Blind Faith - Sharon Sala Page 0,87

call.”

“Sitting,” Wyrick said, shouting to be heard over the noise. Then before she could think, Charlie lifted her out of the wheelchair and into the cockpit.

She grabbed on to a seat to steady herself, and he climbed in behind her.

“Sit in the outside seat so you don’t have to bend your leg,” he said, so she settled into the seat behind his and let him buckle her in, appreciating the time he took to adjust her headset and seat straps to accommodate her shoulder wound and the sling she was wearing.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She nodded.

Satisfied, Charlie loaded his gear. Then both men climbed in and they were gone.

Wyrick was sick to her stomach, scared that another chopper would appear out of nowhere and kill them all. She couldn’t sit still for looking out and then leaning forward, looking up and looking down.

Then all of a sudden, Charlie’s voice was in her ear.

“Wyrick, close your eyes. I’ve got this.”

Once again, the panic she was feeling subsided as she looked up at the man in the seat in front of her. He was a physical presence between her and danger, and her trust of him was implicit.

She closed her eyes, and the next thing she knew, they were landing.

“Rise and shine, sunshine... We’re here,” Charlie said.

Wyrick woke just as the chopper was making its descent.

“We’re in Dallas?”

“Wright’s Aviation... It’s on the outskirts,” Charlie said.

“Any relation to Wilbur and Orville?” Wyrick asked.

Billy laughed. “No, ma’am. Just my daddy, Delroy, who taught me how to fly.”

He was shutting everything down as Charlie got out.

“Sit tight. I’m going to drive the Jeep up to get you,” he said, and took off running toward the office where he’d left his Jeep days earlier.

It reminded Wyrick that her car was still at the hangar. Even though it would be a while before she’d be allowed to drive again, she wanted it home.

Then Charlie pulled up beside the chopper.

“Do you want front seat or lie down in the back seat?” he asked.

“In the front,” she said, then held her breath against the pain as he scooped her up in his arms and moved her from the cockpit to his Jeep.

“Oh crap, that hurt,” she said.

“Pain meds are wearing off. Hang on a sec,” Charlie said, and got a blister pack out of his pocket, popped out a couple, then got a bottle of water from his backpack and opened it for her.

She swallowed the pills, then leaned against the seat, willing herself to relax as they drove away. They were back on the highway and heading into Dallas when she mentioned her car.

“All this time, I never once thought about my car still at the hangar,” Wyrick said. “I’m going to call Benny and see if he’d be willing to drive it in for me.”

Charlie shifted slightly in the seat. “Uh, Benny won’t be able to do that. I’ll figure something out and get it back to you,” he said.

She frowned. “What do you mean, Benny can’t do it?”

Charlie took a deep breath. There wasn’t any way to sugarcoat this.

“Right after you took off, a couple drove up in a van and began trying to get him to tell them where you went. He kept telling them he didn’t know, and the man beat him up pretty badly, but he wouldn’t tell. The cops said the office had been ransacked, though, so if anything had been written down, they found it. We think it’s how the sniper in the chopper found you.”

Charlie was watching when Wyrick went pale. When he saw her jaw set, and then her nostrils flare, he felt the anger.

“It’s not your—”

She held up her hand, her voice shaking with rage. “Like hell, it’s not my fault! Of course it’s my fault. He’ll take anyone down to get to me. This just confirms I am right in what I am going to do when I get home. And I’ll tell you now—if you don’t want the shit that’s going to become my life to bleed over onto you and your business, I will understand. I can still do research for you and will do so gladly, but I can do it anonymously. No one has to know we’re associated.”

Charlie frowned. “What the hell are you talking about? What are you going to do?”

“Tell the world the truth about Cyrus Parks and Universal Theorem—about what they do, what they’re involved in, which includes shit like Fourth Dimension, other levels of human trafficking, and experimenting with