A Dangerous Talent (An Alix London Mystery) by Aaron Elkins, Charlotte Elkins Page B

The interior of the plane brought a soft “Wow” from Alix: all gleaming, polished mahogany and buttery black leather. But the minute they seated themselves everything changed. The pilot, Craig Something, came from the cockpit to introduce himself and welcome them aboard. Alix liked him on sight. He was tall, clean-cut, and sandy-haired, with a crisp, neat mustache to match, and soft brown eyes. If she wasn’t mistaken, those eyes widened in surprise when he saw Chris and then almost immediately lit up—but Chris’s reaction was as different as different could be. One look at him and she turned to stone.
    “Oh no,” she muttered, probably to herself, but it was obvious that Craig heard her and saw her rigid reaction. The bashful, appealingly eager smile he’d come in with froze in place, and in a monotone, looking mostly at the ceiling, he rattled off boilerplate information about emergency exits, life jackets, seat belts, restroom, and the coffee, snacks, and drinks that were there for them in the storage cabinet.
    “What in the world was that about?” Alix asked as he returned to the cockpit. “Isn’t he a good pilot?”
    “He’s a jerk,” Chris muttered. “An idiot, a chump, a total nitwit.”
    “Oh, well, that’s reassuring,” Alix said. “For a minute there, I was worried about flying with him.”
    But Chris, so sociable and voluble until then, was no longer in the mood for joking. She quickly made it clear that she didn’t welcome the opportunity to talk about whatever was bothering her, and for the duration of the flight she was about as communicative as an oyster.
    Thus, the flight that Alix had been looking forward to—a leisurely, comfortable three hours to continue to get to know Chris better—was a total dud, both boring and tense. Interminable. When the wheels finally touched down on the tarmac at Santa Fe’s little municipal airport, she breathed a sigh of relief, but things failed to improve even then.
    Waiting for them in the terminal was a flushed, slack-faced Liz Coane (was she tipsy? It was barely two p.m.), who grandly announced that she had canceled the car and driver that Chris had arranged and was personally driving them to their hotel. And when Liz set eyes on the pilot, she yelped with surprise, threw her arms around him, and kissed him wetly on (and in) the mouth. The flabbergasted Craig reacted about the way he would have if he’d been tongued by a warthog: with an instinctive, grimacing recoil that arched him backward. Alix had the impression it was all he could do to keep from wiping the back of his hand across his lips.
    But Liz was oblivious. “And you’re going to need a ride into town, too, Craig.” She looked fondly from Chris to Craig and back again and grinned happily. Yes, she’d had one or two, all right, Alix thought. “Imagine that, the three of us back together again, here in Santa Fe. This’ll be great. The good old days all over again.”
    “Which good old days are those?” Craig said coldly. “And if that was a lift you were offering me, thanks but no thanks. I’ve got to take care of the plane and get the paperwork in.” He turned his back on her and headed for the terminal.
    Chris was more polite, but only marginally. “It wasn’t necessary for you to meet us. The car I hired would have been perfectly satisfactory.”
    “Gee, doesn’t anyone love me anymore?” Liz asked. “I thought I was doing everybody a favor.”
    “Well, it’s not that we don’t appreciate it, Liz,” Chris said, defrosting just a little. “It was a nice thought.” She sighed. “Okay, thanks, where are you parked?”
    Alix almost spoke up. The idea of being driven by the not-strictly-sober Liz was not a happy one, but the atmosphere being what it was, she let it go. Anyway, Liz had made it from town to the airport; chances were good she could make it safely back again.
    Liz’s reaction to their less-than-joyous greeting had been delayed, but by the time they got