The problem was, Omar and Michelle were way ahead of them. Ahead by about twelve hours. Heather knew that Michelle had been abducted after the two calls she had made to her on her cell phone last night. The first one was at eight p.m., and the next one, when Michelle said she was on her way home was at eight thirty.
At a little past nine last night, Heather had tried to call Michelle and there was no answer. So she knew that if Michelle had been kidnapped, it was between eight-thirty and nine.
If Omar had taken Michelle on the fastest route by jet, Hawaii to California would be about five hours. So they would have landed in California at about three in the morning. Then the trip by plane from California to Guadalajara would have taken another few hours. Allowing for time between flights and the travel time to different ground destinations, they had probably arrived in Guadalajara sometime early this morning.
There was no way to make up those twelve hours, but Heather and Mike were packed and ready to leave. Heather was pleased and a little shocked that Mike wanted to come with her to try and find Michelle in Mexico.
Mike said that his understudy weather reporter was itching to do a few weather reports on his own. Mike made some kind of an excuse to the TV station channel executives that he had a family emergency and needed a little time to take care of personal business.
The stop-off in California would have been necessary just to refuel, but they were going to pick up Professor Vincent Middleton at a private jet fuelling port near LAX in California so he wouldn’t have to fly to Hawaii. It would also save some time.
They were taking the cat, Lucifer. Rod had pretty much insisted. He said the cat could help them find Michelle. Since he was providing the free service of a Heroshi corporate jet, Heather wasn’t going to complain, although getting Lucifer into the cat-carrier that she found in Michelle’s apartment proved to be impossible. He screamed and cried, squirmed and fought her when she tried to get him inside the box. He ran and hid under the bed. She tried luring him with treats she put inside the box. That didn’t work. Heather decided she’d probably have to hold the cat herself, wherever they travelled, in the search for Michelle.
The cat had more luggage than she did, Heather thought, as she and Mike carried two small bags for themselves that they had packed with clothes. Lucifer had his dishes, food, plastic potty box, a bag of sand and a few toys to keep him happy. They placed it all in Heather’s car. Mike drove because Heather was holding the cat and didn’t know if Lucifer would become testy if she had control of the wheel and needed to focus on driving.
It took about a half-hour to get to Guy Thorner’s private air-field, where they would meet Rod. They had decided it would be less complicated to meet there than at the huge Hawaii International Airport. Luckily, Guy’s small air-field had a runway with the capacity to land even a large commercial plane.
Heather and Mike waited in Guy’s office for Rod to arrive in the private jet. Guy had delightful old pictures of Hawaii on all the office walls, with palm trees and native Polynesians in canoes, and lots of pictures taken from the air of the beautiful islands of Oahu, Kaui, Molokai, and Maui.
Guy told them stories about the old days, when Hawaii had been so rural he didn’t even have to make a flight plan as he bummed around the islands in the Hawaiian chain. He was just finishing one about running out of fuel on a flight to Maui in a small two-prop single engine plane, when he abruptly stopped and cocked his head to the side.
“She’s here,” Guy announced.
Heather didn’t hear a thing and looked out the big office window. She saw a tiny white spot moving toward them in the sky and wondered absently why planes and boats were always designated a She.
“You can tell just by the sound?” Mike asked Guy.
He nodded. “A sweet sound, that Lear engine makes. Let’s go out to the run-way. They’ll need to refuel. Take your bags.”
They stopped in the doorway and watched a sleek white jet make the landing approach. It looked awfully small to Heather, who had expected to see a larger commercial type plane. The landing looked perfect and smooth, but she knew nothing about flying. Guy Thorner was smiling and nodding, with thumbs up, arms raised over his head and waving. So he approved of the pilot’s skill, she thought. Then she saw him pointing at a small boarded three sided shed, where the jet would take on fuel for the next leg of the journey to California.
They walked across the tarmac and arrived just as the jet taxied over. The door opened upward on the plane’s passenger side and Rod climbed down the stairs. A small Japanese man followed him.
Heather ran to Rod and gave him a hug. His red hair was tousled, like he’d been combing through it with his fingers. Rod had a big smile for her, but he appeared worried when Heather stepped back and really looked at him. He was half Japanese, but with his red hair, you’d never guess until you noticed that he seemed tan for a redhead. And he had those great slanted blue eyes and high cheek bones. In his case, the Caucasian part of his ancestry had been dominant, because Heather had seen pictures of his parents, and his mother was typically Japanese, diminutive and beautiful with straight black hair and dark eyes.
Heather and Rod had been through a lot together the last time
