Choosing Guilt by Frances Aylor

Author:Frances Aylor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hastings Bay Press
Published: 2022-10-12T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24

TRAVIS HAD the bedraggled, jet-lagged air of someone who’d spent the last eight hours crammed into a too-small airline seat, his long legs bumping the person in front of him, futilely trying to catch a few hours of sleep while a colicky baby nearby screamed all the way across the Atlantic. A shadowy stubble coated his chin, and his dark hair fell limply toward his eyes. “I was worried about you,” he said.

Travis hated flying—the loss of control, being locked up in a metal tube—totally dependent on the skills of a pilot who maybe had discovered his wife was having an affair, or had learned his teenage son got swept up in a high-school drug bust, or had dozed off in his last training class. A pilot who was perhaps irate or distracted or confused, not ready to take on the challenges of fighting gravity and speed and weather all at the same time. I knew his fears were irrational—statistics proved that pilots had much better safety records than most road warriors—but I couldn’t convince him. On a trip we took a few years ago from New York to Toronto, Travis had insisted on driving, even though we could have flown in a fraction of the time.

But there were no roads from New York to Lucerne. So he had climbed into an airplane, his clenched fingers digging holes into the armrests for the entire flight, all because of me. A grand, impulsive gesture that made me feel guilty that I was still annoyed with him after all this time, that I had been ignoring his emails and calls. “Come on in. How did you know where I was?”

He grabbed his roller bag and wheeled it into the room. “Lilly.”

“She told you about Corinne?”

“Yes. Lilly said that detective had been giving you a hard time. I figured you could use some help.”

I’d seen this side of Travis before, a modern-day Clark Kent always ready to shift into Superman role when he needed to rescue the fair maiden. The last time he tried that, he derailed my career, throwing a punch that cost me my job. I hadn’t asked for his help then, and I didn’t need it now. For him to swoop in here like I was a damsel-in-distress was insulting. Resentment pushed away the warm fuzziness I felt when I first saw him. “You thought I couldn’t handle things on my own?”

“Calm down, calm down,” he said, hearing the hostility in my voice. “Of course, you can handle this. But why should you? Let’s face it, Madeline, you’re in a foreign country, with no support system, no local contacts ...”

“That’s not true. Fred’s been working with the U.S. Embassy.”

“And what is the Embassy doing for you? Are they running interference with this detective?”

“Not exactly. But still ...”

“Come on, Madeline, we’re friends.” He emitted a plaintive sigh, signaling his exasperation. “We’ve been through a lot together. Why do I always feel like I’m beating my head against a wall when I’m talking with you?”

We had been through a lot together, and maybe that was the problem.

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