Death Flight Read online

  Death Flight

  Hope Sze Medical Crime Novel 6

  Melissa Yi

  Join Melissa’s KamikaSze mailing list at http://www.melissayuaninnes.com/

  Copyright © 2018 by Melissa Yuan-Innes

  Published by Olo Books in association with Windtree Press

  Cover photo © 2014 by khunaspix | Deposit Photos

  Cover design © 2018 by Design for Writers

  Yi, Melissa, author Death Flight / Melissa Yi.

  (Hope Sze crime novel; 6) Issued in print and electronic formats. ISBN 978-1-927341-75-9 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-927341-74-2 (PDF)

  I. Title. C813'.6

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, institutions, organizations, locales or events are either the result of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  To advise of typographical errors, please contact [email protected]. Please note that a quote within a quote is formatted here "'Like this,'" rather than " 'Like that.' "

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Code Blues

  Also by Melissa Yi

  The danger? But danger is one of the attractions of flight.

  — Jean Conneau, 1911

  * * *

  Fighting in the air is not sport. It is scientific murder.

  — Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, Fighting the Flying Circus

  * * *

  Fight on and fly on to the last drop of blood and the last drop of fuel, to the last beat of the heart.

  — Baron Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron

  For Captain Mesaglio and Dr. PI,

  * * *

  with special thanks to my triple board-certified comrade.

  1

  I figured Los Angeles would be full of Botoxed, Brazilian-waxed blondes honking their BMW's through the smog, but I was surprised by how much it seemed like any other city—until it launched me directly into hell at 35,000 feet.

  My name is Hope Sze. I'm a resident doctor who ends up mano a mano with murderers way too often, but right now I was on a different kind of mission. A Christmas mission.

  I was here to surprise Dr. John Tucker.

  "Excuse me. You have to check in first," called a secretary with an asymmetric white bob that was displayed to advantage by a purple backdrop framed in white fairy lights and—was that an aquarium? L.A.'s Healing Hospital sure didn't stint on its design budget.

  I gave her a death stare, ignoring the tank burbling behind her. It might lower your blood pressure to watch iridescent blue fish weave their way through seaweed, but I didn't want orthostatic hypotension. I wanted my man.

  Tucker nearly died on November fourteenth, when we were both taken hostage. We survived, but Tucker ended up in L.A. for definitive reconstructive surgery after Montreal doctors hesitated to reoperate. Tucker didn't tell me he was leaving. He flew off and did it.

  It was up to me to drag him back across the continent.

  So for Christmas Eve, I'd taken a deep breath and charged a flight from Ottawa to L.A. at the most expensive time of the year. I'd made up for it by taking the bus from the airport. Then I'd marched straight into the Healing Hospital, searching for the closest elevator amongst the sunlit marble walls, until this secretary stopped me.

  "I'm here to see John Tucker." I tried to smile. Ever since the hostage taking on 14/11, I've got PTSD and a wee bit of trouble with human interaction.

  She adjusted her Chanel glasses. "Let me see if I can find him."

  Yeah, you do that, since you're costing him $3,000 a day, even before his surgery. The very name of the Healing Hospital made me want to smash the fresh lotus arrangement on her steel desk, but that would scare the fish undulating behind her.

  "I don't have a John Tucker listed," she said.

  I pushed my hair out of my face. My backpack was glued through to my skin with sweat, because it's winter in Ottawa, and I didn't leave my coat in my car and run to the airport, freezing, the way some people do. Instead, I was carrying all my belongings on my back, like a homeless person.

  A combative homeless person. "Sure you do. J-o-h-n T-u-c-k-e-r. He's on general surgery. Room 4524. Bowel reconstruction three days ago by Dr. Hiro Ishimura. I'm Dr. Hope Sze." I don't usually flaunt my credentials, but if you've got 'em, flaunt 'em in the face of recalcitrant administrators.

  She clicked her computer again. "No, John Tucker checked out this morning."

  I paled. Not easy to do with Chinese ancestry. My hands flexed on her desk like I wanted to tear out a hunk of steel. "That's impossible."

  Her eyes softened with sympathy that I didn't want to handle. I whipped out the Finding Friends app that tracked Tucker's location. I'd checked it last night, but turned off my roaming data before take-off this morning to save money when I landed in the U.S.

  "We have Wifi. The password is Serenity with a capital S."

  Of course it was.

  And of course Tucker's little yellow dot sat at LAX, Los Angeles's main airport.

  I wanted to scream.

  This can't be happening.

  Of course it's happening. My entire life is a Murphy's Law.

  Calm down, Hope. You've had murderers try to strangle, shoot, and knife you.

  You can do this.

  "Excuse me," I said to the secretary, and called Tucker.

  He answered right away. "Hope!"

  "Tucker. I'm at the hospital." I enunciated each word.

  "Yeah? Well, good thing, baby, because tonight I'm back in Montreal—"

  "Tucker. I'm at your hospital. The Healing Hospital. I took the first flight to L.A. this morning."

  After a stunned moment, he burst out laughing. "T'es pas sérieuse."

  I gritted my teeth. "Dead serious. I wanted to surprise you."

  "I wanted to surprise you."

  I felt like banging my hospital germ-laden phone against my own forehead, except I can't afford another iPhone. "Me too."

  "It's like 'The Gift of the Magi.' You flew in to see me, and I'm flying into Montreal and driving to Ottawa to see you."

  I cut to the essentials. "What time does your plane leave?"

  "At 15:55. I'm on flight number 783."

  I wrote that down. One thing about both medicine and confronting killers is that you spend less time wringing your hands and more time leaping to plans B, C, and D. "Okay. That's not so bad. I'll hit the airport at 1 p.m. I do
n't know if I can get on your flight, but I'm coming. I'm only here to see you, anyway."

  "I'll buy your ticket."

  "No, Tucker, you don't have any money."

  "Neither do you."

  "More than you." My parents help as much as they can. Tucker's might, too, but he has two sisters and negative income. "You just had surgery in one of the most expensive cities in the world. Come on. I'll call Avian Air, or the booking website, and change my ticket while I'm in the cab."

  The automatic doors swooshed open. I squinted at the sunlight. It was chilly, maybe ten degrees Celsius. That was positively balmy after the snow and ice in Canada, but a little cold on my bare legs. I'd changed into shorts at the airport, partly as a "Yay, I'm in L.A." thing, but mainly so that I could show off my legs to Tucker. How embarrassin'. The only way this could get worse would be if his family greeted me at the airport. Mine would never let me fly cross-country post-op without them. I asked, "Is your family with you?"

  "No. Hey—are you okay?" His voice changed.

  "I'm fine." I stepped toward the taxis idling in the hospital's front circle. I couldn't wait for a bus this time.

  Tucker said, "Do you need help?"

  "No ... " But then I realized he wasn't talking to me.

  "I can help you. It's okay. I'm a doctor."

  In the background, I could hear an angry, indistinct voice. A male one.

  Tucker kept talking, as was his wont. "I'm from Canada, so I don't have an American medical license, but I can do first aid and call for help."

  The man rumbled again.

  I didn't like the sound of it. "Tucker, just let security know. I bet LAX has some sort of medical help available. You don't need—"

  A woman screamed. Even over the phone, tinny and warbling, it made me want to scream too.

  2

  "Sorry, Hope. I'll call you back." Tucker cut me off.

  No time for Uber. I dashed for the first orange taxi, driven by a man with dark skin and a neatly-trimmed moustache and beard.

  "I need to get to the airport. Stat." Unlike Grey's Anatomy, I never say stat. Until now.

  Before the driver finished nodding, I jumped in the car.

  Take me to Tucker. Please.

  I checked my phone. His dot was still at the airport. Unmoving.

  My heart thundered. I loved Tucker. We'd never managed to hook up properly. Something always got in the way, whether it was gunfire on 14/11 or me falling in love with another guy named Ryan. Yes, I have two simultaneous boyfriends. Yes, I love both of them. No, they're not okay with it. They would like to drop each other off a cliff.

  I tried to make it up to Tucker by abandoning everything, including Ryan, to fly here as soon as my stem cell rotation would allow. What were the chances that everything would go pear-shaped?

  Between the two of us? Astronomical.

  The taxi driver signalled left and shoulder checked twice before pulling out. I gnashed my teeth as I brought up the Exploria.com website. I needed that airline ticket, because if I couldn't get on the plane with him, I wasn't going to hang around in L.A. a minute longer than I had to. I was here for my man. One of them, anyway.

  "It's an emergency," I told the driver, but maybe I was speaking too quickly, or his English wasn't great. Either way, we immediately hit a stop light, and he paused, listening to his call radio squawk over some sort of Bollywood-ish background music.

  "Could you turn it to the news?" I asked. That way, I could use my phone to get on the same flight and still catch any worrisome stuff at the airport. Like a shooting.

  I tried to talk myself down. The chance of a shooting at the airport is minimal. They have excellent security. I was only there an hour ago. If I hustled through security and nabbed a last-minute ticket, I should be fine.

  As long as Tucker was okay.

  I tried to analyze the scream that had warped my cell phone speakers.

  It was a woman.

  She had her ABC's, because she was screaming. Airway, breathing, and circulation guaranteed, at least for the moment.

  But she was unstable enough that Tucker hung up on me.

  I texted Tucker. Not that he had thumbs to spare, but then he could see I was thinking of him, even though the cell phone roaming charge would kill me.

  Ryan texted, Landed okay?

  I sent him back a thumbs-up sign. I couldn't talk to him right now. It felt like I was being unfaithful to Tucker, which made no sense, but I didn't make much sense. Ever since Tucker and I had delivered a baby under gunfire, I had my ABC's, but also a D, for deranged.

  Overhead, I could hear helicopters. That reminded me of critical cases being airlifted out of hospitals, and I flinched. Was that happening to Tucker right now?

  I searched the news and checked Twitter while I was on hold with Exploria.com, waiting for a "travel specialist" because apparently you can't change tickets online. It took so long for my phone to load websites, I wanted to rip apart the seat cushions in order to de-stress. I asked the driver, "Is everything okay at the airport?"

  He turned down his music. The radio crackled. "Okay," he said.

  "Okay at the airport. Could you check on the airport?"

  "Airport." He pointed straight ahead, through the windshield.

  "Airport. LAX. Is the airport O. K." I made the O and the K signs with my fingers, to emphasize my point.

  "O. K." He made the circle with his fingers and tried to imitate the K, the index and third fingers extended and his thumb pressed in the V between them.

  What was up with this language barrier. I took two deep breaths and reminded myself that it wasn't the driver's fault he couldn't speak English and that I couldn't speak his language. Swearing at him wouldn't help any more than kids yelling, "Ching Chong!" at me.

  I couldn't use my phone to translate because I needed it for my tickets. That was why I'd requested the radio. I pointed at it. "News. Okay?"

  "News," he repeated, struggling with the word.

  "News. Now. Please. Okay?"

  "News," he said, clearly not understanding.

  How do you explain news? How do you act it out in charades? Did he need the radio for his work?

  His call radio crackled to life, and he started talking back, not in English or French, so I left him alone.

  What's happening to you, Tucker?

  I had to know if he was okay.

  I closed the too-slow browsers and flicked over to the Finding Friends app. It reloaded. Come on, come on.

  The driver was laughing now. Unreal. Why was he happy? What is this thing called laughing? Post-traumatic stress makes you feel like you're in an alternate universe, segregated from the rest of humanity. They're taking pretty photos of their food, and you're obsessed with breathing tomorrow's oxygen.

  I forced myself to breathe today's oxygen and wait for Tucker's light to come on.

  It did. He was at the airport. Same spot.

  That was good, right?

  Unless he was dead. That wouldn't be good at all.

  Don't jump to conclusions, Hope. Just because he's not moving doesn't mean he's dead.

  Yes, but you can’t get to him because you're stuck in traffic with a driver who doesn't understand you.

  Now I was doubting myself. I rubbed my bare thighs with my palms—suddenly, I was freezing—and clenched and unclenched my hands until I finally spoke to a woman with a Southern accent at Exploria.com. Success! I could change my ticket for a mere $275. After I accepted the usurious rate, I glared at the traffic boxing us in.

  What would James Bond or Jason Bourne do?

  I rolled down my window.

  It was winter, even in L.A. Everyone else had theirs rolled up, but I waved at the driver in the white car across from me. "Hey!"

  He rolled down his passenger window, revealing a young, black man wearing sunglasses. It was hard to tell what he was thinking. He nodded at me. "Hey, shawty. What's happenin'."

  "Is everything okay at the airport? Have you heard anythi
ng?"

  He frowned at the panic in my face. "Everything's okay."

  "Can you check the radio?"

  "Everythin's ooooooo. Kay." His window rolled back up.

  I squeezed my fists hard enough that my nails cut into my palms. It was better than howling like a frustrated werewolf, but only just.

  Smoggy air dried out my contact lenses. I didn't care. I'd rather feel pain than feel nothing.

  My taxi driver rolled up my window and started whistling tunelessly.

  Do not kill him. Do not.

  3

  By the time I sprinted to the Avian Air counter, my backpack banging against my vertebrae, I was sweating again.

  The good news was, the airport seemed just as I'd left it: giant, sunlit bays jammed full of people and their rolling suitcases, with prominent signs directing the flow of humanity through its walls.

  No one was fleeing. No one was bleeding.

  I approved of that part. Well, except for the fact that my previous taxi paranoia now made me look like an overreacting, PTSD maniac.

  I avoided bashing into a twenty-something woman fixing her makeup in the middle of the hallway while I texted Tucker.

  I'm lining up for my ticket!

  No answer. Not even the dot dot dot showing that he was writing back to me.