I almost pause the recording for what I have to say next, but somehow I suspect Mrs. Haviland wants this conversation on the record, that she’s been waiting to tell this story for longer than I’ve been wanting to hear it. “You loved my father,” I say.
“I did love him. I still do, despite what he did.”
“When my mother first met you and my father, she assumed you were high school sweethearts. Were you dating?”
“You mean in high school?”
“Or later?”
“Did Jane tell you we had an affair?”
“She implied he had one with someone.”
Mrs. Haviland puts a hand to my cheek. “I wish Mark and I were sweethearts. But we weren’t. Not in high school. Not ever. If your father had an affair with someone, it wasn’t with me.” She stands. “I’ve talked enough for one day, and I have to get to work, anyway. Good seeing you, Charlie. Remember, we promised to go water-skiing this summer. Come find me when you’re ready.”
As she heads up the ramp toward the restaurant, I call after her. “How did you know about the loan Paul gave to Isaac? You said they tried to keep it from you.”
“Your father and I studied accounting together in college, and I’m good when it comes to finances. Every bit of information I needed was in the books for the restaurant, buried in a spreadsheet. I should have been a forensic accountant. I’d be a lot richer now.”
That gives me an idea. “I could use your help.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The landing field in Kingston sits behind a chain-link fence right outside town, with a single hangar rising from the center of an expanse of asphalt. I park the Volvo in a dusty lot and head toward the only aircraft present, a helicopter with a slowly spinning rotor blade, where Seton preps for a flight, exactly where Mrs. Haviland told me I would find her.
Seton works through a checklist, talking to someone in the cockpit. She laughs, sweeping a hand over her spiky hair as she jots something on the clipboard, showing a placid ease I don’t see often enough.
I call her name and wave.
“Charlie Kilgore,” she says, stepping away from the helicopter blades’ rhythmic pulsing. “My mother called to tell me you might show up.”
I hand her a sheet of yellow construction paper. “Turnabout is fair play.”
Seton unfolds the note and reads through the large font. “The unicorn stickers are a nice touch,” she says.
“I, Charles R. Kilgore,” I say, “officially apologize for making assumptions about my friend Seton Haviland’s actions. I thought she didn’t have my back, but I was wrong.”
Seton folds the paper and slides it into her pocket. “The less said about the day Gilcrest brought you to the station, the better.”
“Your secret’s safe with me,” I say, turning to leave.
Seton calls after me, “Where do you think you’re going?”
The next thing I know, I’m strapped into the back of the helicopter while Seton and her instructor, some guy named Lee with an Australian accent, chiseled features, and a sleeve of tattoos that makes Seton’s seem restrained, get ready to take off. “I don’t know about this,” I yell over the noise.
“You don’t have to shout,” Seton says, her voice coming over the headset. “And tough. Lee knows what he’s doing, and I’m getting there. Don’t you want to see the lake from the sky?”
“It’s not on my to-do list,” I say.
Seton hits one of the controls. The rotor blades speed up. Beside her, Lee mumbles about antitorque pedals, and suddenly we’re rising into the sky.
“Mind the altimeter,” Lee says.
I grip the edge of my seat and double-check that the straps are buckled as Seton arcs across the airfield. Out the window, the foothills stretch to the horizon, and soon we’re flying over the surface of the lake to where tiny Hero sits nestled on the shore. It would be thrilling if I weren’t so terrified.
“I can’t believe the town approved a helicopter,” I say into the headset.
“You sound like Paul Burke, complaining about taxes,” Seton says. “And it’s not as if Heroboughtthe helicopter. We share it with Kingston and a whole slew of other towns. You’d be surprised how many day hikers get lost. Dogs, too. My whole team was out for two days this spring looking for a missing goat.”
