Old World Murder - Kathleen Ernst [115]
“Sky diving. You. Me.”
“This afternoon?”
“Yep.”
“No we aren’t!”
“Yes, we are.”
Chloe twisted in the seat so she could face him. “What—you can’t—stop this truck!”
Roelke began to whistle.
“I mean it! Pull over!” Chloe tried to grab the steering wheel. “Take me home!”
“Stop it!” he bellowed. They swerved onto the shoulder before he muscled the truck safely back into the lane. “Jesus, Chloe!”
“Jesus yourself! I’m not going sky diving! I—I have stitches in my leg!”
“Exactly three. You’ll survive.”
“Now, you listen to me, Officer McKenna,” Chloe snapped. “I—”
“No, you listen to me. You found out you didn’t want to die. That’s not the same as wanting to live.”
“Of all the patronizing, arrogant, manipulative …” She ran out of adjectives and folded her arms, glaring out the window.
Roelke kept driving. By the time they arrived at Fort Atkinson’s municipal airport ten minutes later, a steely resolve had narrowed her eyes and stiffened her spine. She’d rappelled down cliffs in her day. Belly-crawled through caves. Paddled Class-5 rapids. She could do this. She would do this.
Then she would hitchhike home.
Anger and pride carried her through an absurdly brief orientation provided by an enthusiastic instructor named Dave. Chloe tried to listen as Dave demonstrated the mechanics of parachutes and the tandem harness. She practiced jumping from a demo plane door just outside the hangar, learned the basic hand gestures used for in-air communication, and practiced the butt-in, arms-and-legs outstretched position she was supposed to adopt in the air. Roelke, who’d greeted Dave as an old friend, sat through the briefing with an air of wired anticipation. Clearly, Roelke had jumped from airplanes before.
“And don’t forget to smile,” Dave concluded. “Smiling reduces drag and turbulence in your face.”
Facial turbulence. Chloe gritted her teeth. “Super,” she muttered. “That’s just super.”
Chloe tried to ignore the nibbling fear as they climbed into the Cessna. The jumpsuit and harness she’d donned felt strange. Her stomach lurched sickly as the pilot began to taxi down the runway.
What the hell was she doing?
“We’ll climb to 8,700 feet,” the pilot shouted.
Chloe, seated directly behind the pilot, swallowed hard. Her heart was in her throat. This was insane! She clutched Dave’s arm convulsively. “Wait!”
“You OK?” he shouted.
Chloe hesitated. She could suck it up and jump. Or, she could add a new humiliation to her ever-accumulating train of emotional baggage.
“OK?” Dave shouted again.
With every cell of her being, Chloe hoped that Roelke was regretting his heavy-handed prank. She sucked in a deep breath and looked back at Dave. “OK.”
The plane continued to climb. A patchwork of farm fields spread below, and … was that Lake Koshkonong? What if they landed in the lake? What if—
“Ready, Roelke?” Dave shouted. Roelke buckled a helmet over his goggles and grinned, the bastard. He unfastened his seat belt and eased a foot out the open door, onto the wheel. “Blue skies!” he yelled, and plunged from sight.
A surge of raw, primal panic swept away the last grains of Chloe’s eroding pride.
“OK!” Dave nodded at Chloe. “Our turn.”
Her limbs had stopped obeying mental commands. Dave unhooked her seatbelt and helped her stand. Once she was steady, he stood directly behind her and fastened their harnesses together.
Chloe found herself at the door of an airplane almost nine thousand feet above the earth. Wind punched her body and screamed past her ears. Her knees began to jackhammer uncontrollably. Sweat soaked her shirt. “I can’t do this!” She clung desperately to the vinyl rope.
“Put your leg out!” Dave yelled in her ear.
She inched her right foot into swirling air. Her left leg still shook uncontrollably. Centuries of genetic memory screamed a cellular warning: Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!
“Let go!” Dave commanded. “Do it!”
Somehow, her fingers released the strap. Dave stepped into the air. They plummeted. Everything moved in every direction at once. Free fall.
Then muscle memory pulled Chloe into the belly-down spread eagle she