110. Chapter 110
He was going to shit his pants. There was no doubt in his mind. He was going to shit himself, and the highway patrol was going to scrape Graham and his brother off the road with a shovel and a sponge.
Jase flew like the devil north to San Francisco. At no point during the trip, when they were safe within the four walls and plaid ceiling of the station wagon, had Jase shown this kind of urgency.
“We won’t find them if we’re dead!”
The words went no farther than the helmet padding that was supposed to save Graham’s life in the event of a crash. At this pace it would probably crack like an egg.
Graham nearly toppled off the bike as soon as it stopped in front of the airport terminal.
He struggled with the helmet buckle, cursing through the pain as he worked it over fresh bruises, then ran with numb feet and sore thighs to the nearest set of automatic doors.
Almost inside and already scanning for Helen’s shiny black hair, someone hollered at him.
“Hey, you can’t leave your bike here unattended.”
“What?” Graham found a female airport attendant coming up fast, and his brother already gone.
“This is loading and unloading only,” the attendant barked. “You can’t leave your vehicle.”
“It’s not my vehicle,” Graham said. “It’s—”
Where the hell was Jase?
“You came off it, sir. Stay with your vehicle or drive it on out of here.”
“Shit,” he grumbled, peering through the gaps in travelers coming in and out of the terminal. “Jase? Jase, where the fuck are you?”
“I’ll ask you kindly to watch your language. There’re children about.”
What? Graham palmed his chest. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening. Jase had disappeared, Helen might already be on a plane back to Austin, and some old woman in an airport hat was telling him he couldn’t do anything about it—and, by the way, watch his mouth?
He stepped closer to the doors for a better look, and the attendant reached for her walkie talkie.
“I’ll call security now.”
“I thought you were security.”
“Are we going to have a problem, sir?”
Graham put up his hands and inched back toward the red, two-wheeled death machine at the curb. “Okay. Okay. We’re cool.”
But they weren’t. Not even close. He pulled out his phone, cursed at the cracked screen he kept forgetting about, and called her for the tenth time. This time he left a message.
“Helen, I’m sorry. Please don’t go.”