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approach, had turned on the runway lights. He set the airplane down with the ease of long practice and skill and taxied toward the hangar, where he could see Gall silhouetted in the open maw of the building.
    He brought the airplane to a stop and cut the engines. Gall came out to put chocks on the wheels. Dent squeezed himself out of the cockpit and into the cabin, opened the door, then climbed out first and turned to help Bellamy navigate the steps. She ignored the hand he extended.
    Which piqued him. He reached for her hand and slapped a sales receipt into it. “You owe me for the gas I got in Houston.”
    “Mr. Hathaway has my credit card. Excuse me. I need the restroom.”
    She hurried into the building.
    Gall rounded the wing and glanced into the empty cabin. “Where are her folks?”
    “They stayed in Houston.”
    “Doesn’t surprise me. The old man looked like he was on his last leg. Otherwise, how’d it go?”
    “Don’t make nice with me, Gall. I’m mad as hell at you.”
    “You’re richer tonight than—”
    “I want a straight answer. Did you know about her book?”
    “Book?”
    “A book. You know, like people read.”
    “Does it have pictures?”
    “No.”
    “Then I didn’t know about it.”
    Dent searched Gall’s eyes, which were rheumy but free of deceit. “I’ll kill you later. Right now, I’m ready to put up my airplane and call it a day.”
    While he was going about it, Bellamy and Gall conducted their business in the hangar office. But he kept an eye on them, and, as she came out of the hangar, he placed himself directly in her path.
    Stiffly, she said, “Thank you.”
    He wasn’t about to let her getaway be that easy. “I may not use words like ‘expunge,’ but I know how to fly. I’m a good pilot. You had no reason to be scared.”
    Not quite meeting his gaze, she said, “I wasn’t afraid of the flying.”

Chapter 3

    T ogether Dent and Gall got the airplane into the hangar. Dent climbed back in to retrieve his sunglasses and iPad, and spotted the copy of
Low Pressure
lying in the seat Bellamy had occupied. “Son of a bitch.” He grabbed the book and, as soon as he cleared the door of his airplane, made a beeline for his Vette.
    Gall turned away from the noisily humming refrigerator, a six-pack of Bud in his hand. “I thought we’d crack a couple of—Where are you going?”
    “After her.”
    “What do you mean, after her?”
    Dent got into the driver’s seat and started the engine, but when he would have pulled the door closed, Gall was there, the six-pack in one hand, his other braced against the open car door. “Don’t go borrowing trouble, Ace.”
    “Oh that’s funny. You’re the one who set me up with them.”
    “I was wrong.”
    “You think?” He gave the door a tug. “Let go.”
    “Why’re you going after her?”
    “She left her book behind. I’m going to return it.”
    He yanked hard on the door and Gall released it. “You should leave it alone.”
    Dent didn’t acknowledge the warning. He shoved the Vette into first gear and peeled out of the hangar. He knew the road well, which was fortunate, because while he drove with one hand, he used his other to wrestle his wallet from his back pocket, fish the check from it, and, after reading the address, accessed a GPS app on his iPad. In a matter of minutes he had a map to her place.
    Georgetown, not quite thirty miles north of Austin, was known for its Victorian-era architecture. Its town square and tree-lined residential streets boasted structures with gingerbread trim.
    Bellamy lived in one such house. It sat in a grove of pecan trees and had a deep veranda that ran the width of the house. Dent parked at the curb and, taking the book with him, followed a flower-bordered path to the steps leading up to the porch. He took them two at a time and reached past a potted Boston fern to ring the doorbell.
    Then he saw that the front door stood ajar. He knocked. “Hello?” He heard a noise, but it wasn’t