“All right.” He sneezed violently, then went into a coughing fit.
From where Cam was seated he couldn’t see Karen, but he heard a hissing noise, then Bret was enveloped in a mist. “Oh, for God’s sake,” the sick man wheezed, flapping his arms to drive the mist away. “Breathing this can’t be good.”
She simply sprayed more. “I give up,” he muttered after a futile few seconds of flapping, because he was losing ground against the cloud. “I’m going, I’m going. But if I develop lung failure because you’ve Lysoled me to death, you’re fired!”
“If you’re dead, you can’t fire me.” She got in the last shot, delivered to his back as he slammed out of the office.
After a moment of silence, Cam said, “Spray some more. Spray everything he touched.”
“I’ll need a new can. This one’s almost empty.”
“When I get back, I’ll buy you a whole case.”
“For now, I’ll spray the doorknobs he’s touched, but other than that stay out of his office.”
“What about the bathroom?”
“I’m not going in the men’s john. I used to think men were human, but I went in a jock john once and almost passed out from shock. Going into another one would probably throw me into psychotic episodes. You want the bathroom sprayed, you’ll have to do it yourself.”
He pondered for a moment on the faintly unbelievable detail that she worked for them, then he also considered the probability that the office would fall into complete chaos if she weren’t there. Probability, hell; she’d make damn certain it did. When he weighed those two viewpoints against each other, he concluded that bathroom spraying wasn’t on her list of duties. “I don’t have time right now.”
“The bathroom isn’t going anywhere—and I use the ladies’.” Meaning she didn’t care if the men’s got de-germed or not.
He stared through the open door, only now realizing how many of their conversations were carried on with her in the outer office and him in his office, and most of the time he couldn’t see her at all. “I’m going to put up a big round mirror,” he said. “Right there next to the outer door.”
“Why?”
“So I can see you when I talk to you.”
“Why do you want to do that?”
“To tell if you’re grinning.”
CAM STOWED HIS bag in the luggage compartment then inspected the Skylane, circling it, looking for anything that was loose or worn. He tugged, he pushed, he kicked. He climbed into the cockpit and ran through the preflight procedures, checking each item off on a list on his clipboard. He knew this procedure by heart, he could do it in his sleep, but he never relied on his memory alone; one moment of distraction, and he might miss something crucial. He went by the list so he knew he covered everything. When he was two miles high was the wrong time to discover something wasn’t working.
Checking his watch, he saw that it was almost time for Mrs. Wingate’s arrival. He started the engine, listening to the sound as it caught and smoothed out. He checked the instrumentation display on the monitors, double-checked that all the data was normal, then checked the area traffic before idling toward the chain-link gate in front of the terminal where he would pick up his passenger. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash of movement in the direction of the parking lot, and he glanced that way just long enough to verify that a dark green Land Rover was pulling into the closest available slot.
Seeing her in the Land Rover always surprised him. Mrs. Wingate didn’t look like a utility-vehicle or SUV type of woman; if he’d been meeting her for the first time, he’d have pegged her for someone who preferred a big luxury model—not a sporty type, but one of those that someone else drove while she sat in the backseat. Instead she always drove herself, wheeling the four-wheel-drive around as if she intended to take off across a field at any moment.
He’d cut it too close. Normally Bret would already be at the gate, and he’d help her get her luggage out and stowed. Cam saw the way she stood for a moment, eyeing the Skylane coming closer, then she closed the door and went around to the back to begin hauling out her luggage herself. He was still a good sixty yards from the gate; no way would he get there in time.
Great. She’d probably start the flight already pissed, because no one was there to help her. On the other hand, at least she hadn’t stood there waiting, with her nose in the air, until someone did show.
Once he was in position he cut the engine and climbed out. As he turned toward the gate he saw her coming out of the terminal building, pulling a suitcase behind her with one hand while she carried a large tote bag with the other. Karen, of all people, was with her, rolling two more suitcases along.
Mrs. Wingate watched him stride closer, and turned to Karen. “I thought Bret was supposed to be my pilot,” she said in her cool, even tone.
“He’s sick,” Karen explained. “Trust me, you wouldn’t want him anywhere near you.”
Mrs. Wingate didn’t shrug, or let her expression give away even a hint of what she was thinking. “Of course not,” she said briefly, her eyes completely obscured by the black sunglasses she wore.
“Mrs. Wingate,” Cam said in greeting as he reached them.
“Captain Justice.” She stepped through the gate as soon as he opened it.
“Let me take your bags.”
Silently she relinquished her hold on the suitcase before his hand got anywhere near the handle. Following her lead, he didn’t speak as he stowed it and the two other bags in the luggage compartment, wondering if she’d left any clothes behind in her closet. The bags were so heavy she’d never have made it on a commercial airliner without paying a hefty fee.