Killer Affair. Cindy Dees

      Chapter 1

      Another gust flung the tiny airplane sideways like a storm-tossed cork. Tom Laruso’s formidable muscles strained as he fought the controls, leveling out the Cessna floatplane’s wings and easing it down toward a lower and hopefully smoother altitude.

      “Are we going to die?” the woman beside him quavered.

      “Nah. This is just a little turbulence. No big deal. Think of it as a giant roller coaster. Take my advice, little lady, just sit back and enjoy the ride.”

      She subsided, white-knuckled, beside him. Didn’t look as if she was buying the roller-coaster line. She’d been insane to insist on this trip, and he’d told her as much before they left the big island. But the client, who’d called herself only Madeline C., had been adamant. She had to get to Vanua Taru tonight. Hey, if she had a death wish, who was he to stand in her way? It wasn’t like staying alive held any great appeal to him. He was game to dance with death if she was.

      But now that they were out here flirting with the leading edge of a Category Three hurricane—cyclones, they were called out here in the South Pacific—he wasn’t so sure this was the way he wanted to go. He’d much rather lose himself in the bottom of a whiskey bottle and just drift away, numb and painless.

      The plane lurched, its left wing jerking up suddenly and half flinging him into Ms. Madeline’s elegant lap. His right hand gripped her thigh, which went as rock hard beneath his palm as any self-respecting stair-climber queen’s. He murmured an apology and pushed himself upright. His biceps strained as he wrestled with the yoke and finally bullied the plane back into more or less level flight.

      She would have to look just like Arielle. Tom glanced over briefly at his passenger in the waning dusk. Hell, she even smelled like Arielle, all light and floral like some damned butterfly. It was uncanny, actually. The fine bones, silver-blond halo of hair, the dreamy, mint-green eyes. How many women anywhere looked like that? And to have two so similar come into his life one right after another… Yup. Weird. If Arielle was haunting him, he’d kill her…oh, wait. She was already dead. Searing guilt twisted in his gut. God, he needed a drink.

      Something flashed at the edge of his vision, a streak of light, falling from above and slashing through the arc of the propeller. The plane bucked. The engine hitched and coughed. Not good. Instinctively, he pushed the yoke forward, putting the plane into a descent. When in doubt, get out of the sky and land. Or in this case, float. Miles and miles of ocean stretched away in every direction. All the landing zone a guy could ever ask for. Even if it was heaving into massive mountains and valleys of salt water as the cyclone approached.

      He started to glance down at the engine gauges to see if any caution lights had illuminated on the master warning panel, when another flash of white light streaked past his peripheral vision. Crap. Another lightning strike.

      He had no more time to think on the possible implications of the strike as flames erupted from the engine cowling directly in front of him. His passenger screamed. Immediately he shoved the nose over as hard as it would go. They had to get down!

      The steep dive blew out some of the fire, but it was coming out the other side of the engine, if the woman’s continued screams were any indication. No time to reassure her, though. Not as if he had any comforting words for her, anyway. They were in a world of hurt. He fought the jerking plane grimly. The wild aluminum bronco was winning. This wasn’t turbulence. Something was terribly wrong. The propeller wobbled, horribly unbalanced, all but shaking the little plane apart.

      The ocean loomed near. He literally stood on the rudder pedals and hauled back on the yoke for all he was worth. The Cessna groaned its protest, metal creaking and wing spars shuddering under the strain of the g-forces he was violently overloading them with.

      C’mon, baby, hang together just a few more seconds. Every muscle in his body strained, pushed to the limit to maintain control of the aircraft. Were he not as strong a man as he was, they’d already be