Outside, the weather’s taken a turn, and the first thing I notice is not Sophie Rofrano but the rain that lashes against the railing of the lanai and the wind that bends the palms. Then a woman turns away from contemplation of the wild weather and startles at the sight of me. She’s wearing a pair of slacks the color of mustard and a white shirt, hair tied back by a patterned scarf, pocketbook tucked under her arm along with a newspaper. I consider what’s contained beneath that scarf, the knowledge behind those eyes. I ask her what the devil she’s doing here. She tells me she’s here to see Mrs. Lindquist.

“I’m afraid you’ve missed her. She’s off to pick up a package on the other side of the island. But she ought to be back before long. Something to drink? Lani’s bringing more coffee.”

“No, thank you.”

“You must have just come in off the morning boat.”

“Actually, I flew,” she says, a little smug.

“Did you, now? Must have been something important.”

She regards me warily and taps the newspaper with her index finger. I draw the cigarette case from the pocket of my trousers and tilt it in her direction. She shakes her head. I take one for myself and light it. I hope she doesn’t notice the trembling in my fingers, owing to those photographs back there in the study, the images that slide across my imagination, over and over. The sensation of drawing close to some small, hot, irresistible flame that will likely incinerate me.

“You might as well tell me,” I say, as carelessly as I’m able. “She’s already explained everything. Spilled the whole sack of beans.”

“Has she? Everything?”

“Oh, yes.” I hold up my left hand and cross the first two fingers. “We’re like that, Irene and me. As soon as she realized I was Sam Mallory’s daughter—”

“What?”

“Oh, yes. Don’t you remember little Pixie?” I spread my arms. “All grown up, as you see.”

Sophie Rofrano drops into a chair and stares at me. Agape, I believe, is the word.

“So if you’ve got something to say to Irene—”

She pulls the newspaper from under her arm and holds it out. It’s a copy of the Los Angeles Times, dated two days ago, folded to page four. In the left-hand column, a black headline hovers above a blurred photograph of an airplane in the middle of the desert.

The headline reads:

MORROW MYSTERY SOLVED AT LAST

Wreckage of Reclusive Publisher’s Aircraft Found in Spanish Desert

Bones Discovered in Shallow Grave Nearby Belong to George Morrow, Husband of Vanished Aviatrix Irene Foster

And I have no time to comprehend the meaning of all this, not a single second to do more than read this headline and stare at the familiar image, Mallory’s airplane plunged in the earth in the shadow of a monumental desert massif, because Lani sweeps past, sets down the coffee tray with a crash that startles me, and says there’s a telephone call for me inside, from the airfield.

“Who is it? Kaiko?”

“A Mr. William Cushing,” she says, “from the Associated Press. He says it’s urgent.”

I pick up the telephone in the library, where Olle still lies snoring on the sofa, though I cup my hand over the receiver so he stays that way. The call is collect, the kind of cheap trick I usually wouldn’t stand for, but Bill Cushing and I go way back, even before the war, when we were both covering the Kentucky Derby for the AP. I was the photographer, he was the writer. As I recall, Gallahadion won the race at odds of thirty-six to one. I soon learned we had a great deal in common—me and Bill, I mean, not the horse—from our love of fine Kentucky bourbon to our love for strapping young men. Bill’s a fellow you can trust, for the most part, and he has a talent for spotting trouble, which is why his voice, tunneling through the telephone wires, jumps straight on my already jangled nerves.

“Janey, you gorgeous creature! You’ll never guess where I am.”

“What the devil’s going on, Bill? Some kind of double cross? Because I swear—”

“Double cross? Hell, it’s the opposite. I’ve been fending them off. You’ve been scooped, my dear. Like ice cream in July.”

“Scooped? What in blazes?”

“A story ran a couple of days ago—did you get my cable?—ran in the LA Times, about George Morrow’s body being found in an airplane wreck in Spain, and some schmuck casts his eye over the photo spread and swears he saw a woman he’s convinced is Irene Foster, flying some tourist plane in Hawai’i. I’m standing here in this dump of an airfield cafeteria with a half dozen reporters, waiting for the weather to clear—”

“The weather to clear? For what?”

Even as I’m speaking, something catches my attention on the lamp table before me, the pile of scattered photographs I left there on my way out to the lanai. Bill’s voice drones in my ear at a high, nervy pitch.

“Darling, don’t you know? Our mystery woman left half an hour ago, just before we landed from Honolulu. She’s in the air right now, headed to some island—that’s what this fellow Kookoo says—”

“Kaiko?” I lift a photograph from the pile.

“That’s it. He says she’s likely headed out to some island to the west. The boys pooled some dough, hired this Kookoo—Kaiko, whatever his name is—to fly us there once this goddamned squall—Janey, are you listening? You know I’m doing my best—”

“Yes, of course,” I reply. And I am listening. I really am. But this emergency, this imminent invasion of curious newspapermen and, inevitably, the rest of the goddamned world, seems so distant to me, as faint and far away as Bill’s own voice.

Because in front of me, between my fingers, I see a photograph of a blond, spindly girl dressed in her first school uniform, unmistakably Doris, and a bewildered towhead in short pants who is unmistakably Wesley.

As for the proud man who holds the hands of these imps before the Hanalei school gate, he is unmistakably my father.

Aviatrix by Eugenia Everett (excerpt)

May 1937: Spain

Irene could see from George’s expression that the scene was terrible. She knew she had bled heavily; she still didn’t realize how badly Sam had been hurt too. So there was blood everywhere, like the remains of some brutal murder. Irene could smell the blood; it hung so thick and coppery in the confined air of the Potez, she had almost forgotten it was there.

George stopped short, looked this way and that, stumbled back outside the airplane and was sick in the sand.

“Thank God you’re here,” croaked Sam.

“Mother of God,” whispered Raoul. “What has happened here?”

“Irene was hurt in the bombing at the Bilbao airfield. I was evacuating her to Valencia but the fuel tank’d been strafed, we didn’t see the bullet hole because it was dark, and we ran out of fuel.”

George climbed back inside, pressed a handkerchief to his mouth and nose, and knelt next to Irene. “Can you talk, sweetheart?”

“She needs water, for God’s sake!”

Raoul had already unstrapped his canteen and held it to Irene’s lips. “She has had the baby?” he asked quietly.

“Yes,” said Sam. “Back in Bilbao. He lived for thirty-two minutes. I buried him with my own hands.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said George, “but it’s probably for the best.”

Sam stood up on his knees, hauled up George by his collar, and drew back his fist. But he did not punch. His left leg crumpled underneath him, and he collapsed on the metal deck next to Irene.

George straightened his collar and knelt back down. “Darling, we’ll get you out of here, I promise. I’ve got a doctor waiting in Valencia—”

“What about Sam?”

George glanced at Sam. “I’m afraid someone will have to come back for Mallory. The airplane won’t take a fourth passenger.”

“But Sam’s hurt. He needs a doctor too.”

“We’ll leave water for him. I’m sure this fellow will be back in a jiffy. Won’t you, Velázquez?”

Raoul was checking Irene’s bandage and didn’t answer.

“George, you should stay. You’re not hurt. Sam—”

“Damn Mallory! That—that bastard there, he’s the reason you’re dying in this godforsaken desert in the first place! The reason you’re not safe on an ocean liner heading back to America. He’s going to kill you one of these days, don’t you realize?”

Sam spoke up. “Irene flew to Spain on her own, Morrow. She flew here to escape you, as a matter of fact. You and that prison you’ve built around her—”

“Prison? You’ve got a nerve, you son of a bitch. I’ve set her free! Free to fly on her own, instead of second best to the goddamn magnificent flying ego of Sam Mallory! Do you know how frantic I’ve been? Held back the damned press, chartered a flight to Alicante, bribed a dozen officials to track her down on the crazy chance that—”

“Gentlemen,” said Raoul, “I’m afraid Miss Foster has fainted.”