LITMIR.BIZ

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of the front of the chopper. It was about half as big as it should have been, thanks to an old growth stump that had put an end to its forward momentum.

      The cargo door was the only possible way to get inside. It had jammed, though. He searched for something to use as a makeshift crowbar.

      “Anyone in there?” he yelled as he picked up a branch and discarded it. Too flimsy. He continued the search. “Hello, can anyone hear me? Can you open the cargo door?”

      He finally found a long piece of metal, probably a portion of one of the blades, maybe a piece of a skid. Using that, he leveraged it into the door crack and shoved. Eventually, the metal moved and he was able to slide the door half-open.

      Boxes and crates filled the rear of the aircraft. The passenger and pilot seats had been pushed back. There was just room for him to step inside and almost stand. He shifted debris to clear his way to the pilot, where he paused a second before putting his fingers against the pilot’s throat, but it was for confirmation only. The poor guy sat half-crushed behind the controls; broken glass had slashed his face and hands. His right shoulder sported an ugly wound that looked like a gunshot. That, however, didn’t make sense.

      Turning his attention to the passenger, Adam moved aside leafy branches and glass until he could check for a pulse. He detected a faint heartbeat and immediately began clearing debris, careful when he came across a two-inch pine spur lodged in the base of the man’s throat. That’s when he also noticed the guy had one limp hand threaded around the grip of a revolver. The safety was off. Adam gingerly reached for the weapon but as he did so, the guy’s eyes opened and his grip tightened.

      “Take it easy,” Adam said.

      The man struggled to focus as blood ran down his forehead and cheeks. He finally croaked out a single word. “You...”

      “I’ll get you out of here,” Adam said, though he knew that was probably impossible. “Stay still.”

      “You’re...a—a dead man,” the injured man mumbled. As he spoke, he managed to raise his arm until it bumped against the spur lodged in his throat. The branch ripped free, leaving a hole big enough around to stick a thumb through. The guy’s hand immediately fell back to his lap as blood spurted from his carotid artery. Adam tore off his own shirt to hold against the gushing wound but it was too late. He’d bled to death in those few short seconds. Adam shrugged his shirt back on as he studied the lifeless and unfamiliar face.

      There wasn’t a doubt in Adam’s mind that this guy had been sent by Holton. He dug out the man’s smartphone from his jacket pocket. As it required a code, he wiped the blood off the dead man’s right pointer finger and held it against the fingerprint reader to get around the code, his heart sinking when he saw a call had been made to Arizona within the last thirty minutes. “Leave a number” was the only response when he hit Call. He turned it off, wiped off his own fingerprints and put the phone back where he found it. There was no reason to try to disarm the GPS system, not when the gadget was sitting in a downed aircraft with an emergency locator of its own. He scanned the guy’s wallet. It held what was probably a fake ID and a little cash. He replaced it. Straightening up, Adam glanced at the pilot, but there was no way to access the poor man’s pockets. The gunshot wound in the man’s arm kind of cinched his position as a hapless victim in this scenario anyway.

      This had to be the work of Holton.

      He dug his phone from his pocket and punched in a number.

      “Yes?”

      “Whip? It’s me, Adam.” He heard the warning buzz that announced the burner phone was running out of prepaid time. “Holton found me again. I’m headed out of the mountains.”

      “Did the fake ID I sent you come?”

      “I don’t know. I was going to check today, but not now. I’ll have to leave without it.” Adam felt terrible that he’d asked Whip, a cop, to break the law to help him get false identification, and now it was pointless.

      “Damn. Are you okay?”

      “Yeah. There was a crash—the hit man is dead. This is important. Holton...he’s still in prison, right?”

      “As far as—”

      It took a few seconds of silence for Adam to realize they’d been disconnected. He pocketed the phone and got to his feet. As he turned his back on the two dead men, a few scattered red petals beneath his feet caught his attention. The incongruity of their presence struck him. He kneeled to pick up one, pausing to smell it, its perfume at odds with the crashed aircraft and the encroaching odor of fuel.

      “Is anyone else in here?” he called.

      Was that a noise coming from behind the boxes?

      He shifted a few out of the way and tossed them out the open door, ever mindful of the seconds ticking by. The baggage and boxes felt like they were filled with rocks.

      And then he heard it again, a shifting as a body tried to find comfort, but this time it was followed by a plaintive moan.

      He worked faster.

      * * *

      HER EYES OPENED SLOWLY. She was unsure where she was or what had happened. Her body hurt in a hundred places and for some reason, she was trapped in an avalanche of heavy boxes. Admonishing herself to think despite her throbbing head, she shifted position to ease the pressure on her legs. A groan escaped her lips and faded away.

      A male voice immediately responded. “Is someone back there? How many of you are there? Can you move?”

      She tried to respond but could barely hear her own voice.

      “I’m coming,” the man called. “What’s your name?”

      Again she opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Where was she, what had happened to her? She closed her eyes, her head drooping.

      The man kept talking. “Stay with me,” he said, “I’m almost there.” Crashes followed his comments as though he was throwing stuff aside. At last he cleared her face and she saw that she was all but entombed in a small airplane. She smelled gasoline and it reminded her of something—something she couldn’t name, wasn’t sure about.

      The man continued clearing the space as she wiped her face, smearing something warm and sticky across her brow. Blood, she discovered, as she looked at her fingers.

      He kneeled down to face her. His hair was bright yellow and he needed a shave. Dark gray eyes peered at her from behind black-framed glasses. As he stared at her, his expression went from concern to shock. The next thing she knew, he’d cupped her chin and kissed her, his lips undeniably soft and gentle and yet with a stirring of something else, too. Then he sat back and stroked her cheek, smoothed her hair, kissed her forehead. “Chelsea, good heavens, what are you doing here?”

      “I—”

      “Oh, my God,” he said as though something obvious had just popped into his head. “They must have used you to—did they hurt...? Never mind, we’ll talk later. We have to get out of here. Can you move? Is anything broken?”

      “I don’t know,” she said. “I—I don’t think so...”

      He unbuckled her seat straps as she mumbled. He stood and extended his hands to pull her to her feet. She was able to stand but it put her and her rescuer so close their bodies touched. Super aware of her breasts pressing against his chest, she felt uncomfortable and awkward. He seemed fine with it. “Catch your breath and your balance,” he said. “Where’s your phone?”

      She shook her head.

      “May I check your pockets?”

      Was he making any sense? She couldn’t tell. He frisked her gently and she felt his hand hit against a small hard shape in her jeans pocket. He plucked the phone from her person, wiped it with the hem of his shirt and dropped it to the floor. “Sorry, but this has to stay here.”

      She nodded but her fuzzy brain immediately went back to the way

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