He Rescued a Dog Over My Gran, So I Took His Helicopters novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Board

In his truck Jude explains the dispatch board and the first-ring rule, and admits Beck ordered him to Sheridan's ranch at 4:12; he has the cockpit audio.

I stood in the driveway with my bag in my arms and stared at him.

"Never hers," I said. "What does that mean?"

Jude got out of the truck and left the door open.

He was taller than I had pictured, and he had not slept in days.

"There's a dispatch board at the hangar," he said. "A big screen on the wall, with the Priority Line at the top."

"I've never seen it."

"One rule runs that line. Whoever calls it gets the nearest aircraft, and I answer on the first ring."

"For Sheridan," I said.

"For the first number on the list."

He took a breath.

"The first number on that list is yours, Victoria."

I did not say anything.

A truck went by on the road, and the sound of it seemed very far off.

"Beck told me it was hers," I said. "My first week. He said she lived alone in fire country and the line was her safety net."

"I know what he told people."

"You answered my calls for three years."

"Every one of them."

"I asked you where my husband was."

"And I told you," Jude said. "Because it wasn't an emergency, and I thought you knew whose line it was, and you were choosing not to use it."

His voice went rough on the last part.

"I figured you'd decided we weren't worth calling."

I thought about every night I had stood in the kitchen holding my phone, telling myself I was not allowed to dial that number for a real reason.

"I thought it was a line I had no right to use," I said.

"You had every right."

"If I had known, I would have called it that night."

It came out hard and loud, and a bird flew up out of the oak by the gate.

Jude flinched, but he did not look away.

"I know," he said. "I've thought that every day for eleven days."

"Where were you when I needed it?"

"On a ridge above Dutch Ravine Road, at 4:11 a.m., in the best aircraft we have."

I felt my pulse in my burned palms.

"You were the dot," I said.

"I was the dot."

"You were four minutes from us."

"Less," he said quietly.

I wanted to hit him, and I could not close my hands.

"Why did you turn?"

"At 4:12 Beck came on my headset and said to go to Sheridan's ranch."

"For the dog."

"For the fire on her side of the ridge. That's what he said. I told him there were cars on Dutch Ravine with their lights on, I could see them from the air."

"What did he say?"

"He said, 'Ground has it.'"

The wind moved the smoke across the lawn.

"I took him at his word," Jude said. "I didn't ask whose cars they were."

"One of them was ours."

His face changed.

"Gran's old Buick," I said. "Her car was across the road under a power pole, and I was in the ditch beside it with her head in my lap."

He put one hand on the truck door.

"Victoria."

"I called him at 4:09 and told him exactly where we were."

I watched it land on him.

"He knew," Jude said.

"He told me you were four minutes away."

"He never told me you were on that road."

He said it flatly.

Then he pulled off his flight jacket and put it around my shoulders.

I had not noticed I was shaking until the weight of the jacket made it stop.

It smelled like engine oil and cold air.

I did not give it back.

"You should say all that to somebody who can do something about it," I said.

"There isn't anybody. He owns the company. The board is his mother and two of his friends."

"Then what are you doing in my driveway?"

"Your husband's driveway."

"Not for much longer."

He nodded slowly.

"I've been trying to think of what I could bring you," he said. "I haven't got an apology that's worth anything."

"That's true."

"What I've got is the cockpit recorder."

I looked up.

"The aircraft records everything said on the headset. It saves to a card that nobody ever pulls unless there's a crash." He swallowed. "I pulled it the morning after."

"Beck's voice is on it."

"At 4:12. His exact words. The time on every one of them."

"Does Beck know it's there?"

"He signed the purchase order for the recorders himself," Jude said. "He has never once thought about what they do."

I stood very still in his jacket.

"Play it for me."

"Not in a driveway," he said. "Not today, with your hands like that, and not before you've buried her."

"When?"

"When you're ready to hear it."

I looked at the house I had lived in for six years.

In the kitchen window Phyllis was washing the soup pot, and she did not look out.

"Come to the funeral," I said. "Sit where I can see you."

"I'll be in the back."

"No," I said. "Sit where I can see you."

He picked up the end of the jacket and settled it more carefully over my shoulder.

Then he stepped back and kept his hands at his sides.

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