Chapter 6
The pilot didn't ask us. He told us.
Wind slammed the open door and the whole frame shuddered, and he shouted something I couldn't hear over the rotor and then banked hard left without waiting for Richard to answer. My stomach dropped. I kept one hand locked on the overhead strap and the other flat against my belly, and the coastline tilted under us. Gray cliffs, white foam, then a flat square of concrete coming up fast.
Richard grabbed the frame above my head. His knuckles went white.
"We're landing," the pilot yelled, looking back over his shoulder at Richard, not at me. "Private pad's closed for wind shear. I'm putting us down at Point Reyes station. You got a problem with that, take it up with my boss."
Richard's jaw worked. He forced a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Whatever's safest," he said. Loud enough for the pilot to hear. His hand found my wrist again, not hard, just possessive. For the audience.
I felt the helicopter drop. Not a crash, a hard set-down. Skids hit concrete and bounced once, and the rotor wash kicked up grit and dry grass and sent it whipping through the open door. Daylight flooded us, bright and honest after that shadowed cabin. The red placard over the door rattled.
For two seconds I couldn't hear anything but the engine winding down.
Then the door on the pilot's side opened from outside. A ground guy in an orange vest and windbreaker, maybe sixty, with a clipboard and a radio on his hip. Two more workers behind him near a low cinderblock building with a sign that said AIR SERVICE and a small parking lot with three trucks and a woman loading a cooler into a Subaru.
Public. People. Air that wasn't contained.
Richard recovered first. He was already stepping down, hand extended to me like we were arriving at a charity gala.
"Olivia, careful," he said, his voice warm now, carrying. "You're shaking."
I was. I didn't take his hand right away. I braced on the door frame and stepped down myself, and my knees almost buckled on the concrete. The wind off the cliffs was cold and it cut straight through my trench coat. I put both hands on my belly without thinking.
The pilot cut the engine and jumped down, helmet off, sweaty hair. He looked at me directly. "Ma'am, you okay? You need water? There's a restroom inside."
Before I could answer, Richard was there, arm around my shoulders. Light pressure. A guide, not a grab, for anyone watching.
"She's pregnant, gets airsick," Richard said to the pilot and the ground guy in one smooth turn. "First time in a chopper. I told her it would be smooth over the water. My fault."
The ground guy nodded, but the pilot kept his eyes on me.
I swallowed. My throat was raw from the wind. "Bathroom," I said. My voice came out smaller than I wanted. "Please."
Richard's arm tightened a fraction. "I'll come with you," he said quietly, just for me. Then louder, with a little laugh, "Don't want you fainting."
The cinderblock building was twenty yards away across the pad. The woman with the cooler was still there, watching us now over the roof of her car. I made myself look at her, then at the pilot.
"I just need a minute," I said to Richard. I tried to make it sound tired, not scared. My hand found his forearm and patted it, the way a wife would. "You check on the pilot's flight plan. I'll be right out."
A pause that felt too long. The wind pulled at my hair.
The ground guy jerked his thumb toward the building. "Ladies' is on the left, door sticks a little. I'll grab you that water."
Richard hesitated. I could see him calculating — too many eyes to insist without making a scene. He leaned in and kissed my temple, his lips cold.
"Don't be long, love," he whispered, and his fingers brushed my wrist where he'd held me, a reminder.
I walked. I didn't run. Every step across that cracked concrete felt loose and strange, like my legs belonged to someone else. I could feel Richard watching me, and the pilot watching Richard. When I reached the building I pushed the metal door and it did stick, just like the guy said. I had to shoulder it.
Inside smelled like mop water and old coffee. One hallway, two doors. A vending machine hummed. No windows. My hands were shaking so hard I almost dropped the phone from my coat pocket before I even locked the bathroom door.
I locked it anyway, and leaned against it, and finally let out a breath I'd been holding since the cliffs tilted. The fluorescent light buzzed overhead. My phone had one bar. One bar was enough.
The building's outer door banged. Footsteps in the hall.
Richard's voice, polite and even, talking to someone right outside. "She'll be just a second. Hormones, you know."
May you like
He wasn't leaving. I had maybe a minute before he knocked.
I stared at my phone screen, thumb over the contact I'd saved three months ago, and understood that if I didn't press it now while that concrete and those witnesses were between us, he'd get me back in that cabin and close the door again.
