The engines buzzed in her ears. “Why would he go all the way to Tahoe to sell the guns?” she asked.
“I think David’s desperate to unload those weapons.” A.J.’s mouth tightened as they left San Diego behind.
“And a desperate man makes mistakes?”
He shrugged. “Usually.”
There was snow on the peaks to the north, and there were broad, flat valleys between the ridges. They were cruising low enough that she could make our cars along the highway, communities that were little huddles of houses, and the deep, thick green of the forest to the west.
Sienna tried to relax. “I’m sorry about what this is going to do to your family.”
“It’s going to kill my dad.”
“He must have been so proud of your brother. It said in his jacket that he received the Congressional Medal of Honor for saving all those people in Angola.”
“I still can’t believe this.” A.J.’s voice cracked, and he kept his eyes straight ahead.
She reached out, her heart aching for him. Touching his tense forearm, she squeezed, feeling some of the tension release in him. “I know. It must seem so surreal to you.”
After a moment of silence, she said, “I noticed that you call your stepfather Dad.”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why? He’s my dad.”
“Not technically.”
“You mean biologically?”
“Yes.”
“There’s more to being a father than genetic material. I call him Dad because he was there for me and never wavered, not even through the nasty teenage years. He gave me discipline, morals, and a backhand or two when I needed it.”
“I call my foster father by his given name.”
“Why?”
“My first foster father I called Dad, and the second. I guess by the time I got to Scott, I just thought, what was the point?”
“Was he there for you?”
“Yes. All the time.”
“Sienna, ninety-nine point nine percent of being a father is showing up.”
His words struck home and Sienna realized how true they were. All of them, Lynne, Scott, and Michelle, had always stood by her through thick and thin. A memory came to her, one that she had buried. The day she had told them she would enter the police academy was of the hardest days of her life. They hadn’t wanted her to. They were worried about her safety, but in the end, they had never belittled her choice. Her whole family had shown up for her graduation, beaming with pride.
The sky, which had looked blue-gray when they had taken off, got grayer as they flew toward Nevada. The mountains loomed in the distance, and Sienna wiped her slick hands on her slacks. She really didn’t like small planes.
The plane dipped and the sky got darker and looked heavy with snow.
The silence stretched out between them and after a few hours in the air, the fear she’d been holding inside dug at her like rending claws. One minute they were flying through a leaden sky, the next it was as if a white blanket had dropped over them. Ice pelted the windshield of the small plane, and Sienna reached for A.J.’s arm.
“This looks bad.”
A.J. nodded his head. “It sure does. We’re not far from Tahoe,” he said through gritted teeth.