“And Shorty’s not a great pilot.”
Good Lord. “Hand me one of those snacks.” I grabbed a pack of cookies and ripped open the top. If I was going down for love, I was going down with some Oreos. I’d called and texted Miller a hundred times with no response, but his sister had said when Miller was conducting one of his think tank retreats, phones were put away and he was impossible to reach. So...I’d resorted to drastic measures.
A man wearing an official-looking headset stepped onto the plane and made his way back to where we sat in our impressively plush leather seats. “Good morning, ladies.”
My grandmother flung off her seatbelt and launched herself into the man’s outstretched arms. “Well, hello, captain!”
This was Shorty? With that baby face, he looked no older than Olivia.
“It’s good to see you.” Shorty removed himself from Sylvie’s grip, but not before she gave him a quick spritz. “I trust you’re making yourself comfortable?”
“You bet,” Sylvie said. “Thank you for coming through in the clutch. We have Operation RTKF to launch, and we couldn’t do it without you.”
I’d learned to ignore my grandmother’s mission names, but Shorty had apparently not. “Say that again?” he asked.
“Operation Return to Kissy Face.” Sylvie saluted the pilot. “Let’s get this missionandthis aircraft into motion.”
I stuffed another cookie in my mouth.
Shorty returned her salute with a slight frown. “I do have some bad news.”
“Nope. We can’t allow any of that on this trip.” Sylvie inclined her head toward me. “Major heartbreak sitting in seat 2A.”
Shorty sent me a sympathetic look. “I do understand there is some urgency in our travel today, but maintenance has just discovered a small issue, and we do need to tend to it before takeoff.”
“How long will that take?” I asked. Thanks to Frannie’s detective work, I had a partial schedule of Miller’s day, and it was important for us to get to his offices in San Francisco no later than two p.m. when his meetings adjourned. After that, I had no idea where he’d be for days. The plan was to basically burst into Miller’s offices and demand he hear what I had to say. Was it a good plan? Not in the least. Was it going to work? Probably not. But that’s why we’d brought a lot of snacks and wine for the return trip. Miller was worth the cost, the effort, and the calories.
“I’m afraid the delays could take quite awhile,” Shorty said. “We’re looking at upward of another two hours.”
I closed my eyes and stifled a curse. “Two hours?”
“What are you doing, rebuilding an engine?” Sylvie leaned toward the pilot. “And if so, can I help?”
I flung an arm across my grandmother to restrain her. “Do not let her anywhere near important parts of this plane.” Mentally calculating what a later departure time would do to the schedule, I could only agree. “Thank you for the update.”
“Make yourselves comfortable, ladies,” Shorty said. “I’ll update you when I can.”
I watched the man walk away and turned to Sylvie. “That’s Shorty? The man you rescued forty years ago?”
She patted her own cheeks. “I also helped him get a new identity and a new face. I’d tell you that story, but I’d have to inject you with a memory-erasing serum, and woo boy, isthatthing a wild card.”
“Skip the story. I’m just praying we can fly out of here today.”
Sylvie covered my hand with hers. “It will all work out, sugar. How about we review our plan?”
We didn’t have anything else to do. “Okay.”
“We go to Miller’s office building, and I provide a subtle but believable distraction. Did we settle on smoke bomb or my rappelling off the sides of the tenth floor and crashing into the windows of the meeting room?”
I rubbed at the aching spot pressing against my eyebrow. “We decided we’d walk inside and ask to see Miller.”
Sylvie snorted. “Sure. You keep believing that’s gonna work. Don’t you worry. I brought my bag of tricks just in case. Now, after we get past the reception desk, you slip inside to where the infrared imaging I borrowed from the head of CIA told us Miller and his friends were gathering.”
“This borrowing you did...”
“Who are you, Robin Roberts? Stop asking so many questions.” My grandmother uncapped the lid on a bottle of water and took a sip. “Youaregoing to put on lipstick before we land, right? You’re doing this to get your man back, not remind him what you look like after a coma.”
We had almost a five-hour trip, but sure, I needed lipstick. “What if Miller doesn’t want to see me?” I asked, wishing the butterflies in my stomach would flap a little less.
