Page 142 of One Last Shot

“They got GoPro footage?”

Huxley looked up from where she was watchingBeto play back the video they’d just taken. “Yeah. Quite a lot. It’s a great setup for joining Air One. First episode ends with you agreeing to join Air One. This will be a nice finale piece.”

He debated for a moment, then, “Do you want to talk to the police about your suspicions about the parachute?”

Mike frowned. “What suspicions?”

She looked at Jasmine, then Liam. “Liam, can you take your sister down to the cafeteria? Get her some ice cream?”

“Ice cream!” Jasmine shouted.

Liam took his sister’s hand.Good kid. Had to be hard to see his dad broken.

Oaken’s thoughts briefly went back to his father, telling the story about how God had saved him.“God put me back together. Told me I was safe. And loved. And forgiven. And that all I had to do was... trust.”

Yes, God very much had Oaken’s attention.

Liam left with his sister, and Seraphina turned to her husband. “When you woke up from the coma—you said someone had tried to kill you.”

Silence in the room.

“I did?”

“See, this is why I didn’t bring it up again.” She looked at Oaken. “He was probably just confused.”

“You don’t remember?” Oaken asked.

“I don’t remember anything from the day before to... well, just a few weeks ago. After I woke up in my hospital room.”

“None of the ICU?” Oaken said. “Or my dragging you across the Alaskan wilderness?”

“Just what Huxley showed me on tape.”

“You said that you thought someone tampered with your parachute,” Oaken said now, quietly.

He lifted a shoulder. “Maybe I dreamed it up, wokeup saying it.”

“We talked about it right after you got out of ICU. You seemed lucid.”

Mike made a face. “Some things are still spotty. My memory drops in and out, like bad reception.”

Okay. “Hang in there, Mike. And if you guys need any backstage passes?—”

“We’ll call Goldie,” Mike said.

Oaken laughed. “Take care.” He pushed out the door into the hallway.

“Oaken, wait.”

He turned, and Huxley came up to him, her satchel slung over her shoulder. “I forgot—Reynolds dropped this off for you.” She pulled out an envelope. “Said he’d send it to Goldie but he didn’t want her to take a cut out of it.” She grinned, but he wasn’t sure she was kidding.

She handed it over and he looked inside. A check for fifty thousand dollars made out to Maggie’s Miracle.

“You more than earned it.”

As if someone could earn redemption. But, “Thanks, Hux.”

She caught his arm. “Um, I’m not sure how to say this but... I’m sorry.”