Chapter 12
SADIE
Iwoke up early, my body still sore from yesterday.
The museum’s cot wasn’t exactly comfortable, but at least the showers were functional after hours spent with engine oil and grease.
My mornings had become a kind of routine, though a jarring one: work at Holbrook Aviation during the morning, and pour all my remaining energy into the museum after.
But today, even the normal routine felt fractured, as if everything were slightly out of place, like a puzzle missing a key piece.
When I walked into Holbrook’s corporate offices, the energy was off.
The tension was thick enough to choke on, and I couldn’t shake the sense that everyone knew exactly what had happened.
Just not me. There were whispers in the hallways, too hushed to be caught clearly, but their effect was unmistakable.
Everyone was acting weird, and their eyes darted in my direction before quickly glancing away, as if trying not to draw attention to themselves or me.
I couldn’t take it anymore. The corporate atmosphere had always been suffocating.
I never could have run a company like this.
I was perfectly happy to sequester myself with a few other engineers and just build something.
It was only out of necessity and a little bit of circumstance that I was sitting on a board of directors and having a hand in decisions that would affect a billion-dollar company.
I wasn’t going to shy away from it, as I wasn’t going to let any man push me into a corner.
But this morning was especially suffocating, and I was almost grateful when I finally saw Sharon, Patrick’s long-time assistant, striding down the hallway toward the elevator bank, a pile of papers balanced precariously in her arms, her usually composed expression replaced with a slight frown as she seemed distracted by her own thoughts.
“Sharon,” I called after her before I could think twice, needing some kind of answer, anything that would make sense of the strange atmosphere.
She turned, her eyes wide with surprise and something else, maybe hesitation. “Oh! Sadie. Good morning.” She clutched the papers tighter, as if using them as a shield between us. “I, um... I didn’t think you’d be in today. Is there something I can help you with?”
I frowned, not bothering to hide my confusion. “What’s going on? People have been looking at me all morning like I grew a second head.”
Sharon swallowed hard, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, her gaze darting to the ground.
“It’s just... There was some drama yesterday, with Alyssa.
” She finally said the name as though it were a dirty word, and her tone carried an unmistakable tension, making the air between us even thicker.
“What drama?” I pressed, not caring that we were in the middle of a hallway with people passing us. “What happened?”
Sharon hesitated again, biting her lip like she wasn’t sure she was supposed to be telling me. I hated this side of the corporate world, the secrecy and office politics, but I needed answers. “Spit it out, Sharon. I can take it.”
She let out a quiet sigh, looking defeated, and finally answered, “Mr. Holbrook fired her.”
I froze for a second, my mind spinning. Patrick had fired Alyssa.
For a fleeting moment, I almost believed the world made sense again, that he’d finally seen her for who she was, but the memory of what she had told me, the smug satisfaction in her voice when she said Patrick was thrilled about the pregnancy, came crashing back in. My throat tightened at the thought.
“That doesn’t make sense.” I said the words, but even I could hear how hollow they sounded.
Sharon nodded sympathetically. “I don’t know the specifics, but Mr. Holbrook seemed really angry. He didn’t go into details with me, but he said she had crossed a line.”
My hand instinctively clenched at my side.
Anger wasn’t the only thing that I knew Patrick felt in all this.
The fact that he had been lying to me about Alyssa’s pregnancy, whatever the reason, was eating at me like acid.
I could feel it burning through my insides, making it hard to breathe, the pain threatening to pull me under.
It was only my focus and determination that kept me steady, the drive that had always pushed me through hard times.
But today, I didn’t want to fight. Today, I wanted to walk out of that office and never look back.
“Thanks for telling me,” I muttered, turning on my heel to get away before anyone else tried to offer me more information or sympathetic looks. I was done with this place for the day.
I spent the next couple of hours in my office, half-heartedly going through the motions.
Meetings, emails, more meetings, but my thoughts kept drifting.
Firing Alyssa didn’t fix anything, not when he could’ve just as easily lied about why, especially with a pregnancy between them.
My head was swimming in circles, trying to figure out why Patrick would play such a cruel game if that test had been real.
Finally, I couldn’t stand being there another minute.
I packed up and left, my feet carrying me back to the one place where I could clear my mind, the museum.
But even that sanctuary felt off. Maybe because I was off, too twisted up inside to enjoy even my safe space.
The late June weather was finally beginning to dry out after our long period of rain.
Real summer was on the horizon, but there was still a bit of a chill in the air in the shade of the hangar.
The shadows seemed darker somehow, more sinister, as if they were holding something back, waiting for me to figure it out.
Everything just felt slightly out of step, as if I were walking through a dream that was about to turn into a nightmare.
I dropped my bag off in my office, but my real desire was to gaze upon the project that I wished I could bury myself in completely.
I had told Patrick months ago that restoring the Ford Trimotor wasn’t a hobby.
Yet it was beginning to feel like one more thing I could use as a distraction.
The company hadn’t come through with any grants.
And I wasn’t about to use Patrick’s money on the work.
That felt dirty, somehow, knowing that if I took that money from him now, I was somehow validating what had been done to me, that he could pay for his misdeeds.
That meant it was a project I was working on by myself, slowly and methodically, as I could afford the time.
If this wasn’t my hobby, it felt like it at times.
The Ford Trimotor sat in the restoration bay, its metal skin dull and begging for attention.
I ran my hands over its worn frame, trying to lose myself in the familiar feel of rivets and joints.
This plane was my focus, the one thing I could control in all this chaos.
And yet, today, even the calm of the museum seemed unreachable, a peace just beyond my grasp, taunting me from a distance I couldn’t cross.
“Is it me or is it the plane?” I asked myself out loud, half laughing at the absurdity of it. The plane wasn’t the problem; it was the turmoil inside me, the questions I couldn’t stop asking.
As I moved around to the undercarriage to inspect some rusted components, I paused.
There, lying neatly on the workbench, was a fresh set of wires, new and glistening as though they’d been waiting for me to install them.
The metal bolts I had been struggling to loosen the day before were gone, replaced by pristine, torqued ones.
I stared at them, my brow furrowing. I hadn’t left them here like this.
A chill ran down my spine, raising the fine hairs on my arms as I turned slowly to look at the plane again, noticing how someone had cleaned off the dust that had accumulated on its wings, as though someone else had been working on it.
Someone who knew what they were doing. The dust that had settled like a soft blanket on the metal surfaces was gone, revealing patches where the original silver paint still gleamed faintly through years of neglect.
My eyes traced the meticulous lines of new wiring that ran along the fuselage, each connector precisely crimped and secured with tie wraps placed at exact intervals, a professional touch I hadn’t yet applied myself.
The rusted bolts that had stubbornly resisted my torque wrench just yesterday gleamed with fresh threads, their replacement too clean, too deliberate to be coincidence.
Every detail spoke of competence, of someone who understood aviation mechanics as well as I did, and the realization sent another wave of unease through me.
I hurried over to where Ellen was organizing a supply cart, my heart racing now. “Did someone work on the Tin Goose this morning?” I asked, keeping my voice steady despite the unease swirling inside me.
Ellen looked up, shaking her head, the wrinkles around her eyes crinkling slightly in confusion. “Nope, I haven’t touched it today. Why?”
I bit back the urge to panic. “The bolts were replaced. New wiring, too.”
Ellen squinted, thinking hard. “Huh. That’s spooky.
I swear, I haven’t been near that plane since yesterday.
Maybe one of the volunteers pitched in? Sometimes folks from the community drop by, Boeing employees and the like, looking to tinker.
You know how they are, always looking to get their hands on something old. ”