The Nameless Luna novel · Chapter 12 of 32

Chapter 12: The Desk

I read it twice.

Then I turned the phone so Warrick could see.

"Who'd take all six?" he said.

"Someone who didn't know which one he wanted."

"And the one you lost in November?"

"Someone who did."

He set his mug down on the step.

"Saturday," he said. "I'm coming."

"You'll be sick."

"I'll be sick in Anchorage. Anchorage deserves it."

We flew down Saturday in clear cold air.

Warrick held the bag the whole way and didn't open it.

I saw Seven-Kilo before I saw the hangar.

She was trying to dock at the Tennant pier in a ten-knot crosswind.

The pilot came in too fast and too straight.

The wind took her tail.

Her left float hit the pier with a crack I felt in my teeth.

He gunned it, swung wide, and came around to try again.

Three mechanics stood on the dock watching with their arms folded.

I put the Otter down on the lake, taxied past him, and slid up to the next pier.

By the time I'd tied off, he'd hit the pier a second time.

I walked over, caught Seven-Kilo's wing as she swung in, and walked her to the cleats by hand.

I tied her off. Bow, stern, a clean hitch on each.

The pilot climbed out red-faced.

He was about forty, in a brand-new Tennant jacket.

"Thanks," he said. "Who are you?"

Nobody on the dock answered him.

The old mechanic, the one who'd texted me, looked at me and then at the office door.

I went up the ramp.

Warrick came behind me and stopped at the hangar door, filling it.

The office looked smaller than I remembered.

My headset hook was empty. The shelf above the desk was bare wood, with six clean rectangles in the dust.

My father was at the desk.

Annalise was in the chair across from him in her white coat, a wedding binder open on her lap.

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