Free Dead Alert by Bianca D' Arc Page A

grateful for the excuse to leave the store. Sam was glad too. He gave in to impulse and added two more items to his purchases before he brought them to the counter to pay. When the saleslady asked if he wanted them gift wrapped, he decided to go for it. He’d never have time or the supplies to wrap his sisters’ gifts otherwise and the festively colored paper might keep a certain lady pilot from looking too closely.
    Whether or not she’d ever get a chance to open that particular box was still up in the air but Sam was a man who liked to be prepared for all contingencies. An impulse had driven him to buy those things but that didn’t mean he had to give in all the way. He’d hold the package in reserve and see where events led him.
    For now, he had lunch to eat and a plane to catch, in that order.
     
    The flight from Portland to Denver was uneventful. Another high-powered corporate client wanted some files hand delivered to their representative who met the jet at the airport in Denver. From there it was a quick hop back to Wichita.
    The sky was cloudless and dark outside the cockpit, lit only by pinpoints of stars and a sliver of reflective moon as the jet cut through the air speeding toward its destination. This kind of quiet peace, above the clouds and close to the stars, always made Emily introspective.
    “I once heard about a ceremony overseen every year by the Dali Lama where a group of Buddhist monks spend days and days creating an intricate design out of sand. They lay the pattern grain by grain in painstaking detail. It’s a gorgeous artwork in a circular design they call a mandala.”
    “I’ve seen it,” Sam replied mysteriously.
    She didn’t want to question his wording but it made her wonder about him. Did he mean he’d seen it in person ? It sure sounded that way. But maybe he meant he’d seen it on television, the way she had. She was a fan of documentaries and had watched an hour-long program about Tibet that had included footage of the ceremony. She chalked his response up to that and let it pass. The moment was too solemn and the mood too intimate to break by questioning his choice of words.
    “At the end of the ceremony, when the mandala is finished, they sweep it away. Destroy it deliberately.” She paused, letting the silence be filled with that thought for a moment. “I never understood how they could spend so much time creating a thing of such beauty and then demolish it.” Dismay filled her voice.
    “It’s all about the impermanence of life,” Sam said quietly.
    She looked at him, surprised by his quick grasp of the concept it had taken tragedy for her to understand. Perhaps he’d learned it the same way. Perhaps he’d lost someone dear to him. She couldn’t tell much from the firm set of his jaw as he stared out the cockpit window, but the tense set of his broad shoulders made her think maybe she was right.
    “Yeah, I get that now.”
    “You lost someone.” It wasn’t a question. He turned his head to meet her gaze as he spoke, pinning her in place with compassion etched into his handsomely weathered face. He knew. He understood.
    “My mother.” It was her turn to look away. To hide her pain as she stared at the infinite sky in front of them. “She was my best friend. My role model. The only person in my life I could truly trust.”
    She paused, gathering herself. She hadn’t been this close to tears in a long time and it shocked her that she was able to open up to this man—this new person in her life—so readily. She wasn’t normally so willing to expose her secrets to anyone, much less someone she’d really only just met. But something about Sam seemed innately trustworthy and it felt good in a bittersweet way to remember and talk about her mother.
    “She was a pilot. A trailblazer in this profession dominated by men.” Yeah, her mom had been one in a million. It was freeing to remember and to be able to share the memory with another pilot who might understand.