Page 87 of Ultimate Justice

The chopper balked, and the engine sputtered. Evan reached for the grab handle over the window, trying not to let his body slam into Chip’s shoulder. The pilot had enough to deal with as it was.

Chip twisted the radio knob to 121.5 megahertz—the emergency frequency. Never a good sign when you’re in a chopper shot full of holes.

“Mayday, mayday, mayday!” Chip said in an eerily calm voice. “November four-zero-seven-alpha-tango declaring an emergency twenty-five miles northwest of Cheyenne Regional Airport.” He struggled to keep the nose of the chopper upright. “Shit.”

Evan’s heart slammed so hard against his ribcage he no longer felt or heard the chopper’s blades beating the air. “What can I do to help?”

“Look outside and tell me what you see.”

He pressed his cheek to the window. A contrail of grayish-white smoke spewed from the top of the cockpit. “Smoke coming from just beneath the rotors.” Another beyond-bad sign things were about go from SNAFU to FUBAR.

“Double shit. We’re losing oil pressure. Mayday, mayday, mayday,” Chip repeated. Again, no one responded. “They must have hit the radio. We’re on our own.”

Evan fisted his hand. This was Chip’s domain, not his, and he felt about as helpful as an elephant in a minefield. Bad analogy.

He tightened his other hand around the grab handle, because here they were, strapped inside a fully fueled, smoking helicopter. Basically, a flying bomb. If that bomb hit the ground, he had no doubt it would go off. With them stuck inside.

Another loud pop, this one from beneath the cowling. Smoke trailed from the chopper’s nose, some of it seeping into the cockpit from behind the dashboard dials.

“Shutting off the fuel.” Chip pulled on a lever. “I’m going to try and autorotate us down. Prepare for a hard landing. You might want to tighten your seatbelt.”

Yeah. No kidding. His fun meter was beyond pegged.

“See if you can get a signal on your phone,” Chip shouted over the noise, which had been worsening by the second. “Call 911. Give them our location.”

Evan yanked the phone from his belt and punched in the call.

“We’re going down fast!” Chip struggled to keep the chopper in the air. “Brace for impact!”

The chopper’s nose pitched, then seemed to drop like a rock. Evan never imagined his heart could possibly beat above one-fifty while sitting immobile in a chair. He’d been wrong.

The ground came up to meet them. Just before they hit, Marlie’s face came to him. Possibly for the last time in his life.

“Marlie,” he whispered, then bent over in crash position.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

For the last forty minutes, North Metro’s deputy chief administrator and the head of the hospital’s psychology department had grilled Marlie with question after question. She couldn’t tell if that was a good sign or a bad one.

“One last question, Dr. Foxe,” Jabari Abdullah said as he flipped to the second page of the curriculum vitae Marlie had typed up barely an hour ago. “You haven’t practiced in three years. For the last two years, you’ve been working here as a custodian. Why?”

She shifted in the chair, readjusting the suit jacket she’d borrowed from Tish for the interview. She didn’t know which was more uncomfortable: being referred to as “doctor” again or answering Abdullah’s question.

“Three years ago, I suffered a family tragedy.” This was the first time she’d said those words out loud. “Afterward, I didn’t feel I was fit to counsel anyone. I needed time to help myself before I could return to helping others. To do so prematurely wouldn’t have been fair to my patients.”

Dr. Janet Moroni, head of the psych department, picked up two sheets of paper. “Latisha Torres wrote you a wonderful referral letter, and Dr. Tori Sampson provided an extremely complimentary character reference.”

Marlie’s throat clogged with so much gratitude she couldn’t speak. She hadn’t known either of them had done that.

“We’ll be in touch by the end of next week.” Jabari stood, holding out his hand. “Thank you for coming in.”

After shaking hands, Marlie left the office, closing the door behind her.

I did it. I actually did it.

With a smile, she headed to Tish’s office to change back into her custodial clothes. Even if she didn’t get this particular job, she vowed to apply for other psychologist positions. Now that she’d made the decision, she was all in.

At the elevator bank, she pushed the button for Tish’s floor. The phone she’d set to vibrate buzzed in her pocket. When she tugged it out, her muscles tightened. It was Noah’s school. Stay calm. A call during the day didn’t automatically mean trouble.