A Gambling Man (Archer #2)(70)

She slowed the Triumph and put a trembling hand to her face. “It’s been two years. You’d think I would have gotten past this.”

“It’s okay,” said Archer. “I don’t think you ever get past it.” He pulled out his flask and handed it to her. “Rye whiskey always works for me.”

She took a sip and let it go down very slow. She handed back the flask. “Thank you. That does do the trick.”

The smell of the ocean hit them as they rounded a curve and the Pacific came into view. The breakers were rolling in hard and grinding the sand into even smaller particles.

“Did you learn how to fly?” he asked.

“No, I don’t like to fly, really. In fact, I only flew with her.”

“What about your husband? You said he was a pilot.”

“After the war, he said he never wanted to get in another airplane. He was shot down, landed in the Pacific, and floated in a raft for two weeks before being rescued.”

“I had some ‘plane’ trouble in the war, too.”

“But with my mother in the cockpit I was never worried or anxious. She would do barrel rolls and loop-the-loops and dives, and I would be screaming and laughing at the same time. It was the most exhilarating . . . the most . . . ” She stopped and looked at Archer, her cheeks flushed. “I don’t usually go on and on like that with someone I barely know.”

“Yeah, I saw that personality trait the first time we met. But this is the second time, so there’s that.”

She smiled. “Are you going to make me change my opinion of you, Archer?”

“Oh, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

She laughed.

“But not being a pilot, there was nothing you could have done to save your mother that day, if that’s what’s hanging around your neck. You both would have died.”

Her laugh died in her throat and her face flamed. She snapped, “You don’t know that. You have no way of knowing that. You couldn’t—”

He interjected. “I spent three years in Europe playing the what-if game. If I had only heard the sound a second later, or aimed a little less sharply, or turned left instead of right, I’d be dead instead of the other guy. It can eat you up, if you let it. So don’t let it eat you up. From what you’ve said about your mother, she wouldn’t have wanted that for you.”

She slowed the car again and looked at him. And this time it seemed to Archer that Beth Kemper was actually seeing him for the very first time. “I . . . I didn’t expect such nuance from you, Archer.”

“I almost never expect it from myself. Sometimes it just pops out all by its lonesome.”

She smiled and dabbed at her eye with her knuckle. She glanced to her left, toward the ocean. “She crashed about two miles off the coast. They found the wreckage the next day. People saw the plane just go into a dive. She never parachuted out. I guess she didn’t have time. She wasn’t flying that high.”

“I’m really sorry, Beth.”

“The news reached me when we got home from the luncheon. I . . . I couldn’t believe it, not at first. They never did find her body. The water is very deep out there. And undercurrents are very fast.” She hit the gas and they sped up. “And from that moment on my marriage seemed more a burden than a blessing.”

“I doubt your husband wanted anything to happen to your mother.”

“They got along all right, actually. More than Douglas and my father do.”

“But your husband must owe a lot to your father. I mean, it must have helped his business prospects to have Sawyer Armstrong as his father-in-law.”

“I believe Douglas thinks he’s paid back any debt in spades. And maybe he has.”

“How long have you two been married?”

“Nearly eight years. I met Douglas while I was in college. It seemed like a perfect match. We married after I graduated.”

“Any kids running around?”

“No, Douglas . . . No. We don’t plan to have a family.”

“You’re still young if you change your mind.”

“That won’t be happening.”

She said nothing else, and Archer could think of nothing else to say, so they rode the rest of the way with only the Triumph’s engine noise in their ears. When they reached Porter Street and the boardinghouse, Archer climbed out and tipped his hat.

“Thanks for the ride.”

“I don’t make it to this side of Sawyer Ave much. It’s nice.”

“You don’t have to say that to make me feel better. I don’t have a horse in that race.”

“What will you do now?”

“Sleep. Then I’ll hook up with Willie Dash and see where we go from there. He might not know about Ruby Fraser.”

“This blackmail scheme. Was she involved in it?”

“She said not, but who knows?”

“But with her dead, does that mean the blackmail plan will fall apart?”

“You would think so, but honestly, my gut tells me no.”

“You follow your gut?”

“It usually points me in the right direction. And I haven’t found anything better, yet.”

“Well, maybe I should follow my gut more. Good night, Archer.”