Chapter 1
Nadya
I couldn’t remember the first time I saw Liam Caldwell. Like many others that came in and out of our tiny offices at Nomad Airlines he’d always been there—like a hazy ghost or vague shadow ingrained in my earliest memories.
A super hot ghost, but still.
When he finally, truly, landed on my radar it wasn’t from fondness or shared pleasantries or even quirky gestures like our other customers. It was the opposite. He wasn’t very nice. Not that he was mean, but around here, to be anything other than friendly was an abnormality. Like everything else in our small town, the customers and staff at Nomad Airlines were a tight group. Liam Caldwell clung to the edges like silken fringe.
“What’s his problem?” I asked my dad. Liam’s four-seater had taken off right on schedule filling the early morning air with a familiar buzzing hum, making it safe to gossip. The sun glinted off the tinted windows, and I wondered for the millionth time what he did on these trips. Most of the pilots shared their lives with us—giving a glimpse of the world outside tiny Wuakegen, Illinois—the only place I’d ever been.
“Mr. Caldwell is very private, Nadya,” my father replied, eyes trained on the paperwork on his desk. I hopped up on tiny corner of clean space on the desktop and flipped through a couple invoices. “He pays his bills. He’s polite. Never causes me trouble. It doesn’t bother me that he doesn’t want to chat like a gaggle of women.”
My teeth ground at the borderline sexist comment, but arguing was pointless. My father had always been a traditionalist and completely overprotective. I can’t blame him after what happened to my mom, but really, was it fair to stifle your only daughter out of fear?
“Don’t bother him,” he added, shoving some papers into a file and slamming the metal drawer shut. “I know how you get.”
“Don’t you think it’s strange that he never talks to us? Even Mr. Peterson shows me pictures of his grandkids, and he’s pretty rough around the edges,” I said, referring to the old man that no longer flew his plane but still came out to the hangar three times a week and kept her in pristine condition. “My interaction with him today included one head nod and a grunted, ‘thank you.’”
“You’re complaining about him saying thank you?”
“No. It’s just weird. How long has he been coming here? Years, right? Why can’t he carry on a normal conversation?”
“I don’t know, Nadya.”
“Do you think he’s married? I doubt it. He’s too cranky, plus he’s never brought anyone with him on a flight. I checked the logs.”
“Maybe you scare him,” he suggested, eyeing my clothing.
I rolled my eyes in reply. Pop wasn’t a big fan of my wardrobe. Or my hair. I wore it long, straight, and black with thick blunt bangs across my forehead. Colorful highlights streak down the sides. Sometimes pink, currently purple. He also didn’t care for the way I fixed my makeup. Witch-girl was what one of the jerks at the diner in town called me. Whatever. If it gave me a little breathing room, I’d take the slander. Plus, whoever said being a witch would be a bad thing? I’d decided years before that maybe if I looked the part, I would inherit my mother’s gifts.
If they actually existed.
“I doubt he’s worried about a little eyeliner and a few piercings.”
With his long hair and chiseled jawline, I’d considered more than once that maybe Liam Caldwell was secretly a rock star. Or a model.
Pop leaned back in his seat and sighed. “Do you have a crush on Mr. Caldwell? Because we’ve talked about this. No—”
“Dating. I know.” My father had come a long way since his ultra-religious upbringing. He grew up in a strict God-fearing background and had renounced it for my mother. Unfortunately, after her death he’d reverted back to more conservative ways, including no unsupervised dates, which pretty much meant no boy around would ask me out as soon as they heard that.
I was twenty years-old, for Christ’s sake. He had to have to relent at some point. Otherwise, I’d end up married to the stupid airport.
“I’m not interested in Mr. Caldwell like that. He’s just very mysterious.” And fine, he was handsome, I conceded. Thick dark hair—long enough to wear tied at his neck, piercing green eyes, and a strong profile, marred by a slight lump in the bridge of his nose. Broken? I wondered how he got it more than once while he filled out paperwork at the desk. I didn’t actually say anything out loud because I could sense my father’s disapproval—his frown and narrowed eyes. He’d pull me off the front desk if he suspected anything more than a curious interest.
Pop rubbed his hands over his eyes. “So much like your mother. You can’t just leave anything alone, can you?”
“Good thing she didn’t, or we wouldn’t be here right now.”
He smiled, somewhere between happy and wistful. He gave up everything to be with my mother. Left his family and the church. Thirty years ago, at age nineteen, he rolled into town on a pilgrimage to determine if he thought he should go into the priesthood. Instead he met my mother, Claudia, who was only fifteen at the time.
“One look,” he’d told me. That’s all it took, and he left his family, his culture and way of life. Pop settled in this tiny town by the waterfront, got a job at the airport working maintenance and wooed my mother into submission—eventually. The tradition didn’t work with her. She was a modern woman, and she made him work for it. Five years later, they were married, and five years after that he bought the airport. Once I arrived, they basically raised me behind the counter.
“Well,” I told him, hopping off the desk and moving to the office door. “I’ve decided to crack him.”
“Crack him?”
“Yep. I’ll make him smile. Find out something personal. It will be a challenge.” Something to keep me busy, I said to myself.
“Good luck, honey,” he said, focusing back on his papers. I could tell by his tone he thought I was being silly. “Make sure you get the maintenance schedule up, okay?”
I left the room, well aware that I’d been dismissed. The airport lounge was empty, so I sat behind my counter and pulled up Liam Caldwell’s records on the computer. I was twenty years-old, worked in a tiny airport with my father, and had no real future. The way I saw it, I had nothing to lose but time.
Chapter 2
Nadya
“How’s the outlook today?” Colleen asked from her spot across from my counter in the tiny coffee shop. She pushed a lock of red hair behind her ear and continued refilling the napkin dispenser.
I opened the paper, scanning over the local news before settling on the daily horoscopes.
“Other than this poor guy murdered down by the dock, things are looking pretty good.” I grimaced at the description of his slashed throat. “Here’s mine: Swimming in the deep waters of your own imagination can be a luxurious and refreshing experience. However, it's critical to understand that an inner symbolic journey might trigger a deep longing for meaning that cannot be easily found in the outer world.”
Reading the horoscope was our daily tradition.
“Such a Pisces.”
I shrugged and left the paper on the top of the counter to greet my first customer of the day. “How are you today, Mr. Johnson?”
“Wonderful, Nadya. You?”
“I can’t complain,” I replied, smiling. I kept my eyes trained on Mr. Johnson and not out the glass the door where I’d seen the flash of Liam Caldwell’s black car arriving in the parking lot.
“Weather should be perfect for your flight today.”
“Yep, weatherman said everything should be clear blue skies.”
A moment later the object of my obsession strode in with quiet confidence, and I stole a glance in his direction. He paid no attention to his surroundings, his eyes firmly cast down at the newspaper in his hands. My goal was to get something—anything—out of him.
After double checking the paperwork, I finished up so I could give Mr. Caldwell my full attention. “See you this afternoon, Mr. Johnson, have a safe flight.”
“Thank you, Nadya. Have a good day.”
Mr. Johnson left through the side door, toward the hangars. Each pilot had to check in with me before they departed the airport. We went over any last-minute weather issues, scheduling concerns, and updated take-off procedures. On a normal day, there was no more than one plane taking off at a time, but safety was our priority. One accident and Pop could lose the whole business.
“Good morning, Mr. Caldwell.”
“Hello,” he said in a quiet, but firm, voice. He passed over his flight plan, and I skimmed the meticulous handwriting. “Everything cleared for my takeoff at 9 AM?”
“Yes sir; I got your message this morning. Brayden has already been out to ready your plane. You should be able to leave on time.”
“Thank you.”
I located the clipboard and flight plan he needed to sign before leaving the lounge. Instead of handing it to him I took a deep breath and asked, “Headed anywhere exciting today?”
“No,” he replied, checking his watch. “Not particularly.”
“Has to be better than this,” I joked but stopped when his eyes met mine. A cool chill traveled up my spine. Okay then. I passed the clipboard over the counter and placed the pen on top. “Please sign here.”
My heart sank when I realized today was not going to be the day for me to break through the wall Liam Caldwell had erected around himself. His exterior was too tough. I needed something to go on. Something personal. I scanned him, searching for anything that could work.
Hair: Neat and tidy.
Face: Incredible bone structure. Ridiculously lush eyelashes.
Jacket: Worn leather, looked soft. And expensive.
Shoes: Same as above.
Jewelry: None. Well—the watch, which again, looked pricey.
Clothing: crisp blue button up, dark jeans. He’d worn this same outfit a million times before. Too casual for a desk job. Too expensive for something less.
Black leather bag, slung over his shoulder; no tag. Nothing identifiable. He carried it each trip, regardless of how short or long.
Nothing. That’s what I had. No wonder he reminded me of a shadow.
Twice, I had noted a variation. The first was several months before, when he arrived with small bruise under his eye. The kind you get from being punched or from walking into a door. A couple of weeks later, his knuckles bore red, inflamed scrapes.
Neither of these was anything more than pieces of a puzzle I desperately wanted to solve.
He signed his name, neat and graceful on the form, and laid it on the counter. I’d blown my chance, so I went back to the business of ignoring him, filing away the form and checking the schedule.
“Have a good fli—” I started to say, like I do to every customer, but stopped short when I saw what he was looking at. What he was doing.
His eyes, the green ones, were staring at my newspaper—at the horoscope page. This was unexpected.
“Um, would you like to take the paper with you?” I asked, moving to hand it to him, well aware he already had one in his hands. What made mine so special?
His face jerked upward, and our eyes held, longer than ever before. He shook his head and turned quickly, leaving me in shock as he exited the building.
* * *
Like all obsessions, the escalation of mine with Liam Caldwell snuck up on me. One day I was simply trying to figure out how to strike up a conversation with him, to learn a little more about him, and the next I had his entire internet history printed out and hidden in my desk. And by entire history I mean one page, including his driver’s license, pilot’s license, and other paperwork we kept in his file.
Oh, and I might have started taking notes in a small pink notebook with glitter on the cover. At least it wasn’t Hello Kitty. Not that there was anything wrong with Hello Kitty.
I’d like to say he came in like clockwork. Every two days, carrying the same bag, wearing a trench coat and dark glasses, but that’s not how he operated. His flights were erratic, sometimes lasting for days, and once for two weeks. Each time he charted his small plane into the city. Did he work there? Have an apartment? He listed his employment and employer as himself, chair of the Caldwell Foundation. It sounded classy, but the information I found on it sounded vague. Something research-oriented that became boring two paragraphs in. Plus, it seemed a little odd for a twenty-seven-year-old to operate a business of such caliber.
His schedule seemed odd too, as he often left for several days at once…but then other times his return time was quick. And why not just live in Chicago? Why fly back and forth? The distance was minimal. I had too many questions—none of which were my business.
Yet, I considered a dozen times over the following days, he’d lowered his guard that one time with the paper; I knew it was something I could use. I was sure of it.
“Maybe he just wanted to see if his plane would crash,” Colleen offered during our lunch break the following week. She’d started working at the airport around the same time my mom passed. At first I thought she’d try to mother me—maybe try to take her place. Instead, she was more like a crazy aunt that lived in the spare bedroom.
“No, I think it was something more than that.” What that something was, I had no idea. I knew I was stretching.
“What’s his sign?”
“Sagittarius.” November 27th, 1988. Colleen raised an eyebrow and I sighed. “I know. Makes sense, right?”
“No wonder he’s so aloof,” she said. Sagittarians are well known for their love of freedom and truth. Rarely committed to someone. Bingo.
I’d started reading my horoscope when I was ten. This was around the time I learned about the rumors after my mother’s death. People in town liked to gossip that she was a witch. Popular ones included; she cast a spell to get my father to settle down with an unconventional woman, that she never aged and looked the same from the minute she arrived in Wuakegen. That one was probably just based in jealousy. My mother was beautiful—no one argued that. There were more, stupid ideas about how she could convince anyone of anything—and did anyone really remember how long she’d lived here? It seemed like forever.
You’d think we lived four hundred years ago in Salem. But the rumor of her being a witch persisted, and instead of fighting it, I just embraced it. I’d always known my mother had different ideas about life, and in some ways, it was comforting. At my lowest points, I pretended she died fighting some sort of evil, not from an aneurysm that went off in her brain like a bomb.
Around twelve, I began dressing the part—or what I thought was the part. Delving into the miniscule number of occult books at my used book store and whatever I could find online that wasn’t blocked by my father’s security measures. Dark makeup and clothes became my uniform, including the required goth-like dresses and funky boots. Everything had to be black, with a dash of red or purple for color. I was skinny as a rail, no boobs to speak of until later in my teens, so the tighter the fit the better. After a while, my father’s strict dating rules were something of a joke. No one wanted to date the witch-freak anyway.
I cornered my friends and demanded to read their palms. I took a glass ball from the garden and a sheet from the linen closet and studied runes on Google. With a flair for the dramatic, I predicted disease and death and romance. I learned all the astrological signs and gave knowing glances when the kids celebrated their birthdays at school. But my main talent was predicting the truth. For some reason, I had a sixth sense when it came to lying. I could smell it on a person like coating of sulfur.
Witchcraft, or my lame version of it, was my first true obsession, and even though I moved past the fake parlor tricks, it became a persona I couldn’t shake. When Liam Caldwell looked at that page in the Waukegan paper, it was like a lightning-bolt shot between us. What started off as a simple curiosity, a challenge to get the man to engage had turned into something else. That glance at the newspaper wasn’t a coincidence. I didn’t believe in them.
I had to know more.
“Well, good luck cracking him,” Colleen said, drinking the remains of her pop. “From what you’ve told me, getting a Sagittarius to do anything they don’t want to, is close to impossible.”
He had flown out that morning without even a glance at the paper I had left visible on top of the counter. Nothing. In fact, he was extra gruff today, uttering only a single grunt when I gave him the paperwork. I didn’t approach him otherwise. Instead, I studied him. Searching for something to go on.
His records showed he was in his mid-twenties, but he appeared older—not physically. Maybe wiser? A thin scar slashed through his eyebrow. A thicker one crested his chin.
“Have a good trip,” I said to his back, as he left the building for the tarmac.
He didn’t respond back.
Chapter 3
Nadya
“Pop, how long do you plan on staying tonight?” I asked, packing up my stuff. I learned a long time ago that if I wanted to sleep in my own bed not to wait for my father to leave the airport.
“Just a couple of hours.”
“Colleen left you some food in the microwave. Do you want me to get it for you?”
“No, sweetie, I’m fine. Just finishing up some work.”
I leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. He patted my head and I left him there, by the dim lamp light. I locked the door behind me as I exited the building. The empty parking lot felt cool, and I tugged my sweater around my shoulders. There was no way to ever get used to the chill that blew off the lake.
I got in my car, an ancient Honda from the mid-90’s, and cranked the heat. Okay, not totally ancient, but it has more years than I do. It’s one of the relics left over from my mother—one of those things neither my father nor I could bear to give away. The harsh winter air had cracked the paint over time, leaving rust spots near the taillights, and the heat made the car rattle and shake at stoplights.
My fingers were pressed against the heat vents when a beast of a car sailed through the yellow light. It took a couple seconds to sink in, but the rumble of the muffler shook me to my senses. That was Liam Caldwell’s car.
It didn’t take more than a couple of heartbeats for me to decide what to do.
I followed him.
The streets were dark and fairly empty, as it was already past ten. Liam’s car moved swiftly, the muffler echoing with low rumble against the buildings. My car seemed to wheeze and groan each time I accelerated, but I managed to keep him in sight—that is, until he turned into a waterfront neighborhood. I’d been here once before, at a party for a friend from school whose father was very wealthy. The lots were huge, most surrounded by high gates. I followed the red taillights until they disappeared behind evenly spaced, black metal bars. A grand home stood behind the gates.
Pausing the Honda, I peered at the bars, trying to catch a better look at the home, and maybe of Liam himself, but I was unable to see much of the house—no, mansion—at all, other than an imposing stone chimney bathed in moonlight. A call box sat next to the driveway, and two cameras were mounted on the fence. Red blinking eyes stared down at me, as if daring me to do something other than gawk.
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