Chapter 18: Under Oath

Camille's complaint was forty pages long, and it accused me of defamation on page one.

It said I had slandered her company on a public ramp, and had hidden a fatal past to obtain a pilot's license.

It asked for forty million dollars.

By Thursday I was sitting in a glass conference room downtown, with my right hand lying on the table in its fresh gauze.

My lawyer sat on my left.

Hayes had hired her in the middle of the night, and he had paid with the last cash in his personal account.

He stood against the wall by the door, because I had told him to stay but not to speak.

Across the table sat Camille in black, with her hands folded and her eyes red.

Her attorney was a big, smooth man with a silver pen.

A court reporter sat at the end, her fingers resting on the keys.

"Ms. Ferraro," the attorney said, "you are under oath. Four years ago you were a county rescue pilot."

"Yes."

"And you did not tell your husband."

"I did not."

"Because you were ashamed."

"Because I wanted one person who didn't ask me about it."

He smiled.

"Let's talk about Mount Haldane. You arrived at a wreck with two victims. You left one of them alive on a mountain."

"Yes."

"You flew away from a living man."

"He told me to."

"Is that your testimony? That a dying man ordered you to abandon him?"

"He told me to take the child first. I told him I'd be back in ten minutes. I was back in six."

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