Miranda Chase

Chapter 7

Andi Wu was half awake, maybe even three-quarters.

If she faceplanted in the bowl of oatmeal on the table, perhaps she’d hit seven-eighths. As usual, she was the last one up. Miranda, Mike, and Holly were nowhere to be found, but their walking boots were missing from the mudroom. Taz and Jeremy had just been leaving for a morning run as she’d stumbled down the stairs.

What was wrong with morning people? For a decade as a helicopter pilot with the US Army’s Night Stalkers helicopter regiment, she’d lived in a flipped-clock world. “Death waits in the dark,” was one of their mottos for a reason; they lived and flew at night. Vampire jokes abounded inside the regiment. She could make up a rocking short-Chinese-woman-vampire story when she was in the mood.

Though she’d been out for most of a year, being on Miranda’s team was still screwing with her circadian rhythm.

And Miranda was messing with her mind.

She finished her oatmeal, washed the bowl, and placed it precisely where Miranda liked bowls to be stacked. She was very particular about her kitchen layout and Andi did her best to accommodate that.

Pulling on her own shoes and shrugging into a jacket, she walked up to the island’s midfield hangar. Circling around a pair of sheep that were almost as tall as her own five-two, she opened the people-sized door and went inside.

The early morning light shone through a high window and illuminated the aircraft inside as if she was in some shadowy fairy tale.

For months she’d been expecting to be shed from the team. Sure, she knew rotorcraft cold, but she wasn’t a mechanic. Between Jeremy and Miranda, they knew more about how helicopters were built than she’d realized there was to know.

Only on the rare occasions when the team was investigating a helicopter crash did she feel as if she belonged. But most of their work was in fixed-wing aircraft. She knew almost nothing about those. Sure, she spoke “pilot” better than anyone else on the team, even Miranda, but it wasn’t that significant a role.

that Most of the time, she hung with Miranda, helping where she could—and waiting for the axe to fall.

But it kept aloft.

And now this!

There was a brand-new aircraft in the hanger.

Miranda’s old four-seater Mooney M20V prop plane and the Cessna M2 bizjet that the manufacturer had given Miranda were parked at the Tacoma office.

givenThis hangar currently held only two aircraft at the moment.

Miranda’s Korean War era F-86 Sabrejet always drew the eye. Even with the guns and bombs removed, the silver jet still looked utterly lethal. Andi had always been a whirlybird gal, but to go winging around the country at almost the speed of sound in an antique solo jet did sound pretty freaking awesome.

It was the other aircraft that had her stumped.

It was an MD 902 Explorer helicopter.

Six seats including the pilot.

Seven million dollars of aircraft.

And Miranda had simply bought it. That she was hugely wealthy was a given, so that wasn’t what was confusing Andi.

It was that Miranda couldn’t fly it.

Miranda insisted that she’d bought it because she wanted to learn more about rotorcraft and it was very convenient for transporting the team locally.

She’d bought it the week after Andi had been recertified for flight—by FAA docs who obviously thought PTSD was some kind of…phase. She might test fine, but they weren’t inside her head.

Miranda hadn’t leased it either, she’d bought it outright.

And Andi was the team’s only rotorcraft pilot.

Or so they’d thought until Holly had revealed she’d picked up a helo license when she was in the SASR—Australia’s elite special operations team.

Miranda had bought it for Andi to use. As if Miranda expected her to have a long-term place on the team.

AndiOr had it been some sort of twisted present? A bribe to make her…what?

Andi brushed a hand over its sleek silver-and-blue paint job.

Trying to pin a nefarious motive on Miranda simply didn’t hold. Her concept of manipulation was very literal, like manipulating a wrench to loosen a bolt. Perhaps, just as she’d insisted, she hadn’t even thought of the gift aspect of it. Miranda’s autism kept her free from those kinds of games.

Andi rested her forehead against the acrylic panel of the pilot-side door and stared at the seat—her seat.

Miranda had given her back a piece of her soul and didn’t even know it.

Was any woman ever that thoughtlessly kind? Certainly none of her past lovers had been. But then none of them had been Miranda either.

She thumped her head against the acrylic.

Did she finally have a home? A place she belonged…on Miranda’s team?

Andi closed her eyes and rolled her cheek onto the window.

Maybe, just maybe she did.

Even if she didn’t understand why or how…maybe she did.

The harsh rattle of the main hangar door sliding open startled her.

The team came streaming in.

“Let’s go, mate. Got a launch and we’re up.” Holly walked up and dropped Andi’s gear bag to the ground. Then she tugged a yellow Australian Matildas ball cap out of her back pocket and slapped it down onto Andi’s head. “You forgot this.” Then she strode around the bird to toss her own gear in the back, leaving Andi’s bag resting on her toes.

Even when she’d been a decorated captain in the 160th Night Stalkers, she’d never exuded that kind of confidence.

“Why are you crying?” Miranda was standing so close that her toes were touching the other side of Andi’s gear bag.

Andi reached up to touch her fingers to her cheeks, and they came away wet. Hopefully no one else had noticed—which was a stupid thought as Holly had just shoved her favorite women’s soccer team’s hat on Andi’s head.

“I was crying because...” She searched for some way to tell Miranda how she’d made Andi feel and couldn’t find the words.

Holly stepped up and shoved the preflight checklist into her hands. “Not at some lazy Sunday barbie, mate.”

But Miranda was still waiting.

“They’re happy tears, Miranda. Don’t worry.” And she turned her attention to the checklist.

At least she hoped that’s what they were. Happy sounded far better that utter, desperate, insurmountable bewilderment.