Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 119597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 478(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 478(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
“No.” He peers at the image a little too closely for my liking. “I see why you’re trying to find her.”
Gritting my teeth, I flip Sirena’s phone around so he can’t ogle my wife. “Who was the pilot? What was his destination?”
He stares at me, his eyes reflecting the murky depths of my father’s grip. Whatever he’s hiding, I’m not above beating it out of him.
“What about this woman?” Sirena pulls the crinkling photo of Kaya from my fist.
With one phone call, Sirena was able to locate Alvis Duncan. Finding Kaya proves more challenging.
When Kaya left Kodiak Island twenty-three years ago, she went to Utqiagvik, Alaska, according to state licensing records. But no one in the town remembers her. It’s like she vanished into thin air.
Just like Frankie.
Except no one reported Kaya missing. With no living relatives, I was the only person she had left, and I let her go.
Maybe she’s not missing. But after a week of digging, Sirena is still at square one, without a single lead on Kaya’s whereabouts.
“This is Kaya Knowles.” She shows him the photo. “It’s a very old picture. She’s forty-six now.”
“Never seen her.” His gaze shifts to me. “You lost this one, too? Maybe they don’t want to be found.”
This motherfucker is begging for a broken face.
Sensing my rising temper, Sirena presses Kaya’s photo against my chest and waits for me to take it. When I snatch it back, she returns to Alvis. “Can you tell us about the men Rurik Strakh sent? What did they want?”
“I kept the flight logs. They collected them, and I got paid for doing it. Easy work.” He shrugs. “Then about ten or fifteen years ago, they stopped collecting those logs.”
Ten or fifteen years? My father has been dead for twenty.
“Which is it?” I ask. “Ten or fifteen years?”
“Don’t know. I got a bad memory.” He scratches his beard, studying me. “But I still keep those logs.”
My breath stills. “The plane is still coming and going?”
“Look, I don’t want any trouble.”
“Neither do we.” Sirena steps toward him, her demeanor soft and coaxing. “Like Monty said, those men are gone. I know they told you not to share this information, but Monty’s wife…” She opens her phone and puts Frankie’s picture in his face again. “This sweet, beautiful woman is a nurse. Her name is Frankie Novak, and she’s pregnant. Due in the next month or so. We think she’s in trouble. She and the baby. So you understand our urgency in finding her.”
He examines the photo, looking conflicted. Christ, she almost has him.
“Those logs you’re still keeping…” She touches his arm, sidling closer. “Can I just take a peek? It could save their lives, her and the baby.”
His silence is deafening, thundering in my ears.
Then, after an agonizing eternity, he blows out a breath and walks toward the door.
I’m about to blow a gasket until he stops at a workbench and opens the top drawer on the right.
“I’ve been helping a man for twenty-five years,” he starts, his voice rough. “A man who lives by his own rules, off-grid, no way to contact the outside world. His only lifeline is that Turbo Beaver. He flies in and out of here, getting supplies. Dependable. Like clockwork. Until he wasn’t.”
“My father’s Turbo Beaver?” I float toward him, barely breathing, gripped by the story.
“Yes. Same aircraft. It’s been completely overhauled over the years with upgrades, a new engine, and modern avionics.”
“You did the work on that?”
“That’s right. I do all the maintenance while he gathers his supplies. He’s got a yacht in Whittier harbor. Takes it to catch fish and visit other port towns. I don’t know where he goes, to be honest. But he’s always on time. Tells me when he’s flying in, when he’s returning on the yacht. He was supposed to return before winter, but he missed his last supply run.” A furrow of concern creases his brow. “That’s not like him. Something’s wrong.”
A missing bush pilot. Not uncommon. Weather conditions, mechanical failures, wildlife encounters, sickness—there are numerous risks in living off-grid.
But this isn’t just any bush pilot. He likely worked for my father, lived at the safe house, and still resides there, maintaining it.
Alvis retrieves a logbook from the drawer, the pages worn and yellowed. As he flips through them, my heart pounds, a sense of foreboding growing with each turn. Then he stops, pointing to an entry. The last one.
Six weeks after Frankie vanished.
My eyes shift up one line, reading and rereading the prior date.
A week before Frankie left.
The pilot wasn’t here during her disappearance.
This isn’t connected to her. It can’t be.
I lean in and scan the page, every detail sharp in the frigid air.
Then I see it.
The name of the pilot.
Denver Strakh.
“No.” A chill crashes down my spine.
Denver.
My brother.
No, no, no, no.
That’s impossible.
Denver died thirty years ago.