ONE
Galveston, Texas
The last day of July
Seconds after the chopper lifted off the pad, Reese felt the odd vibration. Along with the pilot and copilot and five members of the crew, the Eurocopter EC135 was headed for the Poseidon offshore drilling platform.
For a moment, the ride leveled out and Reese relaxed against his seat. As CEO of Garrett Resources, the billion-dollar oil and gas company he owned with his brothers, he was always searching for the right investment to expand company holdings, the reason he was flying out to the platform.
For months he’d been working with Sea Titan Drilling, the owner of the offshore rig, to complete the five-hundred-million-dollar purchase—an extremely good value when the average price of a similar rig was around six-fifty.
The vibration returned and with it came a grinding noise that put Reese on alert. The men in the cabin began to glance back and forth and shift nervously in their seats. A sharp jolt, then the chopper seemed to fall out of the sky. It climbed again, began to dip and sway, dropped then climbed as the pilot fought for control.
The pilot’s deep voice rumbled through the headset. “We’ve got a problem. I don’t want you to panic, but we need to find a place to set down.”
There was definitely a problem, Reese realized, as the vibration continued to worsen. The chopper was out of control and the whole cabin was shaking as if it would break apart at any minute. His pulse was hammering, his adrenaline pumping.
Along with the men in the crew who rode to and from the rig every few weeks, he stared out the window toward the ground. They were no longer above the heliport. Clearly the pilot was looking for an open space big enough to handle the thirty-six-foot blade span. All Reese could see were the rooftops of nearby warehouses and metal commercial buildings.
The chopper kept shaking. The crew was grim-faced but resigned. The pilot did something to take the pitch out of the rotors, and the chopper started falling.
“No need to worry,” the pilot reassured them. “We’ll autorotate down. I’ve done it a dozen times.”
Autorotate down. Reese knew the concept, the technique helicopter pilots used to land when the engine failed. The trick was to find a safe place to hit the ground.
Both engines went silent. The blades were flat now, the wind whistling through them, tying his stomach into a knot.
“Brace for impact,” the pilot said. Below them, Reese spotted an open flat slab of asphalt in the yard of a small trucking firm—the only possible landing site anywhere around. Trouble was it didn’t look wide enough to handle the blades.
At the last second, the pilot flared the helicopter’s engine in an effort to slow the descent, then the ground rushed up and the chopper hit with a jolt that racked Reese’s whole body.
For an instant, he thought they were going to make it. Then one of the spinning rotor blades clipped the corner of a building and tore free. The Plexiglas bubble of the cockpit shattered as the long metal blades exploded into a hundred deadly pieces, careening like knives through the air, slicing into buildings and the cabin of the helicopter.
Reese didn’t feel the impact. One moment he was conscious, then the world suddenly went black.
Seconds later, he awoke to urgent cries in the cabin, which was filled with smoke and the orange-and-red flicker of flames. The guy seated across from him had a piece of iron sticking out of the middle of his forehead, lines of blood running down his face. Blank eyes stared at nothing.
Cursing, his head throbbing, Reese popped his seat belt and tried to get up, but his body refused to cooperate. His vison blurred, his mind went blank, and again darkness descended.
* * *
Something stirred in his consciousness.
When Reese opened his eyes, monitors beeped next to his bedside and he realized he was lying in a hospital room. He had no idea how much time had passed since the crash, but by the end of the day, he knew the pilot and one of the Poseidon crewmen had died. He remembered the man’s blank stare and thought how it could have been him.
What had happened? No one seemed to know. Reese wanted answers. The National Transportation Safety Board would be in charge of the investigation. He would leave it to them, he thought. For now.
Reese closed his eyes and let the pain meds suck him under.
TWO
Four weeks later
Dallas, Texas
For McKenzie Haines, her day as executive assistant to Reese Garrett started as usual. After a few minutes spent with her own assistant, Louise Dennison, an older woman with short, iron gray hair, Kenzie began her early-morning briefing with Reese to go over his daily schedule and discuss what he needed from her.
Seated across the desk from the CEO of Garrett Resources in his spacious office, she waited as he finished an unexpected phone call. With his wavy jet-black hair and amazing blue eyes, Reese was one of the best-looking men Kenzie had ever seen. Keenly intelligent and highly successful, he was a combination of virile masculinity and brooding reserve that attracted women of every age, shape, and size.
She could still see the faint scar on the side of his head near his temple from the helicopter crash that had killed two men and put Reese in the hospital.
At the time of the accident, Kenzie had worked for the company only five months, but in that time, she had come to admire and respect her employer. She could still recall the sharp stab of fear when his brother Chase had phoned to inform her of the accident.
Three days later, Reese was back at his desk, running the company with the iron control he was known for. Unfortunately, even now, four weeks after the incident, NTSB investigators remained unable to pinpoint the cause of the crash.
Reese’s phone call ended and his dark head came up, his intense blue eyes locking on her face. No matter how she worked to ignore it, Kenzie always felt the impact.
“Where were we?” he asked.
“You wanted me to reschedule your visit to the offshore platform.”
“Yes. I’ve put it off too long already.”
“I probably shouldn’t say this, but after what happened, I don’t blame you.”
The corner of his mouth kicked up. “Maybe not, but I want this deal done. We’ve been working on it for months. We need to finish our due diligence and make it end.”
“Yes, sir. Would you like me to go with you?” Traveling with Reese when he needed her assistance was part of her job, though he hadn’t asked her to go with him the day of the crash, thank God.
One of his rare smiles appeared. “You want to hold my hand in case I get scared in the chopper?”
Kenzie laughed, a little embarrassed he had hit so close to the truth. She liked him, admired him. He could have died that day. “I just thought you might need me.”