He Gave Our Helicopter Away, So I Stopped Waiting to Be Rescued novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Ten to Three

Fraser's POV

I ran the station boat myself, because nobody else wanted to carry Damon Ostby.

It was two hours to the mainland harbor in a flat sea.

Damon sat on the engine box in the stern with one bag between his feet and watched Grand Brooks shrink.

Corinna had gone the day before, in the back of a police launch, with her hands on her lap and her chin up.

Damon had signed everything the lawyers put in front of him.

This time he'd read it, and it had taken him most of the night.

"You don't have to talk to me," Damon said.

"I wasn't going to."

"I'd like to tell you something anyway. You can throw me over the side after."

"Don't tempt me."

Damon almost smiled.

He looked older than he had on the dock, and thinner, and he was no longer the man who told dinner-party stories.

"At ten to three," he said. "I stood in the ops room with the radio in my hand. The helicopter stood on the Grand Brooks pad with the guests filing aboard, and I thought, it'll be back. I can send it back for her."

I kept my hand steady on the wheel.

"I told Corinna to call the pilot and turn it around. To fly the empty aircraft north and pick up my wife and baby."

"And?"

"She said it was handled. She said the contractor was wheels up, that I'd only make it worse. She held my hand." He stared at the water. "I knew the regional field was shut. I had the wind report open on the desk."

"You knew."

"I knew it and I let her tell me what I wanted to hear. I didn't call the pilot myself." His voice thinned. "It would have taken two minutes."

For a long moment there was only the engine.

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