Chapter 2

TWO

The last couple of weeks had been a stressful time for Wolfe. The workload as medical examiner had taken him all over Montana and had excluded him from a visit to Stockholm with his fiancée, forensic anthropologist Norrell Larson, to meet her family. Norrell's fifteen-hour-plus trip with the stopovers along the way would have been exhausting. It would be the same for his daughter, Julie. Her flight from Dallas had arrived in Helena late last evening and she'd stayed in town for the night before catching a turboprop aircraft from Helena to Black Rock Falls earlier this morning. It was a short flight, and she should be landing soon. The weather had been closing in for the last few hours, and flights canceled every few minutes. According to the local weather reports, a blizzard was hitting the mountain range, putting visibility down to zero. Had the small turboprop made it through? Anxiously waiting for both women to land was wearing at his nerves. He stared across the snow-covered tarmac as the jet aircrafts landed. When the board lit up that Norrell's flight from Salt Lake City had landed, he headed for the arrivals gate.

Checking his watch again, and staring at the arrivals board, a knot formed in his stomach. Julie's flight was late. He'd flown his chopper in bad weather and understood the problems. With a small aircraft a pilot would rather set the plane down in a field than risk flying over a mountain range in a blizzard. He'd call air traffic control the moment Norrell arrived for more information. Moments later, Norrell arrived pushing a cart loaded with baggage. His heart missed a beat at the sight of her angelic face. How a young woman like her wanted a forty-two-year-old man like him he'd never understand, but he thanked God every time he laid eyes on her. He held out his arms and she left her baggage cart and ran to him. He swung her around and kissed her. "I've missed you."

"I've missed you too." Norrell held up her gloved hand. "Pinky-finger swear we'll never go on vacations alone again."

Filled with emotion, Wolfe lifted his hand and linked her finger. "I swear." He hugged her close. "I'm waiting for Julie's plane to land. It's overdue. Her arrival time was before yours and she's only coming from Helena."

"We were getting updates on the blizzard all the way here." Norrell frowned. "It's bad and it's going to swamp Black Rock Falls within the next hour or so. She might have got through before it hit the mountains. What time did she leave?"

Wolfe checked his watch. "A little over two hours ago. The flight usually takes about forty minutes, add on a little more for takeoff. She should have landed by now. We'll go and stow your bags in the back of my truck. Maybe she will have landed by then."

As they walked out to the parking lot, snow chilled his face. He glanced toward the mountains, but before him was a sheet of white. Visibility was so bad he wouldn't even think of flying a chopper in these conditions. He pushed the bags into the back of his truck and then took Norrell's hand and ran back across the slippery blacktop to the airport waiting room. He checked the arrivals board again and then pulled out his phone. Being a chopper pilot had its advantages as he had plenty of contacts at the airport. He made a call to the air traffic control office. "Hey, it's Shane Wolfe. What can you tell me about a flight from Helena this morning? Can you get me an estimated time of arrival from the pilot? It's very late and my daughter is on board." He gave the flight number and waited. He could hear voices in the background.

"Yeah, we've been trying to reach that flight for ten minutes. The last call we had was for a weather report. The pilot could see the storm coming. Since then, no communication. No Mayday call. He could have ditched the plane in a field and the antenna is frozen. There could be a valid reason why he's lost communication. Right now, we have no contact. The blizzard is scattering the signal, but we'll be able to pinpoint the aircraft using other techniques. We'll be notifying the local sheriff's departments all through the mountain ranges to be on the lookout for the aircraft." The man sighed. "Right now, all we can do is wait for the storm to pass."

Dread dropped over Wolfe in an icy shroud. "Don't sugarcoat it for me. The plane is down, isn't it? If you've lost contact and can't reach it, it's down. The pilot would have followed protocol if he'd ditched it. He'd have sent out a Mayday and given his last coordinates. Stop wasting time and get people out looking for it. Give me its last position and I'll coordinate something from here." He pulled a notebook from his pocket and jotted down the numbers. "Call me if you have any news." He turned to Norrell. "They're not admitting it yet, but I believe Julie's plane went down over the Black Rock mountain range." He dragged in a shuddering breath and rubbed both hands down his face. "My baby girl is out there all alone."