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Punky moved to step around him, but Colt reached out and gripped her shoulders, gently holding her in place. “Maybe you should listen to him.”

The deputy appraised Colt again. “Who are you?”

“Just a friend,” he replied.

At last, Punky stopped resisting Colt’s attempt to keep her from crossing the road and seeing what was beyond the yellow crime scene tape. But he could tell she hadn’t given up on avenging Rick’s death. “What can you tell me?”

The deputy bit his lip, clearly uncomfortable with sharing information about an ongoing investigation, especially one that was so fresh. He looked at Punky and asked, “Were you investigating somebody at Cal Poly?”

She cocked her head to the side. “What makes you ask that?”

“We found a note that read, ‘Cal Poly faculty, question mark.’”

Punky looked up at Colt, and he shrugged his shoulders in reply. He knew where Cal Poly was, and he could tell it meant something to her, but she wasn’t willing to share that information with the deputy for some reason. She looked back at the deputy, then to the airplane. “Maybe we should leave.”

Colt furrowed his brow, wondering why the sudden change of heart. But he wasn’t about to question her, at least not in front of the deputy. After everything she had been through, he knew she had her reasons. He tried putting himself in her shoes and tried feeling what she felt, but he couldn’t imagine her loss. He knew she was committed to finding Rick’s killer, and he was committed to helping her.

Without another word, Punky started walking back to the plane. Colt hurried to shake the deputy’s hand and thank him for the information, then followed her back to the Carbon Cub. After several paces, he pulled even with her and asked, “Okay, what was that all about?”

“Rick told me he had followed TANDY to San Luis Obispo.”

“And?”

“And if Rick thought somebody at Cal Poly was involved, then it’s something we should look into.”

“We’re not flying to San Luis Obispo,” he said. He was committed to helping her, but he had already entertained her curiosity enough by flying past Point Mugu to reach Santa Maria.

“We don’t have to.”

He puzzled over her answer for a moment, then looked back at the deputy. “Why didn’t you tell him that?”

“Because this is personal.”

* * *

Colt let her get situated in the back seat, then climbed back into his perch up front. She watched him run through the startup procedure from memory, setting the mixture to rich and opening the throttle half an inch. He looked to both sides, ensuring the prop arc was clear, then flipped on the master switch.

“You ready?” he asked.

“Let’s do it,” she replied.

“Clear prop!” Colt yelled through the open window.

He engaged the starter, and she watched the Borer prop turn over from the back seat as the engine coughed and caught with a belch of smoke. After turning on the avionics, he worked the stick between his legs in a box pattern to verify the control surfaces were free and functioning as they should.

Satisfied, he slowly advanced the throttle while dancing on the rudder pedals to steer the plane to an open stretch of dirt beyond the plowed rows. Then, without warning, he shoved the throttle to the stop and nosed forward on the stick to lift the tail off the ground. She felt the airspeed increasing, then watched as he reached up for the flap lever while pulling back on the stick at the same time to drop the tailwheel back onto the ground.

The immediate addition of lift from the flaps and increased angle of attack popped the Carbon Cub into the air. Despite her experience in the plane, she felt herself tense as he quickly lowered the nose and held their altitude barely ten feet in the air, accelerating to a comfortable climbing speed. She remained quiet until they had reached seventy miles per hour, when Colt eased back on the stick and let the airplane climb.

“I’m going to get some answers,” she said over the intercom.

“From who?”

“It’s better if you don’t know.” What she was going to be asking for wasn’t exactly illegal, but it definitely toed the line. The less the Navy pilot knew, the less he could testify to if things didn’t go according to plan. She connected her phone via Bluetooth to her headset, then placed a call to her contact at the NSA.

“Hello?”

“Margaret, it’s me,” Punky said. “I’ve got a favor to ask.”

“Is it related to the case against KMART?”

“Yes. Rick…” She choked back a sob. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t bring herself to accept that he was gone. Really gone. Telling the analyst Rick was dead would have made it too real for her.

“Rick what?”

She took a deep breath and settled on a half-truth. “Rick was looking into a professor at Cal Poly who might be involved.”

“Involved how?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “But I was hoping you could find out if there have been any irregular communications in or out of the Cal Poly campus in San Luis Obispo.”

“This is highly irregular—”

Punky cut her off. “I wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t important.”

Margaret sighed. “What kind of communications?”