Addison shut off the tape and went to the couch and lay down, massaging his temples. God, why couldn’t there have been a better reason? Why couldn’t it have been instrument malfunction or a wind surge or lightning, or any number of things that could purge Mick of this blame? For Erin’s sake, why couldn’t you have let me find some other conclusion?
Because there was none, he thought dismally. And as much as he knew it would hurt Erin, he couldn’t compromise his report. He could, however, listen over and over until he made sure that he wasn’t missing something, and Sid and the rest of the Board didn’t have to like it. Then he would prepare Erin, and hope that she didn’t blame him for drawing the conclusions he must.
Wearily, he went back to the tape deck to rewind the tape and started playing it again. It would be a long night, he thought. But if he had to come up with a report he didn’t like, he was going to be as sure as feasibly possible that he wasn’t making a mistake.
Chapter Fifteen
Erin sat at her desk in the scheduling office the next morning, desperately trying to sort out a whirlwind of emotions. Terror—the kind that turned her heart inside out and kept her from functioning logically. Grief—the kind that lingered somewhere dark, even when there was brightness. Anger—the kind that turned her from a rational woman into someone who almost couldn’t cope. Love—the kind that Addison had drawn out of her last night when she had been certain that misery wouldn’t surrender to any other emotion.
She closed her eyes and thought of the Cessna she hadn’t been able to fly and the fact that she’d turned to Addison. She should be angry with herself, and yet she wasn’t. She was frightened by the illogical nature of her feelings. She didn’t like running on pure emotion. Not when she knew that the investigation was still being conducted and that Jason and Maureen were still victims of gossip and speculation and that Addison had the power to change their situation. How could she simply follow her feelings and forget all that? But more importantly, how could she blame Addison, when he’d already demonstrated his enormous sense of responsibility to her?
The door opened to the office, and she glanced up, over the dozens of others who worked diligently on their computers and phone lines. She saw Addison scanning the room for her. His eyes met hers, and he smiled—a tentative, tired smile, and then he started toward her.
“Hi,” he whispered when he reached her desk.
A self-conscious smile spread from her eyes to the corners of her lips. “Hi.”
“Erin, do you have time for a break? I need to talk to you.”
She felt a flicker of alarm and glanced down at the work on her desk, then checked her watch. Was he going to call their relationship quits, just as it had gotten started? Erin wondered, studying his face. Would this be a let’s-not-take-this-too-seriously lecture? Swallowing, she got up from her desk. “I guess.” She looked at him with tender appraisal and noted the shadows beneath his eyes and the weary slump to his posture. “Is something wrong?”
“I just want to talk to you,” he said softly.
The gentleness in Addison’s voice sent a fresh surge of worry coiling through her as Erin followed him out into the terminal and up the stairs that led to the lounge where Southeast pilots and flight attendants usually rested between flights. No one was there this time of morning, so Erin followed him in and sat down. “What is it, Addison?” she asked.
Addison sat down across from her and rested his elbows on his knees. “I got the tape back yesterday,” he said. “When I got home from your place last night, I was up all night listening to it over and over.”
“Oh,” she said, suddenly numb. She leaned back in her chair and laced her hands together in her lap, waiting. There was no time to feel relief that she had been wrong, that the bad news wasn’t about them. It was still bad news. She could sense it. Barriers began to rise around her, and she felt her muscles tightening. He had heard the truth, the fear, the death. He had experienced Mick’s end.
Silence held its tight breath between them, and Erin struggled to find the most pertinent questions in her mind. Was Mick afraid? Did he know he was crashing? What went wrong? What broke down? What proved to you that it wasn’t Mick’s fault, because it wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t his fault. It couldn’t have been…
Instead of voicing the myriad questions, she cleared her throat. “Could…could I hear?”
“No, Erin,” he whispered. “Not until I file the report.”
“When will that be?” she asked.
“Soon,” he said.
“Soon…meaning you’ve come to your conclusion? Meaning you’ve almost finished the investigation?”
“I still have some legwork to do,” he said quietly. “I haven’t finished Mick’s seventy-two-hour history before the crash or his profile…but I’m pretty sure of what happened.”
She didn’t want to ask…couldn’t ask. The words just wouldn’t come. Instead, Erin stood up, her red dress rustling against her legs. She crossed her arms, hugging herself for comfort, and went to the window to gaze outside.
“Erin, I wanted to talk to you before I filed the report. You deserve to know. You need to know.”
Still, she didn’t answer.
“It’s my opinion, based on the facts and the data, and now the tape, that Mick was, indeed, at fault. That he got slightly below the glide path of his final approach and panicked when he realized it, wasting valuable seconds that could have been utilized to correct the problem.”
“Mick didn’t panic.” Erin bit out the words, her eyes turning as hard as marble, focusing on a spot below the window. “Mick never panicked.”
“Everybody panics sometime,” Addison said.
“Not Mick!” She turned back to Addison, her flushed cheeks rivaling the color of her dress. “Addison, there’s another reason. Mick had flown that approach too many times. You know it, and I know it. He had over five thousand hours of flying time under his belt. For heaven’s sake, he always told the story of the time in the Air Force when his plane caught on fire. He still landed it and got out safely. He wasn’t the type to panic.”
Addison couldn’t be swayed. His mind was made up. “Erin, I listened to the tape over and over. I’ve gone over the facts a hundred times. He made a mistake, panicked, and flew the airplane into the ground.”
“Did you hear that on the tapes?” she asked. “The panic? Did he say, ‘Oh no, I’m below the glide path! What am I going to do?’”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?” she shouted.
“What other explanation is there?” he demanded. “His first officer warned him he was too low. He told him to pull up. Erin, he didn’t!”
Familiar tears rushed to cloud Erin’s vision again. She covered her mouth and shook her head. “There was some reason,” she said. “You’ve just got to look harder. Something happened in that airplane that you couldn’t hear on the tape, Addison.”
Addison dropped his weary head into his hands. “Erin, you’ve got to accept it. I’ve done the best I can.”
“Have you?” she asked, and he didn’t miss the note of accusation in her voice. “Have you talked to others who could tell you that there was no way on earth that Mick Hammon panicked in the cockpit? Have you talked to his wife? His son?”
“I plan to,” he said. “It just isn’t something I’m looking forward to.”
“Why?” she asked. “Because you feel guilty? Because you’re afraid they’ll see you as the enemy?”
Addison rose to his feet. “I’m not the enemy, Erin. I interpret data and facts. That’s all I can do.”
“We’re talking about human beings, Addison. Not a bunch of numbers. You can measure impacts and angles and altitudes all you want, and you can listen to all the tapes in the world, but that still won’t tell you a thing about Mick Hammon’s fortitude. People will. You won’t take my word for it. Take theirs!”
“It won’t change things, Erin.”
She heaved a loud sigh and turned back t
o the window. She wiped her eyes. “I have to get back to work,” she said. “Your mind’s made up. There’s nothing I can do to change it.”
She started to cross the room, but Addison grabbed her arm, forcing her to stop. “Erin, you said that you wouldn’t hate me for this. That you wouldn’t blame me.”
Erin swallowed and pulled her arm out of his grasp. Coldly, wordlessly, she opened the door.
“But you are blaming me, aren’t you?”
She stepped over the threshold and looked down at her shoes, so delicate and far removed from those she wore with her uniform. “No, Addison,” she said quietly, knowing it was a lie. “I don’t blame you.”
“Then when can I see you again?” he asked. The question was a test, and they both knew it.
Lifting her chin, she leveled her cold eyes on him. “Saturday,” she said. “Three o’clock, at the youth center. You can help with the airplanes we’re trying to paint.”
Surprise, relief, and the slightest hint of apprehension colored his eyes. “Okay,” he said, with a reluctant smile. “Saturday it is.”
Erin didn’t answer his smile. Stiffly, she went through the door and let it close behind her.
On the way back to her office, Erin thought about her plan. Jason Hammon would be at the youth center Saturday, and it was high time Addison met him.
Maybe then he’d see her point, she thought. Maybe then he would back off and see that all the “facts” in the world weren’t worth the devastation his report would inflict on a little boy and his grieving mother. Maybe then he’d find some other conclusion to his report.
Because until he did, Erin feared there was no future for them at all.
Chapter Sixteen
The youth center was abuzz with excitement Saturday, because the mural the kids had been working on was finished and they were about to begin a new one. Twenty kids showed up, including Jason Hammon, whom Erin had persuaded to attend, and each was clamoring to make the first mark on the new wall. The new mural would be a tribute to the nearby airport. Several of the kids had suggested the idea because of the number of airline employees who had volunteered their time and support to help get Shreveport kids off the streets. Madeline and Sam, also regular volunteers, were there to help. Sam, as usual, had a cluster of boys around him. She was grateful that he gave of his time, because he was a wonderful witness to kids who needed someone to look up to.
He sang “Ba-ba-ba, Ba-ba-ber Ann,” as he shook up the cans of paint, and Madeline sang right along with him—as some of the kids did.
His silliness boosted the spirits of everyone, but Erin couldn’t pump hers to the point of the others’. She knelt on the floor, preparing drop cloths, charcoal, and paints, while the kids studied the sketches she’d done and argued over which parts they’d paint. Jason hung back quietly from the rest, still not ready to take part in the light bantering that went on among the kids. He saw them all as T.J.s, she realized, as threats to his name and his memories…as enemies to be reckoned with. What he didn’t know was that few of these kids knew who his father had been, and most of them hadn’t been around for the fight with T.J. Erin looked up at him, offered a smile, then glanced toward the glass doors, wondering when Addison would arrive.
“I get to do the 747,” Zeke shouted above the din, pointing at the largest plane in the sketches. “It’s bigger, and it’ll take a lot more talent. See, I been thinkin’ about sorta showin’ the inside, like cuttin’ it in half or somethin’…”
“That’s an L-1011,” Jason cut in, his voice toneless, standing back with his hands buried in his denim pockets.
“What is?” Zeke asked, pivoting toward the nine-year-old and squinting his eyes in a way that might seem threatening to someone who didn’t know better.
Jason’s shoulders squared. “It’s not a 747,” he repeated. “It’s a Lockheed 1011.”
“So who made you an authority?” another kid asked.
Jason lifted his shoulder with feigned indifference. “I know airplanes.”
Zeke regarded Erin, still kneeling on the floor. “Hey, Erin. Tell this kid that this is a 747.”
Erin couldn’t help smiling. “He’s right, Zeke. It’s an L-1011. And if I were you, I’d listen to this kid, because he does know airplanes.”
Zeke assessed Jason curiously. “Well, it’s still mine,” he said after a moment. “Just because you know what it is, don’t mean you get to paint it.”
Jason shrugged again, the gesture as close as he could venture to revealing his feelings. “That’s okay. I didn’t want it. I want that one there. The 727.”
Zeke was satisfied. As though he were the self-proclaimed leader, he got the sketch of the 727 and thrust it into Jason’s hands. “Sure thing. It’s all yours.”
Erin stopped sorting her equipment and sat back on her heels, gauging Jason’s reaction as Zeke extended a hand that unmistakably said, “Gimme five.” For a moment Jason only stared at it. When Zeke didn’t withdraw it, Jason reluctantly gave it the friendly slap he was waiting for.
“Why d’ya want that one, anyway?” Zeke asked, analyzing the sketched airplane that Jason held.
Jason swallowed and looked down at Erin, barely masking his surprise that this smart-talking kid from the poor side of town didn’t know that Mick was Jason’s father, and hadn’t heard the rumors. Her eyes were tender, understanding, and worried. Would he tell Zeke now, possibly refresh his memory of what he may have seen on TV, give him the opportunity to whiplash Jason with careless words? But Jason didn’t let her down. “I want this one because that’s what Erin flies,” he explained quietly.
“That true?” Zeke asked, giving Erin a chance to refute Jason’s word.
Erin studied the charcoal pencils lined on the floor, considering her answer. It was true once, she felt compelled to say. Now I can’t even cut it in a Cessna. Instead, she decided to stand behind Jason. “I told you,” she said. “Jason knows his stuff.”
The general buzz began again as she passed out charcoal and assigned places on the large mural, hurrying back and forth from one child to another, offering help. She didn’t notice when Addison at last stepped through the glass doors.
He came up beside her and tapped her shoulder. His eyes were guarded, as she was sure hers were.
“Hi,” he said.
Something in her heart tripped and stumbled forward. But the coldness wouldn’t go away, and she couldn’t forget her purpose for inviting him here today. It was too important.
She forced a false smile all the way to her eyes. “Addison.”
Something in his own expression flickered, almost as if he sensed that her smile wasn’t genuine. He glanced around. “Lot more kids here today than there were the other night.”
She nodded. “Yeah. They always show up in droves when we start a new mural. Everyone wants to get his mark on it. Later, when we’re painting, they kind of come in cycles.”
“Hey, Addison,” Zeke called from his station down the wall.
Addison gave Zeke an amused grin. “How’s it goin’, Zeke?”
“Not bad. You know anything about airplanes?”
Addison chuckled and winked at Erin. “Oh, maybe a little.”
Still angry about the report, she turned away without responding to his quip. He took her arm and made her look up at him. “Look,” he said softly, “I can see that neither of us has really gotten over our anger after the other night, but I came, didn’t I?”
“Yes,” she said. “You came.”
“I came because something’s happening between us, and I think we can work through the problems.”
She turned her guilty eyes away.
“Addison? Addison? How ’bout comin’ down here to help me out? I’ve got this 747 that needs—”
“It’s an L-1011,” Jason reminded him, grinning now.
Zeke laughed. “Oh, yeah. Well, whatever it is, man…”
“Besides,” Jason flung, beginning to get comfortable with Zeke. “I thought you said it
needed special talent, that only you…”
“I just asked,” Zeke said, annoyed. “Me and Addison, we work real good together.”
In spite of the serious moment between Erin and him, Addison couldn’t help smiling at Zeke’s antics, and he started making his way toward the boy. But Erin stopped him when she realized that he would miss talking to Jason if he started helping Zeke. “I wanted to help Zeke with that L-1011,” she said. “I need you to work down here. Next to Jason.” Zeke shrugged.
“I don’t need help,” Jason said, insulted. “I can do it.”
“I know you can,” Erin said, ushering Addison down toward Jason. “But I want a lot of detail on this one. Addison knows a lot about planes, and he can help you get it just right.” She turned to Addison, her smile returning with reluctant glory as she set a possessive hand on Jason’s shoulder. “Addison, this guy is one of my best friends in the world. I want you two to work together.”
“No problem,” Addison said, slightly confused. She watched as he regarded the work the boy had already begun. Erin hoped the detail in the drawing didn’t clue him in to the fact that the boy had an unusual knowledge of planes. “Not bad,” he commented. “Great start. This wing might be a little longer, though. Do you mind if I…?”
Eyes narrow with concentration, Jason broke his charcoal in half and handed one piece to Addison, allowing him to correct the proportions of the wing. “That’s a lot better than what I did,” Jason said. “I knew something was off. Just didn’t know what. Do you think I got the nose right? It looks a little too round to me.”
Erin stepped back, watching with barely concealed emotion as the two worked together like old pals. She felt the sting of tears behind her eyes, but willed them back. It was just a matter of time—minutes? hours?—before Addison discovered that Jason was Mick’s son, and that Erin had set him up. He’d be angry with her, and he would have reason. But this ploy was her last tool to change his mind about the conclusions in his report. If he could just get to know Jason, see how vulnerable he was, like the boy the way that she did…Erin knew he’d find some way around reporting that Mick had screwed up.