He Gave Our Helicopter Away, So I Stopped Waiting to Be Rescued novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: What Fraser Kept

Fraser's POV

I found the pilot where I expected to, at the broken end of the lagoon dock.

He sat on an upturned fuel drum with his helmet in his lap.

Lena had gone up to the hospital wing with the baby and a nurse. I had told her I would help carry the formula.

I had lied. I'm not good at it, and I'd been doing it all morning.

The pilot was fifty and thin, with a grey moustache and a voice that always sounded like he was apologizing.

He did not look up when my boots stopped beside him.

"Reeve," he said. "You know the strangest thing."

"What's that?"

"I've flown for the company eleven years. I flew Mr. Ostby out of a typhoon in Manila once. I've never been afraid of him."

"And now?"

"Now I'm afraid I didn't do something."

I sat on the next drum and waited.

I'm island-born.

On an island you learn that most men will tell you what's wrong if you just stay quiet.

"At 2:15," he said, "I was at the regional field with the contractor's aircraft, getting ready to start him up for the run to Little Brooks. My phone rang. It was Ms. Frost."

"Corinna."

"She said there had been a change of plan. Mr. Ostby wanted our helicopter on Grand Brooks, and the contractor was to hold at the field until further notice."

"Did she say why?"

"She said there were injured guests. I believed her, I would have flown for that anyway. But then I asked about Mrs. Ostby on the pad, and Ms. Frost said, 'Leave Mrs. Ostby to me.'"

"Leave her to me."

"That's what she said."

His hands were shaking on the helmet.

"I'm not a brave man, Reeve. I said all right. I put the contractor on the ground and went and took our aircraft up in thirty-knot gusts. When I passed the north island I saw Mrs. Ostby standing on the pad with the baby, and I couldn't turn."

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