeter, I track down Yolanda. She’s still in her residence, and I meet her as she’s stepping out.
“The plane hasn’t left the airfield,” she says by way of greeting. “I got a call at six, and I’ve been on the phone arguing ever since. We had permission for a predawn departure, and that was rescinded. Now they’re being held back by fog. A warm morning after a cold night. They should be here before nine.”
“That’s not—”
“There’s nothing else I can do. We flew your sister in to deal with this, and apparently she can’t, so let’s hope she can keep him stable for a few more hours.” She stops and yanks up the zipper on her jacket. “That was unfair, and I apologize. But last night, she assured me Bruno was stable, and so, while this isn’t ideal, it’ll have to do.”
“That isn’t the problem.”
I lead her across the road, lower my voice, and tell her what happened.
“He left the clinic?” she says. “On his own?”
“As far as we can tell. The clinic door was opened from the inside and he seemed to have been waiting in the forest for whoever he was meeting. I suppose it’s possible someone helped him leave. Is there another key to the clinic?”
She swears under her breath. “There’s one hanging in the community center. We had a situation where someone had been injured and it took a while to find Pierre and get the first-aid kit. Turns out he was just in the bathroom… for a long time. We put a key in the community center and locked the medicine cabinet in the clinic.”
She follows me as I head for the community center. The key is right there, which doesn’t mean it’s been there all night. I remove it—I don’t want April sleeping in a place anyone can access.
“How bad is Bruno?” she asks.
“Bad,” I say. “April’s not giving me details. She’s too busy trying to stabilize him, and it’s not going well. She’s going to freak out about the plane, but I’m not sure it’d make much difference. She can’t put him on it if he isn’t stable. She’s just going to take it hard. I’ll be the one to tell her.”
“I’m not afraid of your sister yelling at me, Casey.”
“April doesn’t yell. She can just be… She can say things that seem rude and hurtful.”
“I have been warned that your sister is on the autism spectrum, and one can hardly work with brilliant professionals without encountering some of that. I’ve had people suggest I be tested myself. I don’t have autism. I’m just an unfeeling bitch.”
“Well, having autism doesn’t mean April is unfeeling. She just doesn’t display emotion in the same way.”
Yolanda’s voice drops, softening just a little. “I get that. It’s fine, Casey. I promise not to let her reaction bother me or to take it wrong and get her riled up.” She jams her hands in her pockets. “What a fucking idiot. I thought Bruno was better than that. Smarter than that.”
“Having no idea why he went into the forest, I can’t judge his choice there. I can judge his decision to fake a fall. But in the heat of the moment, he didn’t think it through.”
“And in the darkness, he didn’t see he was about to fall on something sharp.” She shakes her head. “Of all the shitty luck.”
“Yes, and now we cross our fingers that April can stabilize him, preferably enough that I can get him to tell me who he was meeting.”
“Because whoever it is, it’s one of my crew.” She raises her hands. “Yes, I know that includes me as a suspect, but I’m probably one of the few people who has an alibi. I was up at five thirty to meet the pilot, in case he arrived early. I saw Kendra on my way out. She was coming back from the toilet.”
“Coming back from it? Orseemingto be coming back from it?”
“Well, unless she met Bruno in the woods while wearing killer-bunny slippers, I think she was really in the bathroom.”
“I’ll need to confiscate the slippers to test for trace.”
Yolanda stares at me.
“I’m kidding,” I say. “I’m just going to confiscate them because I want a pair of killer-bunny slippers.”
Yolanda shakes her head.
“So Kendra and you are covered,” I say. “Did you happen to see anyone else?”
