Tailspin(14)

All way too enticing. He couldn’t get away from her fast enough.

By the time she reached the office door and pushed it open, he had caught up with her, then bumped into her when she came to a dead stop.

A man sat slumped over a desk, his head lying on it.

Shock rooted him and Brynn in place, but only for a second. Rye pushed her out of his way and rushed over to the desk. Brynn hesitated only long enough to set the black box on a chair and switch on the overhead fluorescent lights.

Rye bent over the man. If this was Brady White, he was two decades older than Rye had estimated, given the youthfulness in his voice. Blood from a wound behind his ear had formed a puddle on the desktop. Rye worked two fingers inside the collar of his plaid flannel shirt and pressed his carotid.

“He’s got a pulse. Check him out.” As he stepped aside to give Brynn better access, he swung his flight bag off his shoulder and unzipped it.

She lifted the injured man’s eyelid to look at his pupil and turned his hand over where it lay on the desk so she could get his pulse. As she felt for it, she looked up at Rye. “How did he—”

“He didn’t. It was done to him.” He took the pistol from his bag. “Don’t touch anything else. Keep a heads-up. Yell if you hear anything outside. I’m going to take a look around.”

“Is the gun necessary?”

“We’ll soon know.”

Rye carefully walked around two sets of muddy shoe prints he’d noticed on the vinyl flooring and started down a short hallway. It took him under a minute to check the three back rooms. One was little more than a closet stocked with cleaning and office supplies. There was a compact bathroom having only a commode and sink. A reception-type room was furnished with a sofa, a pair of matching chairs, and a coffee bar. Nothing was fancy or new, but everything was organized and tidy.

He looked for a back door. There wasn’t one.

When he returned to the main office, Brynn had the receiver of the desk phone to her ear, holding it with fingertips covered by her sleeve.

“We assume it’s Mr. White. He has a head wound. No, we believe that it was inflicted.”

Rye patted down the man’s pants pockets and located his wallet. In it was Brady White’s driver’s license. He held it up to Brynn, and she confirmed his identity to the 911 operator. “He’s unconscious, but his pupils are reactive.”

As Brynn gave the dispatcher a rapid description of the situation and Brady’s condition as best she’d been able to determine it, Rye looked down at the bald spot on the crown of Brady’s head, which somehow made him appear more vulnerable than the bleeding gash.

Rye had relished the thought of bashing this man himself. Now, he was ashamed for leaping to what was obviously a wrong conclusion about him. On the desk, beside the radio setup through which he’d been communicating with Rye, was a framed photo of Brady, a woman of similar age, two boys, and a younger girl with a missing front tooth. All were dressed in typical summer vacation clothing. Cameras and sun visors. In the background was the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

Also on the desk, acting as a holder for pens and pencils, was a coffee mug decorated with a picture of the Wright brothers’ plane, aloft on the beach at Kitty Hawk. A shelf at eye level above the desk held a collection of books on aviation, an autographed picture of Chuck Yeager, and a model of the Spirit of St. Louis.

Brady White was an aviation buff. To this guy, aiming a laser beam at a cockpit would be a mortal sin.

“Pulse, sixty-two but thready,” Brynn was saying into the phone. “Yes, of course, but they need to hurry. Thank you.”

She hung up and said to Rye, “The ambulance could take up to ten minutes because we’re so far out. And the fog.” She glanced toward the back rooms. “Any indication of…anything?”

He shook his head. “Far as I can tell, nothing back there has been disturbed. Cash and credit cards are in his wallet, so it wasn’t a robbery. No back door.” He called her attention to the shoe prints. “They entered same way we did, came up behind him, probably while he was on the radio with me. They did what they came to do, turned off the radio, left.”

“The sheriff’s office is sending deputies out to investigate.”

He looked at his watch. “Ten minutes? Is he going to be all right?”

“Head wounds bleed a lot even when they’re not bad, so I’m not as concerned about the blood. It’s already coagulating. But he’s probably concussed. There’s a possibility of fracture. He’ll need an X-ray and brain scan.”

Rye dragged his hand over his mouth and chin and muttered deprecations to whoever had done this.

Brynn looked at the footprints, one set of which was noticeably larger than the other. “No signs of a struggle. Nothing taken. What possible motive would anyone have had to just walk in here and do this?”

Rye didn’t answer, but he was sure of one thing. Whoever had done that trick with the laser on him had also done this. No way in hell could the two incidents have occurred in an otherwise sleepy mountain town, within minutes and a mile of each other, and not be connected.

“The 911 operator knows the family,” Brynn said. “She’s going to notify Mrs. White herself. She also sent two deputies to their house.”

Rye’s gaze remained fixed on the family photograph on the desk. Deep inside him a vengeful anger began simmering on behalf of Brady White and his family. On behalf of Dash, too. He loved that beat-up old 182, just like he had loved that beat-up old cat.