The Hot Pilots by T. E. Cruise Read Free Book Online Page B

telephone, feeling guilty that she had lied. Everything wasn’t all right. Don hadn’t come to work this morning.
    For anyone else to miss a day of work was one thing, but since Don had started at GAT a couple of years ago he hadn’t missed
     a day. He’d even come in that time he was so sick with that terrible cold and the company nurse finally had to come around
     to insist that he leave so he wouldn’t risk infecting the rest of the department. What’s more, she was his secretary, so even
     if Don had decided to take a day off, he certainly would have called to let her know … Not that he would ever remotely consider
     not coming in when her father was away, as well …
    Calling Don at home had only compounded the mystery. There was no answer at his apartment, but when she called the apartment
     building’s front desk the concierge said that Mr. Harrison was at home …
    She’d been wondering what to do when her father had called, and had decided not to tell him of her concerns. There was nothing
     he could do about it all the way across the country, and anyway, he’d sounded like he had enough on his mind without her further
     burdening him with her female intuition …
    She reached for the telephone, thinking to call back the concierge and ask him to use his pass key to see if Don was all right.
     The telephone at the other end was ringing when Susan thought,
How embarrassing if the man rushed up there, perhaps with the police, and Don was only sleeping
—
    Linda Forrester popped into her mind.
And what if Don wasn’t sleeping alone?
    “Lyndon Tower Apartments,” the concierge answered.
    Susan quickly hung up. Don had a girlfriend, let
her
check on him …
    She went back to her work, but she couldn’t concentrate. After another half hour of fretting and watching the clock she decided
     to try Don’s apartment again.
    She was listening to his telephone ring, and thinking that if she didn’t hear from him by noon, she’d just have to grit her
     teeth and call Linda Forrester at the
Gazette
to see if she knew Don’s whereabouts—
    The telephone rang and rang. He wasn’t home. She was about to disconnect when he picked up.
    “Hello? Hello?” he mumbled anxiously as though he were half-asleep. “Linda?”
    “No …” she replied, feeling peeved and angry and hurt, the way she’d felt months ago when after only a few weeks of dating,
     Don had abruptly jilted her in order to pick up with Linda Forrester. “It’s Susan …”
    He didn’t reply. What an indignity to have to add, “… at the office—?”
    “Oh … Susan …”
    “No need to sound so disappointed,” she said, forcing lightness into her tone. “I was worried about you …”
    “Yeah …” he grunted.
    “Don, what’s wrong?” she demanded, concerned all over again because the way he was acting was just not like him. “Are you
     sick?”
    “Yeah … Sick …”
    “I’m calling a doctor—”
    “No! I don’t need a doctor,” he said quickly. “I need …”
    “What? What is it? What do you need?”
    “Company. Would you come over—?”
    She hesitated, thinking,
Where was Linda Forrester?
    “Please, Susan … I need someone to talk to.”
    “All right. I’ll come. At lunchtime. See you then.”
    (Two)
    It was a little after one in the afternoon when Susan found a parking space on Wilshire Boulevard, a block down from Lyndon
     Tower. She didn’t immediately get out of her lemon yellow, bug-eyed little Triumph TR2; she just sat there by curbside, lightly
     gunning the motor, wondering if she had the nerve to go through with this.
    On the drive over she’d put the pieces together, remembering how Don had answered the telephone bleating “
Linda? Linda?
” like some goddamned, lost little lamb. Okay, so he’d had a romantic setback; it happened to everyone, God knew. Likely it
     was just a lover’s spat, but wasn’t it just like Don to take it so seriously?
    The question was did she really want to be his