Freddie’s Bell 429 handled like a dream. The flight to Spokane had been beautiful and easy. For the first time since she’d arrived in Montana, Izzy felt relaxed and comfortable. Not at all like when Luke was around.
When he looked at her with those intense, green eyes—
“All right, Iz?” Freddie asked.
Inside, she cringed and hoped he couldn’t tell where her mind had been. “Just enjoying the ride.”
“How much farther?” Jenny Erlington, VP of Branson Development, asked over the headset. She’d asked this same question at least four times since they’d gotten into the Bell this morning. Did she think they were going too slow or something?
“It’s still about fifteen minutes off to the northeast,” Freddie answered.
“I’d like to fly over the whole western edge,” Alan Branson said. “I want to see if there might be another place for an entrance.”
Freddie’s jaw tightened. “Sure.” Despite his many attempts to be charming, he was batting a big, fat zero getting either of their clients to chat about their business.
Maybe Izzy should give it a try. It’d been her experience that Very Important People liked to brag. “You’re building a mine?” she asked.
“Yep,” Branson said. “Substantial veins of silver and copper ore run through the area. We’ve done some test drilling, but the real work will start when we get the final permits.”
“The project will be a huge boon to the area,” Jenny said. “The mine itself will create over one hundred new jobs. Not to mention all the ancillary economic benefits: an increased need for workers to build the roads and housing for our employees, increased demand for the retail businesses and restaurants. The list goes on and on.”
“Wow,” Izzy said, with a disgusting amount of gee-golly in her voice. Without looking, she knew Freddie was rolling his eyes. “Your company must be huge to undertake such a big project.”
Alan laughed. “Hardly. Jenny and I run a tight ship.”
“We have investors,” Jenny added, leaving the “duh” unsaid.
Izzy resisted the urge to rub her hands together. Now they were getting somewhere.
“Exactly,” Branson said. “We’ve—”
A huge boom! shook the Bell, throwing Izzy against the restraints. Alarms shrieked as the helicopter wobbled and spun, losing altitude.
She ignored the clients’ screaming and tried to compensate for the rotation, but the rudder pedals wouldn’t budge under her feet. Then, suddenly, the pedals went flat to the floor, completely inoperable.
She swore and hauled up on the collective, trying to gain altitude before they slammed into a wall of trees.
Beside her, Freddie’s voice was taut as he called in a Mayday. She could hardly hear him over the racket of alarms squawking and the engines groaning like they were dying. She couldn’t spare him a look. All of her attention was focused on the swirling blur of green and gray.
Wait. Was that—yes. There. A hole in the trees. Straight ahead.
“Going in!” she shouted over the maelstrom.
Izzy ignored everything but the feel of the collective and cyclic in her hands, and the fast-approaching opening in the deadly trees.
Then they dropped from the sky.