Chinook

Chapter 2

2

Jeremy sat in the second-story library with the lights off, watching the moonlight creeping across Miranda’s island. The deep couch faced southeast through the great half-circle window. It rose from knee-high until it curved nearly to the cathedral ceiling.

The many radial panes seemed to offer different views of the world, despite the glass being well aligned. Slices of light slipped over the face of the bookcases, highlighting one section, then another. None clearly enough to read, but prior inspection had taught him what was there: a massive section about aircraft, a smaller one about codebreaking, and a collection of novels exclusively on those two topics. Sections on gardening, construction, and the wildlife that lived on her island were almost afterthoughts.

Sitting here at night was like looking through the nose of a librarian’s starship. Except instead of just stars, the world lay painted in a moonlit monochrome of meaningless shapes.

Sixty miles that way were his parents and sister. Asleep, perhaps dreaming. Another day of software design ahead of them.

Tomorrow for him?

It all depended on Miranda’s phone.

If it didn’t ring, Holly would spend time checking over the metallurgy reports on the F-16 training accident. Mike would review interview tapes of a Bombardier Q400 that had smeared itself down the length of SeaTac airport’s runway, yet without a single fatality. For himself, he wanted to reprocess the audio files from the Q400’s flight recorders. There were background sounds he still wanted to identify but it would take some effort to extract.

Jon would hover around Miranda distracting her, which never boded well.

Andi would…he didn’t know what.

If Miranda’s phone rang, there’d be a new accident. A new launch for the team. A new investigation to pile atop their on-going investigations.

He wanted the answers. He and Miranda shared that; they both wanted them now.

But for most incidents it was the slow, methodical study that removed variables and only eventually drove the focus toward the final solution. And even when the solution was found, there were the recommendations to consider to avoid it happening again.

“I like watching the night from here when I can’t sleep.” Miranda’s voice was soft but it still surprised him. He hadn’t heard a single squeak from the plank flooring as she’d approached. Of course, she’d lived her whole life here and would know where every single one was.

“Why can’t you sleep?”

She settled on the far end of the couch, pulling a quilt over her lap. “There haven’t been five guests in the house at once since my parents died. I was thirteen. I can feel everyone like a weight. Not a bad weight, but it makes it hard to breathe.”

“I’ve never lived alone. Living in the dorms at Princeton, I had a single the last year, but that doesn’t really count with thirty-four other people on the floor and communal dining.” Was that why he was sitting here? To feel what it might be like to be alone?

No.

But he also didn’t know why he was awake long enough to watch the Douglas fir moon shadows shift through thirty degrees—two full hours. The deer and sheep were bedded down. The only shadows he’d seen interrupting the still night had been a pair of owls. Not even a late-night ferry. And they were facing the wrong way to spot any cargo ships heading up the Haro Strait to Vancouver.

“How could you stand it?” Miranda’s voice was disembodied in the darkness, almost as if he was asking the questions of himself.

“The people? I never really noticed. Our family was close and always busy. We lived in a townhouse near the Microsoft campus. Lots of other kids: daycare, computer clubs and camps. I never thought about it much.”

“Did you have a lot of friends?”

Jeremy shook his head. “I skipped a couple of grades along the way. Not as many as you, but I didn’t fit in anywhere after that. Never even had a girlfriend. There was a girl who was really nice to me when I graduated high school. But that was kind of it until…” No. He wouldn’t finish that sentence.

Miranda didn’t ask.

Jeremy couldn’t even explain it to himself. He’d met Colonel Vicki Cortez less than thirty hours before her death. When Mike offered his sympathy, he didn’t know what to do with it; it had no logical place to connect. Yet she had done something to him, even if he couldn’t understand what.

Miranda’s silence was thankfully just that.

Together, they sat and watched the moon shift the shadows some more.