Angel's Breath (Fallen Angels - Book 2) (4 page)

Although it was one of the smallest jet manufacturers in the country, Worldwind Avionics was the largest company on the property and one of the fastest growing aerospace companies in the state. Specializing in the production of mid- and light-sized business class jets, they owned several buildings at the south end of the airfield. Spread over a dozen acres were two factories, a hangar and an administration building that served both as a headquarters and sales office. The company employed hundreds of mechanics, engineers, salespeople, and support staff.

My job periodically took me to each of the buildings, going where there was a need to move filing cabinets or furniture, transport tools or airplane parts, or for any other task where someone needed an extra hand.

I carried a handheld two-way radio, which squawked several times an hour when Carl Graham, my supervisor, would send me off to hold a panel for a welder, or bring a container of parts from one building to another, or to patch up a wall, drive a forklift, or help a receptionist move a photocopier.

It was a mundane job, but it kept me busy. Also, I didn’t have to spend too much time in one place or with the same people. I didn’t want to get personal with anyone, or cause any kind of friction that would get back to my mother, who had been working for the company since before I was born. I was always polite but reserved toward everyone at the facility.

By seven-forty-five—about the time most of the administration staff began to trickle in for their workday—I was on my third task of the morning, hanging a large glass display cabinet in the front lobby of the administration building.

The exhaustion from last night was settling in, and I was having difficulty concentrating. My eyelids felt heavy and thick.

I was on my fourth attempt at drilling a hole, trying to find one of the wood studs from which to secure the hanging brace. It was lucky the metal back of the display case would hide punctures in the wall because otherwise it would look as if termites had had a field day.

The sound of a deep voice right behind me caused me to jump.

“Good morning, Richard.”

I spun around, nearly dropping the electric drill from my hand. “Oh, Mr. Matheson. Good morning.”

“I told you, call me David.”

I was taller than average, but David Matheson didn’t have to look up at me. He was athletic looking; I’d seen him leave the building with a squash racket and gym bag a few times.

He had short-trimmed blond hair and a clean-shaven face with a chiseled jaw. The only thing that took away from the image of a rising corporate executive was the purple and yellow-striped tie he wore under his suit.

He said, “One of the receptionists texted me. Your mother is out today?”

I felt my neck flush when I offered up the lie. “I think it’s the flu or something. She couldn’t keep anything down last night.”

“I hope she gets better,” he said, giving me a warm smile.

Even though my mother had worked as his secretary for the past few years, I didn’t for a moment think I was the only employee in the company with whom he was on a first-name basis. David struck me as the kind of person who made a point of knowing the name of everyone who worked for him.

The same couldn’t be said about his father, who entered the lobby a moment later. The CEO of Worldwind Avionics, Terence Matheson spotted his son talking to me, narrowed his cold eyes, and strode toward us.

Although the senior Mr. Matheson wasn’t as tall as David or me, his presence was overbearing. He held himself with the kind of self-confidence that told everyone within sight of him that he was clearly their superior in every way. Even at what I guessed was his late sixties, he had a full head of hair.

A step behind him was Al, his bodyguard.

Al was an unpleasant looking man. On the shorter side, he made up for it with bulk, and not the fat kind. His broad nose was crooked from being broken at least once, and it hung off-center below his narrow eyes. His skin was pockmarked, and there was a long scar that ran from his cheekbone to his hairline. In the three months he had worked at Worldwind, I’d never heard Al say more than two words to any of the employees.

Terence had hired Al and two other men, Nick and Tom—all ex-military—to provide him with twenty-four-hour protection. Though no one could say why, the consensus around the office was that the death of Terence’s father—the founder of Worldwind Avionics—had affected him deeply, triggering a severe case of paranoia in the CEO.

Terence was almost on top of us before he stopped. He looked at me as if I were some kind of insect, and made a grunting noise.

“What’s going on here?” he demanded.

“Uh,” I said, and then pointed at the display case. “Just hanging this, sir.”

He saw the shabby job I had made of it, and his jaw clenched. “You’re ruining the walls. What moron hired you?”

“I did,” David said, his tone icy.

Mr. Matheson turned up one corner of his lips. “Again with the charity cases?” He glanced back at Al. “And he hopes to run this company one day when I’m gone. I pray that day never comes, or he’ll run it into the ground, I think.”

Shaking his head, he strode off, Al shadowing his steps like a faithful bulldog.

I struggled to keep my temper. Charity case? If there was one thing I was proud of, it was that I was willing to put in a full day’s work for a full day’s pay. There was no way I was going to sit around with my hand out.

David gave me a pat on the shoulder. “Don’t mind him. He never used to be like this. I remember him telling me a happy workplace is a productive workplace. It seems he forgot his own philosophy.” Then he smiled. “It has nothing to do with you. Just keep up the good work.”

Taking a deep breath, I nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Matheson.”

“It’s ‘David’,” he said as he turned on his heel and continued toward the stairs, which led up to his office on the top floor.

Over his shoulder, he added, “And tell your mother I hope she gets better soon.”

* * *

It was one of the longest workdays I could remember, and keeping my eyes opened was a constant battle. I catnapped most of the hour-long lunch break, but even that wasn’t enough to recharge my batteries.

One of the benefits of starting work early in the morning was that I was off at four in the afternoon. Most days, I could get home before rush hour. Today, though, I was going to head directly to the hospital. I had tried phoning during my lunch break, but the nurse said my mother was sleeping and the doctor hadn’t yet arrived to authorize her release.

I had fifteen minutes left until my shift was over. Carl had sent me to deliver a crate of fittings and couplers to the northern hangar where they were working on an order of five light jets for a corporate client from Florida. They were a long-established charter company that ferried customers between Miami and several larger islands in the Caribbean.

I didn’t know the details, but I had overheard my mother say that if the charter company was happy with the first order, they would come back to us when it was time to replace the remaining jets in their fleet. Competition was fierce in the industry, and this contract would give the company considerable prestige.

Just as I reached the tarmac, a welder stepped out in front of me.

He didn’t see me coming toward him in the pickup, and I jerked the wheel to the left to swerve around him. The screeching tires got his attention, and he jumped out of the way, but it was already too late.

The front bumper of my truck collided with a workbench. A can of solvent fell over and splashed liquid all over the front of the pickup.

I had no idea what sparked it, but the solvent caught fire. Hot flame washed toward me. I was shielded inside the truck, but I could feel the intense heat. The driver-side window cracked, and the paint on the hood bubbled and peeled.

I scrambled over to the passenger side of the vehicle and slammed the door open with my shoulder, falling out onto the ground. Strong arms grabbed me and pulled me away from the burning vehicle.

A number of workers grabbed extinguishers and fought to put out the fire before it spread to the truck’s fuel line or gas tank. They quickly had everything under control, and I sighed with relief.

The front and driver’s side of the pickup was charred black. Thick smoke funneled up into the heights of the hangar.

“Are you all right?” someone asked me, and I nodded as I pulled myself to my feet. Luckily, I hadn’t inhaled any smoke, but I was still winded.

One of the supervisors barked orders not to touch anything when two of the mechanics edged closer to the upended barrel.

“Wait for the safety officer,” he said. “Everyone, stay where you are. Check each other. If you get any turpentine on you, another spark will light you up like fireworks.”

Several vehicles approached at high speed from the administration building. One was a company emergency services truck, another was the security team’s van, and the third was an SUV.

Two company medics jumped out of the van and immediately checked us for injury.

One of them opened a medical kit. “How are you? Anything broken? Trouble breathing?” he asked.

The safety officer got out of his vehicle and directed the three security men to secure and contain the area. Seeing a group of us in close proximity, he approached.

Getting out of the SUV, Terence Matheson and Al made straight for us. The CEO was so red-faced he looked ready to burst.

The safety officer asked, “Anyone hurt?”

The paramedic looked up. “Looks like nothing more than a few scrapes and bruises. All’s good.”

“All right,” the officer said, addressing the group. “What’s the story?”

No one seemed to want to volunteer to be first. The foreman looked pointedly at me. “This was the driver.”

“What’s your name?” the officer asked me.

“Richard,” I said, then added, “Riley.”

“Are you all right? What happened?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I was delivering some parts, and someone walked out in front of me. I braked and swerved into the workbench, and then everything was kind of a blur.”

Terence’s eyes narrowed to angry slits. “Someone?” he asked, pitching his voice loud enough to be heard by everyone in the area. A dozen pairs of eyes looked in our direction.

My gut clenched under the scrutiny, and I could feel myself flush. I noticed a movement from the corner of my eye, and spotted the welder I had almost hit. He looked frightened out of his wits. I didn’t recognize him; he must have been new.

He spoke in a small voice. “It was me, sir.”

The foreman called him closer. “Jim, what happened?”

“Sorry, sir,” Jim said, looking back and forth between his foreman, the safety officer, and Mr. Matheson. “It was just one of those things; an accident. I was just going to grab a wrench and there was the truck. It happened really fast.”

“Why’d the solvent catch on fire?” the safety officer asked.

Jim seemed to shrink inside himself.

One of the security men made a throaty noise, bent over and picked up a cigarette butt. He brought it over.

The foreman’s voice was a low growl. “Jim, this is your brand, isn’t it?”

Jim turned white.

Terence Matheson stepped forward, glaring at both of us. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? We’re going to have to shut down this entire hangar until we can run a full investigation. You two morons just cost me tens of thousands of dollars, maybe even hundreds of thousands with the delay this will cause. It’s not like my insurance company is going to cover stupidity and negligence.”

He turned to Al. “I want you and your security team to escort these two off the premises. They’re both fired for negligence and incompetence.”

The safety officer said, “I can’t see how this man was at fault at all.” He jerked his thumb at me.

Terence didn’t look at the safety officer when he spoke. “I happened to review his employment file today. It appears he has a criminal record and is therefore unbondable. According to our company’s insurance policy, unbonded personnel are restricted from entering any bonded area.”

He looked squarely at the security officer. “I believe our hangars are bonded areas. He broke protocol. He should never have come inside the building. If anyone had been injured, our company would be liable.”

The security officer sighed. “Damn.”

“Like I said—” Terence leveled his glare back at me. “—incompetence. I’m sure my lawyers will be contacting both of you. Al, please get these two idiots out of my sight.”

Al, one of his lips curled up in a satisfied sneer, grabbed me by my arm. “Let’s go.” He motioned to one of the security men to escort Jim.

It felt like I was outside of myself. I couldn’t believe what was happening. Between the shock of the accident, my exhaustion from lack of sleep, and being convicted without a trial, I couldn’t process it all fast enough.

Al had bundled Jim and me inside the SUV, and we were halfway to the main gate before the gravity of everything finally sunk in.

I was still on parole.

Being fired, my PO had explained to me very carefully, was a direct violation of that parole.

The moment he found out, he would send me straight back to prison.

Chapter Five

I didn’t want
to go back to prison, although that was where I had turned my life around.

After spending my late teens on the street and living under my own rules, I’d had a hard time adjusting to prison routine. I was nineteen when I went in, and I was angry at the world.

I blamed everyone but myself for where I was and what I had become. Daily, I got into fights—both verbal and physical—with inmates as well as the guards.

My cell mate had had enough of the guards’ attention on our cell, and our argument quickly turned physical. I ended up with a cracked rib and had to spend the third week of my incarceration in a hospital bed.

The prison counselor visited me there, and assured me that if I kept getting into trouble, I could forget about parole. He spoke to me at length—I was a captive audience—and by the end of our conversation, I had what I could only describe as an epiphany.