Vivian Cross had spent most of her adult life learning that expensive machines were supposed to look expensive.
That was why the helicopter irritated her before she even knew who owned it.
It sat crookedly on the western apron of Briar Ridge Airfield beneath a clear Ohio morning, a squat old utility helicopter with faded navy paint around the cabin, aluminum showing through the edges of two inspection panels, weathered skids, and enough visible rivets to make it look as though it had been assembled during another century.
Behind it gleamed Vivian’s private jet.
The contrast was almost insulting.
Her aircraft was white, smooth, silent, and immaculate, its swept wings reflecting the pale October sky while two ground employees unloaded luggage from the rear compartment.
The helicopter looked like something a county museum should have placed behind a rope.
And standing beside it was a man with a wrench in his hand.
He was tall, perhaps forty or forty-one, with a lean, powerful frame under a faded charcoal mechanic’s shirt. His sleeves were rolled to his forearms. Grease darkened his fingers. His brown hair had been pushed back carelessly, and the restrained stubble along his jaw made him look as though shaving had lost an argument with work that morning.
He did not look impressed by her arrival.
That irritated Vivian too.
She stepped away from the jet in tall chocolate-brown boots, one hand holding a large suede travel bag. Her long blonde hair fell over the shoulders of a belted brown houndstooth blazer, and black sunglasses protected her eyes from both the sunlight and the habit strangers had of studying her face when they recognized her.
Most people in the aviation business recognized Vivian Cross.
At thirty-five, she was chief executive of Cross Aeronautical Group, one of the fastest-growing private aviation and advanced-mobility companies in the country.
Her company owned maintenance centers in eleven states, operated executive terminals at fourteen airports, managed a fleet of charter aircraft, and had recently announced plans for a new manufacturing and regional aviation hub somewhere in the Midwest.
The location had not been announced.
Vivian was standing on it.
Or at least the land her executives believed would soon become it.
Her chief acquisitions officer, Martin Kessler, had spent seven months negotiating through a subsidiary called North Meridian Development.
The target was four hundred and twelve acres surrounding Briar Ridge Airfield.
The airfield itself was supposed to be the easiest part.
Old.
Underused.
Financially weak.
Owned, according to the reports on Vivian’s desk, by a “local holding entity with no strategic aviation capability.”
The owner had refused three offers.
Vivian had flown in personally because she was tired of hearing the word no from someone who, according to every document she had read, had no rational reason to keep saying it.
Then she saw the old helicopter.
She almost laughed.
The man beside it looked up when her boots struck the concrete.
Vivian gestured toward the helicopter.
“Does that thing still fly?”
He glanced at the aircraft as though she had asked whether the sun still rose.
“Yes.”
She lowered her sunglasses slightly.
“Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“It looks older than the hangar.”
“It isn’t.”
“That was supposed to help?”
The man gave her a faint smile.
Not warm.
Not hostile.
Simply amused.
He looked back into the exposed service panel.
Vivian stepped closer.
“My jet is scheduled to depart at eleven.”
“That sounds organized.”
She frowned.
“The pilot says your helicopter is too close to the taxi path.”
The man looked at the distance between the aircraft.
“It isn’t.”
“He says it is.”
“He’s wrong.”
Vivian was not accustomed to being dismissed with such efficiency.
She folded one arm.
“Could you move it anyway?”
“No.”
She stared at him.
“No?”
“It’s on a maintenance mark.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m maintaining it.”
Vivian looked at the aircraft again.
“That machine belongs in a museum.”
The man stopped working.
Not dramatically.
He simply became still.
For the first time, something harder appeared behind his gray-blue eyes.
Then it disappeared.
He set the wrench down on a rag.
“You here for the field?”
Vivian hesitated.
“What makes you think that?”
“Nobody wearing those boots comes here for the vending machine.”
She almost smiled despite herself.
“I’m meeting the owner.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
“Good luck.”
He turned back to the helicopter.
Vivian’s patience shortened.
“Can you call him?”
The man glanced over his shoulder.
“Who?”
“The owner.”
He wiped his hands on a shop cloth.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t negotiate with mechanics.”
The words came out before Vivian decided whether to say them.
She immediately knew they sounded worse than she intended.
The man looked at her.
Not angry.
That would have been easier.
He just looked at her for a long second.
Then he nodded toward the jet.
“Your aircraft is parked on my ramp.”
Vivian said nothing.
He continued.