Endless Night

“Let’s see if you’re telling the truth, Mr. Lloyd.” The Web site was slick and colorful. Part of her felt disappointed. She’d been half expecting to find there was no such magazine, but here it was in bold, splashy color. An online archive made it easy to search all prior issues.

This time when the search was finished, Jackie felt not disappointment, but sick dread. There wasn’t one single article by anyone named Byron Lloyd.

Roman had a hard time keeping his mind on his work as he checked over the plane.

Jackie was terrified of someone, perhaps the same someone who had broken into her room. He fought a strong desire to return to check on her, call her, drop everything and find her that very moment.

Jackie felt like he’d abandoned her, killed her brother and left her to handle the grief alone. He slammed the toolbox shut. The past couldn’t be changed, but what about the present situation? Who was after her? And why? Even the thrum of the plane’s engines when he fired them to life a half hour later did not calm his thoughts. He noted the increasing cloud cover. Possible blizzard approaching.

It would be devastating for Skip and the snow-sculpture competition. With each competitor forking over several hundred dollars to participate, Skip would get to keep a nice chunk of the entry fee to cover costs. He’d also make a hefty bit of change selling food—if the weather didn’t interfere. Roman hoped the blizzard held off. Skip seemed stressed and distracted lately. He didn’t need anything else on his plate. Skip was like a father to him. He couldn’t bear to see him so pained. Roman’s own father was only a distant memory, a man who’d left when he was just a kid.

He was surprised to see Jackie with Skip as they approached the cleared landing strip.

He opened the passenger-side door for her. “You going along?”

She nodded, her face screened by a curtain of coppery hair and showing no signs of her earlier outburst. “I’ve got to do some business at the bank.”

He wondered, but didn’t question as they flew toward the airport. “Skip and I have to get the supplies loaded, then I can drive us into town. Okay by you, Skip?”

The man looked up from a piece of paper he’d been perusing. “What?”

Roman repeated the plan.

“Sure, sure. That’s fine.” He returned his attention to the paper.

Jackie turned. “Everything okay, Skip? You seem worried about something.”

Skip started. “Who me? Nah. Just all the fuss about Winterfest. I’m fine.”

Jackie faced front again but Roman saw her looking at Skip in the side mirror. She too felt there was something not quite right. Roman tried to keep his mind fixed firmly on the approaching airport, though the scent of Jackie’s newly washed hair triggered a cascade of memories. He remembered how it had looked at the funeral; smooth, twisted into a coil of fire that glimmered in the sunlight.

Not now, Roman. Not ever.

They landed and jogged through the frigid air into the loading area. Crates of fresh vegetables, flour and sugar and frozen meats were ready and waiting. Skip arranged for signatures, and Roman waved to Al as the heavyset man climbed onto a forklift. After he finished the paperwork, Skip climbed up a ladder to a landing ten feet above them, and began sorting the crates into efficient stacks.

Roman turned to Jackie to tell her there was coffee in the terminal but found her busily scanning a message board that flashed the incoming and outgoing flights. Her face was drawn in a look of such concentration, he started over to see exactly what had caught her interest so completely. He’d made it only a few steps when a cry made him turn.

The forklift lurched unexpectedly backward and toppled, sending the machine over. The violent jerk made Skip lose his balance. He yelled, holding desperately onto the edge of the landing, dangling in the air.

Al struggled to free himself from the overturned equipment. Roman ran to cut the engine on the forklift while he yelled to Skip, “Hang on.”

Skip would not be able to maintain his grip for long. A ten-foot fall onto a stack of wooden crates might just break the man’s back.

“I’ll go to the ladder,” Jackie yelled, running across the lot to a ladder fixed to the far side of the loading dock.

“No time.” Roman climbed on the tipped forklift and eased his way onto the nearest stack of boxes. They shifted ominously under his feet. Pulse pounding, he leaped onto a stack of crates a second before the one he was standing on gave way with a lurch. Boxes toppled down underneath him but Roman’s eyes were fixed on the man who desperately gripped the landing ledge a few feet above him.

Continuing up as quickly as he could, Roman crawled across the stacked boxes and with the biggest leap he could manage, hurled himself onto the platform. He made it, barely. Muscles straining, he hoisted a leg over the ledge, then the other and scrambled over to the spot where Skip struggled to hang on.

Grasping Skip by both wrists, Roman kept his own body as close to the landing as possible to keep from being pulled over the edge. With every bit of strength left, he hauled Skip back onto the platform. They both lay there for a moment, sweating and panting. Jackie made it up the ladder and ran over to them.

Jackie’s face was white as she knelt next to Roman and Skip, trying to assess both men at once. “Are you hurt?”

Roman closed his eyes against the dizziness that made his head swim, not from the exertion, but from the nearness of her, the small hand on his arm, the brush of her hair on his face. “Not hurt,” he managed.

Skip also groaned a reassurance and managed to sit up. When he turned to look at Roman, a strange wash of emotion flowed over his face. “You, you saved me.”

Roman cleared his throat. “You would have been fine.”

Skip continued to stare, his eyes fixed in terrible concentration. “No, I wouldn’t. You shouldn’t have done it, Roman, not for me.”

Roman thought for a horrifying moment the man was going to cry until Jackie knelt by him. She had noticed Skip’s strange reaction too. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Skip shook his head and nodded, wiping a hand across his forehead. He hauled himself up and headed for the ladder. Jackie stared after him, a puzzled look on her face, then she turned to Roman and stroked his shoulder. “Are you sure you aren’t hurt?”

He wanted to hold her hand there forever. “Not hurt.”

“That was crazy. What were you thinking?”

The words came out before he had a chance to strip out the emotion. “I was thinking I could save him.”

She must have heard it in his tone, the thought that rose to the surface like a needle-toothed barracuda. Like I tried to save your brother.

The pain flashed in the amber depths of her eyes. She jerked her hand away and stood. The moment was gone, Jackie was gone, and he felt only a heavy fatigue, weightier than the snow that had buried them on that terrible night.

SIX

When the loading was done, they made their way to town in a Wayne’s Aviation van. Jackie mulled over the accident at the airport. Roman’s behavior had been reckless. She felt a surge of anger. How had he felt when his recklessness had caused him to drive off the road with her brother in the car? He’d said he couldn’t remember the details. There was some mysterious vehicle that appeared and caused them to veer over the embankment. Rescuers and investigators had found no sign of any such thing. It was an excuse, a way to escape blame that should rest entirely on his shoulders.

Please, Lord. Take my anger away. She’d asked God countless times already to free her from the rage that burned brightly inside her. There was something that prevented her from letting it go, a heavy weight that kept her anger fixed firmly in place.

She thought of Skip’s face as he lay on the platform, a mixture of relief and gratitude and another emotion that she couldn’t define. Something was definitely not right with Skip Delucchi. She turned it over and over in her mind before her thoughts led her back to Roman.

It might have been a rash act, but she had to admit it was also a selfless one. Much easier to wait until help arrived, to climb the safer route as they had, knowing Skip would have fallen before aid arrived.

She looked surreptitiously at Roman, who kept his eyes fixed on the snowy road. He had always been impulsive, but there was a calmer quality to him now, and a sober maturity in his face. For a moment, she had the wildest urge, in spite of her anger, to reach out and touch the strong fingers that gripped the steering wheel.

Snap out of it, Jackie. You’re losing your sanity. She fingered the thumb drive in her pocket as they rumbled into town.

“Going to the Sea Mart to get something,” Skip said, his face still a shade too pale, Jackie thought.

Roman nodded. “I’m going that way too.” He shot a look at Jackie.

She waved them off. “I’ve got banking to do. I’ll meet you back at the van.”

They disembarked into an intense cold that made her eyes tear. As Skip hopped out, he dropped his bundled papers. An envelope hit the ground, scattering its contents.

Jackie barely restrained a gasp to see a dozen hundred-dollar bills fluttering in the slight breeze. She and Roman helped Skip retrieve the money before it could blow away.