“Great view, isn’t it?” Sebastian said. He sounded calm, but he looked at the dash with concern.
What was going on? The engine sounded rough. Was this normal?
Roz pushed down a bubble of worry and decided to trust his skills and take advantage of the opportunity. She took a few photos, but mostly she enjoyed the spectacle—Comet Cove, breathtakingly small from up here, like a toy village, vulnerable and beautiful with the inlet bisecting it. The ocean on one side seemed greener than the dusky blue of the lagoon on the other. The strip of sand marking the beach almost made a straight line; the shore of the river side undulated with curves and points. The red-and-white stripes of the lighthouse stood out, and greenery softened the hard lines of neighborhoods.
She moved to the seat behind Alden, then again to the one behind Sebastian, taking photos from as many angles as she could. As she snapped, the engine sputtered …
“Um,” Alden said.
… and then it died.
And time compressed.
Sebastian muttered a curse under his breath. “Harness on,” he snapped as he worked the controls.
Inwardly, Roz cursed, too. She dropped back into the seat behind him and wrangled herself into the belts as Sebastian turned in a hard arc.
Before she even realized she’d broken out in a cold sweat, Sebastian was calling on the radio, “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. November one seven niner Bravo Romeo. We’ve lost the engine. Three people on board. Heading back toward Comet Cove airfield.”
We’ve lost the engine?
He’d dropped the cutesy coda to the tail number, a sure sign that fun time was over.
“There’s no control tower at the airport, is there?” Roz asked.
“No,” Alden said grimly.
“I’m alerting emergency services and any aircraft in the area.” Sebastian’s voice was shockingly cool as he addressed them. “We’re going to try to reach the runway.”
“Try?” Roz squeaked.
“I can’t restart the engine,” the pilot said. “I don’t think we’re going to make it.”
Chapter Fifteen
This felt like a movie. A movie Alden really didn’t want to be in.
Their plane plummeted. Or glided with a vengeance. However he wrote it in his head, the Cessna descended at an alarming rate. We aren’t high enough, he thought.
Sebastian confirmed his fears.
“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. November one seven niner Bravo Romeo. We’ve lost the engine. Can’t make the strip. We’re going to ditch in the river west of Comet Cove.” Sebastian’s delivery was crisp as he called out on the radio, adding their coordinates and direction.
Alden turned his head and caught Roz’s eye, reached a hand back to her. She grabbed it.
He wasn’t ready to lose Roz.
“Hold on to your harness,” Sebastian ordered, terse and urgent, and Alden reluctantly released Roz’s hand and complied, grabbing the vertical belts on his restraints. “Going flaps full,” the pilot said in the radio callout voice again. Then to them: “I’ve got to go in as slow as I can. Don’t worry. Ninety percent of water landings are nonfatal.”
“Fantastic,” Alden muttered, and Roz emitted one of those brief, hysterical giggles that happen when everything is going to hell.
He hoped they could laugh about this later.
What happened to the engine? How deep was the water here? Would they make it?
“Roz, grab the life jackets under your seat and give one to Alden,” Sebastian said. “Put them around your necks.”
Alden glanced back as she searched. “They’re right there. Yellow and flat,” he told her.
