I asked Cook, “Do you know Captain Boyd? Was he part of your study?”
“Yes,” Cook said without looking up from his notepad.
“What’s he like?”
He took a long time to answer, like he was gathering words and trying them out before speaking. “He was a good pilot,” he said finally.
Was? “What happened to him?”
“That’s classified.”
I looked over the logbook again. “And Captain McGlade? Where is he? And their copilots. Olsen? Todd?”
Cook shifted uncomfortably, pulling his cap over his forehead and lifting it off again. He wouldn’t meet my gaze. That told me all I needed to know—the last two crews of this thing were dead.
I was about to lay into the good doctor when Evie spoke softly.
“This is the last plane they ever flew.”
“What?”
“I can hear them. Listen.” Her gaze was distant, not on the instruments at all.
I heard the engines, their power vibrating through the body of the plane. The drone was hypnotic, comforting. Surrounded by the colors dancing outside the canopy, I felt cocooned. Warm and safe, like I was falling asleep in front of a campfire, with the hum of crickets all around.
“Now that you’re here, things are perfect. I always take girls flying on the first date. They love it.”
I thought for a moment another plane’s radio signal was bleeding into our channel. But our radio was turned off, not even hissing static. Yet, I heard a voice.
“Nice night for flying, isn’t it? ‘Comin’ in on a wing and a prayer . . .’ ”
Someone grabbed my arm.
“Miss Harris! Miss Bateson! Snap out of it, for God’s sake!”
Cook, breathing hard, shook my arm in a panic.
I blinked and rubbed my face. I’d been dozing. I’d never fallen asleep in the cockpit before. Never. That was a fast way to turn yourself into a smoking pile of wreck on the ground. I took a quick scan of the instruments, looked out the canopy—spotted the Mississippi, a glowing ribbon in the moonlight, a distinctive landmark. Everything looked fine. Except for those damn colors, like light through a stained glass window. What did we look like to a kid on the ground? Like a comet? A space ship?
Evie had her head cocked, like she was concentrating, listening closely.
“How’d you get in here?” she said softly. She smiled suddenly, like someone had told her a joke. “Oh really?”
Cook gripped her arm, but she brushed him away. He sat back, stunned, his eyes wide.
“Do you hear anything?” I asked him.
“This shouldn’t be happening,” he muttered, shaking his head.
“Evie!”
She gave me a sideways glance. “Can’t you hear it? They’re talking.”
I heard—the engines. The wind. A whisper.
“Come on, Jane. Be a sport and join in.” Male voices, like cocky pilots flirting and teasing. I couldn’t think of where they came from, except my own imagination.
“This is some plane, huh? Why don’t you see what it can really do?”