Chapter 3 #2
She nodded. “Getting those organs to Denver is more important than finding a babysitter for me. Those organs represent hope for several people. Not one lone waitress.”
Moe held tightly to the steering wheel with his left hand and reached across the console with his right hand, capturing her fingers in his. “Your life is no less important.”
She snorted. “How do you know? A kidney might save the life of a father with small children. Eyes might give a mother her sight back so she can see her baby’s first smile.
I’m neither a father or mother of small children nor the sole caretaker of an elderly parent.
No one is relying on me.” She nodded. “I don’t want to delay critical assets from the people who need them most.”
As Moe approached the hospital, he slowed and followed the emergency room signs. Several people emerged from the building dressed in scrubs. One held what appeared to be a medium-sized cooler in his hands.
Moe shifted into park and stepped out of the borrowed SUV.
Within less than a couple of minutes, the team had the documentation scanned and instructions relayed. The man holding the cooler settled it on the backseat floorboard.
As soon as the container was secure, Moe hopped into the SUV and drove to the airport with Bea sitting silently in the seat beside him. He wondered what was going through her head but didn’t have time to worry about her when his first priority was the precious cargo he’d been entrusted with.
He parked at the Fixed Base Operator building that serviced the general aviation needs of the airport, hopped out and grabbed the container from the back floorboard.
Bea met him at the door to the building and hurried to keep up with him as he passed through the building, waved at the desk clerk and stepped out onto the tarmac.
He’d had the fuel topped off before he’d left the airport earlier. All he had to do was perform his preflight check and quickly file the flight plan he’d preloaded earlier.
Within minutes, he’d stowed the cargo in the cabin, completed his preflight check and handed Bea up into the plane. Once seated, he passed a headset to Bea and slipped his over his ears. “Buckle up. They’ll have us moving before you know it.”
Moments later, Ground Control had them taxiing to the end of the runway.
When Moe received permission to take off, he eased the throttle forward, sending the little plane racing down the runway.
Their speed inched upward until they were going fast enough to take off.
Moe eased back on the yoke, and the aircraft lifted off the ground.
Once the Air Traffic Controller vectored them onto a southern trajectory, Moe drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. He glanced back at the box he’d strapped into the seat harness. Finally, he glanced at Bea. “Hanging in there?” he said into his mic.
She nodded, her lips moving, though he couldn’t hear her.
He reached across and adjusted her mic to fit in front of her mouth, his knuckles brushing her soft lips.
A shock of electricity ricocheted across his nerve endings.
He jerked back his hand as if it had been scalded and returned his attention to the instrument panel and the sky around him. “Talk to me,” he said.
“Can you hear me now?” she asked, her voice even sexier over the radio. How was that even possible?
“I hear you,” he said. “You might as well sit back and relax. Take a nap if you want. We’ll be in the air for a couple of hours.”
Bea turned a little in her seat. She didn’t appear too worried about being in a small plane.
Moe could feel her gaze on him without even looking in her direction. “Have you been up in a small airplane?”
“I have.”
He looked. “Oh, yeah? What kind?”
“I’d like to say I know something about airplanes, but the truth is I know next to nothing. Other than they have wings and fly.”
His lips twitched. “Was it the same size as this plane?”
She frowned. “Bigger. It had ten seats, not counting the pilot and copilot.”
“A much more expensive plane,” Moe commented. “Had your business chartered it for an event?”
She shook her head, staring out the window. “No, they owned it.”
“Nice.”
Bea shrugged. “Some think owning more property will make them happy. But owning property means being owned by your responsibilities toward that property or corporation. You get so busy you forget you have a life outside the entity until your child is grown and gone and all you have left is a corporation and no family.” Bea gave him a wan smile.
“Sorry. That was too deep for a flight through the stars.” She gazed out the window and sighed.
“The sky is amazing up here, away from light pollution and the noise of cars and trucks rumbling by.”
“We rarely have bumper-to-bumper traffic out here,” Moe said. “I like that I don’t get road rage, and I can land almost anywhere. It’s a great way to travel.”
“Do you fly for any commercial airlines?” Bea asked.
“No. I’m not interested in driving a glorified bus or arguing over who got the chicken cordon bleu and who got the veggie plate.
I fly to get myself to different places, but mostly because I love it.
What about you? Why would someone try to kidnap you and then trash your place?
It’s not like a random occurrence. They knew you got off work at that time.
They also had to know when you wouldn’t be home and how long, giving them plenty of time to destroy your home. ”
She stared straight ahead, her jaw tight, her lips pressed into a thin line. “All I wanted was to live a normal life, like everyone else in the world.”
His hands tightened on the yoke. “What do you mean?”
She looked down at her hands in her lap.
“I thought that if I could start over somewhere no one knew me, I might actually have a chance at living the way I want to live, not having my life mapped out for me by someone else or being chased by the media.” She turned toward him with a watery smile.
“And it was working. For a few short weeks, I was Bea Smith, a waitress at the Tumbleweed Tavern in Bozeman. I was paying my own rent on an apartment I furnished with thrift shop finds on my tip money.”
Moe shook his head slowly. “Wait. Let me get this straight… You’re not Bea, the waitress?”
“Yes, and no.” She looked out at the stars. “Yes. I’m the waitress who served you and others at the tavern. I’m also the only living child of my parents, and when they’re gone, I’ll inherit a multi-billion-dollar global corporation I never wanted.”
“Sweet Jesus,” Moe muttered under his breath. “Who the hell are you?”
Bea sighed. “This is the part where I tell you, and things get all weird.”
“As long as I don’t get hit with kidnapping charges, I’m good. As far as I’m concerned, we all put our pants on the same way. How much money you have in your wallet doesn’t make you a better or worse person.”
Her lips twisted. “You say that now, but you’d be surprised how it changes how people look at you.”
His curiosity was piqued, but Moe didn’t pressure her to reveal her real name. She’d been through a lot that day. The last thing she needed was someone demanding to know her well-guarded secret.
“Can I just stay Bea Smith, the waitress at Tumbleweed Tavern?” she asked with a wistful sigh.
“You can be anyone you want. Unfortunately, your secret isn’t secret anymore.
If you’re the only heir to a huge fortune, that would explain why someone would want to kidnap you.
” He frowned. “It doesn’t explain why someone would trash your apartment.
Did you have some proprietary documents or items that were worth stealing stored in your place? ”
Bea shook her head. “No. I left it all behind. I still work for my father’s philanthropic foundation, but that’s all online. I carry my laptop with me in case I need to log in.” She patted the oversized purse she’d carried aboard.
Moe’s glance settled on the bag containing the laptop. “Could you have data on your laptop they might be after?”
She shook her head. “I only tap into the philanthropy database. Not the corporation’s information.”
“Trashing your apartment doesn’t make sense if they weren’t looking for something.” He tapped his thumb on the yoke. “Did you make someone mad? Someone who would want to harm or scare you?”
Bea shrugged. “There’s always those quick to blame my family or the corporation for everything wrong in their lives, real or imagined. It’s possible.”
“The thing is, your apartment was trashed. Not your parents’ place,” Moe pointed out.
“They have a state-of-the-art security system on the ranch,” Bea said. “No one can get in or out without triggering alarms or being captured on camera.”
“Can you think of anyone, in particular, you might have inadvertently snubbed? Rejected? Fired?”
“Not since I’ve been out on my own. There has been the occasional customer who can’t keep his hands to himself.” She smiled. “Stan takes care of them.”
“Why didn’t you tell the sheriff who you were? That kind of information will help them in the kidnapping investigation.”
Bea shrugged. “I didn’t want it to get back to my folks. They’ll flip out and insist I move back to the ranch.”
“Is that such a bad idea?” Moe asked.
Her face hardened. “I can’t live with them. They would cocoon me in bubble wrap and make me a prisoner in their home to keep from losing me.”
“Sounds like they love you,” Moe observed.
She snorted. “I could do with a lot less of that kind of love. I want to live, to feel and experience the world around me, more than the ranch near Kalispell.”
“That’s a beautiful part of Montana,” Moe observed.