donât know why someone would want to kill me.â Sylvie wished she hadnât said the words out loud. They disturbed her. She quickly changed the subject. Riding in the death trap of a plane was enough to handle at the moment. âWhereâre you from, Will?â
âMountain Cove.â
Sylvie couldnât help the shiver that ran across her shoulders. Her mother would have snarled at the mention of Mountain Cove. From all sheâd told Sylvie, Mountain Cove was nothing but a bunch of backwater, back-stabbing gossipers. Her mother had reason enough to feel that way, Sylvie supposed, considering sheâd had a secret affair with an already married pillar of the community and the man had ended his relationship with her. Pregnant, Sylvieâs mother had been ashamed and fled Mountain Cove.
Sylvie kept to herself the fact that her father was from Mountain Cove. Sheâd never met him, though that would be impossible now that he was deceased. But her half siblings lived there, too. A surreal desperation flooded herâshe wanted to meet the Warren siblingsâher half siblings. See what they were made of. Come to her own conclusions about them, and what her real father was like and the people of Mountain Cove.
Despite all Sylvieâs motherâs negative talk about the town, sheâd been on her way back to Mountain Cove for reasons unknown to Sylvie when sheâd taken that last, fatal flight. But Sylvie didnât want to share any of this with Will. She didnât know a thing about him except that heâd saved her today.
The plane lurched to the right and Sylvieâs stomach went with it. She released a telling groan.
âIt gets rough through here. Sorry.â
âSo far itâs been a walk in the meadow.â Sylvie regretted her sarcasm. Will didnât deserve it.
But he laughed. He had a sense of humor, which was more than Sylvie could say for herself. Somehow the thick timbre of his mirth relaxed her.
âYou never did say where youâre from, by the way.â
No, she hadnât. He hadnât asked, but normal conversation would have required she reciprocate when heâd told her he was from Mountain Cove.
âThe Seattle area. I teach scuba diving for commercial divers and I volunteer for search-and-rescue dive operations.â
The man next to her shifted in his seat and seemed uneasy. âMy dad died in a diving accident. I havenât gone diving since.â
âIâm sorry to hear that. My mother died in a plane crash.â She regretted her tone. She hadnât meant it to sound as though she was in a competition.
The plane jerked with his reaction, subtle though it was. âWell, we have something in common, after all. My mother died in a plane crash, too.â
Oh, why had she revealed so much? She wasnât sure what more she should tell him, if anything. He didnât deserve to get mixed up in her problems. But what if he already was? Had the men who tried to kill her today paid attention to Will and his plane? Would they track him down and exact some sort of killing revenge?
She should have realized this from the beginning. The attack on her today must have to do with her motherâs plane crash. She was close to finding the crash and someone didnât want her there. What else could it be? Or was she exhibiting the crazy imagination of someone suffering through mild hypothermia and the bends all at the same time?
A snippet of her motherâs voice mail raced across her mind.
Iâm flying to Mountain Cove on a bush plane. I know what youâre thinking, but Iâll tell you more when I get there. Itâs Damon... Oh... Iâve gotta go...
A rattling dinâsomething entirely newârose above the whir of the propellers, and a tremor joined the rattle. Was this normal? She squeezed the armrests again because there wasnât anything else to grab. Sylvieâs warnings to her mother