Penelope had blushed in embarrassment but thankfully hadn’t felt any shame. I was glad to finally solve the riddle of why she wasn’t attached. If anyone deserves to be loved and happy, it’s got to be her. I’ve always liked Becky, and now that she’s totally free to be herself with me, we’re getting along like gangbusters.
“Sometimes I’m jealous when I have to listen to her rave about you,” Becky had admitted with a grin an hour or so after I walked in on them. “If she’s ever gonna do it with a guy, it might be you.”
“Nah, I hear we’re all assholes.”
“That’s true,” she agreed with a sly smile. She says the nicest things.
Trish, who’s been spending quite a bit of time nursing me back to health, hugs my arm close to her and shoots Penelope a mock scowl. “Hands off.”
They share a chuckle before Becky stands back to give me an appraising look. “You’re looking almost back to normal.”
It’s true. Joe’s head left me with a couple of horrific black eyes that had morphed through almost every color of the rainbow over the following weeks. I can now breathe, pronounce the letter V properly, and am recovering from the concussion I suffered from either the head slam with Joe, smashing my head into the driveway, or both. “At least now you’ve got an excuse for being a doofus,” Brittany tells me from time to time.
The Luciano family has taken a few good blows from law enforcement in the wake of Brittany’s kidnapping and the murders of Ed Stankowski and Bobby Harland. I’ve been looking over my shoulder, but Jake and Max assure me that the mobsters currently have their hands full just trying keep their asses out of jail. If Jake and Max are to be believed, the thugs are either lying low or lying on beaches somewhere far from Cedar Heights. It’s comforting to think so, yet I worry that they’ll circle back to take vengeance on me when the dust settles.
But today isn’t the time to think about that.
Billy and Rick used the occasion of our office opening to treat the entire firm to beer and pizza in a show of appreciation. There’s been plenty to celebrate on the R & B front over the past few weeks. The NTSB finally issued its report on the investigation into the September eighth crash. They laid primary blame for the tragedy on the doorstep of pilot Megan Walton. It turns out that Megan had been drinking the night before, in contravention of FAA rules, and had made at least three critical errors after she got into trouble over Lake Michigan. She hadn’t feathered the prop, hadn’t raised the landing gear, and had sealed their fate by attempting a tight turn back to shore when she should have made a wide, sweeping turn. The Cessna engine hadn’t been running at the time of the crash, which suggested fuel starvation as the inciting cause of the accident. The NTSB noted Billy’s and Rick’s testimony suggesting Megan may not have bled the fuel tanks that fateful morning. Had she done so, she might have discovered the faulty fuel before taking off. Because of the missing fuel samples, AAA Avgas is off the hook for the accident, although fuel samples collected from their supplies the next day proved to be tainted, so at least they haven’t gotten away scot free. Windy City and its preferred flight instructor also came in for brutal criticism. The tour company lost its license to operate aircraft after Megan’s flight instructor cut a deal with prosecutors, admitting to the bribe from Jonathan Walton and agreeing to testify against him. The scuzzball escaped jail time by rolling over on Walton, but he won’t be doing any more flight training. Walton, of course, has a battery of high-priced lawyers trying to get his sorry ass out of the crack it’s in.
The best news is that R & B has been absolved of any responsibility by the NTSB and FBI. Senator Evan Milton has removed them as a defendant in the lawsuit filed against those responsible for the death of his wife, child, and parents. He was even gracious enough to stop by their little airport office to unnecessarily apologize for initially including R & B in the lawsuit. Penelope made the wreckage of the Cessna available for him to use in his case against Windy City. As soon as R & B are free of any risk from a lawsuit, Penelope has arranged to sell Milton what’s left of the plane. I hope it happens soon. We can’t afford to have money invested in the damned aircraft.
I, on the other hand, must be a miserably vindictive bastard, because I’m reveling in every new snippet of misfortune that befalls the rancid former owners of Windy City Sky Tours. I’ve especially enjoyed the FBI rolling out a string of charges against the shits. The cherry on the cake was a court ruling that opened them up to personal civil liability based on Jonathan Walton’s machinations to put Megan in a Windy City cockpit. Predictably, they’ve turned on one another with a vengeance as they try to limit the hit on their personal fortunes. As for the self-evident truth that Walton was in bed with the Luciano family in the campaign against Billy and Rick—including the kidnapping of my daughter—the FBI has so far been unable to turn up evidence or a single witness to buttress that case. I hope the Windy City assholes end up slitting one another’s throats. Maybe Franklin and Tyson can both take a turn on Walton.
After I fetch drinks and snacks for Penelope and Becky, I settle back in a corner and observe the festivities as people drift back and forth between the kitchen and living room. It’s nice to have this intimate group of family and friends together after the hell
