Page 43 of Once Upon a Lie

And in my time on the force, my instincts have been right more times than they haven’t.

The air outside my condo balcony looks warm, overcast, and still, but my brain feels anything but.

I don’t need more angles. I need time alone with her. Once I get that, I know I can make her comfortable enough to feel like she can tell me anything and everything.

I brace forward, trying to decide on my next move, when a low rumble shakes the glass of the balcony doors behind me.

At first, I suspect thunder—even distant pop-ups tend to reverberate up here on the eighteenth floor of my new digs—but when the sound turns into a constant whup, whup, whup, my instincts kick in.

Climbing out of my couch’s ass impression for the first time in a few hours, I move toward the balcony. Shock wars with horror at the discovery of the blades of a helicopter insanely close to our building as it rises toward the sky.

What the fuck?

It isn’t long before the noise is so loud I feel it in my chest, and I slide open the glass door and step outside—face-to-face with a helicopter now level with my damn balcony. Emblazoned on the side in big, orange and blue letters: Ken Fortune Heating and Cooling.

“What the fuck?”

Ken fucking Fortune—HOA Queen Rita’s husband—is piloting the helicopter, and there’s a massive AC unit dangling from a rope beneath the chopper.

I know Rita said Ken was the heating and cooling king of Nashville and a helicopter pilot, but I didn’t think he’d combine the two, especially on a gloomy day where flight conditions are sketchy at best.

Is this even fucking allowed within Nashville city limits?

The helicopter rises to the top of our building as I look up from my spot at the railing, but as it nears the roof, it dips slightly, and the line jerks beneath it. With wide eyes, I watch as the AC unit sways and then starts spinning like a drunk ceiling fan.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

It spins and spins, jerking the helicopter off balance and sending the unit swinging toward the building. Ken corrects temporarily, but when the line tugs on the other end of the swing, the chopper once again loses its careful control.

“Cut it! You’re too close!” I shout toward the sky in hopes that Ken can hear me. “Stop! Stop! You’re going to hit the fucking building!”

He can’t hear me, of course, since the rotors alone are putting out close to one hundred decibels, and even if he could, I suspect the level of control he once had over the massive AC unit is well and truly gone. It takes a wide swing away from the building—still fucking spinning, mind you—before heading right back for the building and slamming into the balcony doors one floor below mine. I jump back through my door and hit the floor to take cover.

The whole damn building shakes, and a sharp crash of glass rings out into the air, followed by a female shout that cuts through the roar of the blades. “Oh my God!”

It’s Valentina Cordone. I know without a fucking doubt her condo took the direct hit.

My blood jumps into hyperspeed, flooding my muscles and sending me into adrenaline overload.

The helicopter shudders again, rope tightening and AC unit whirling like a wrecking ball as Ken fights to get control enough to pull away from the building without crashing into us or the fucking street below. As soon as he’s clear of Magnolia, I stop worrying about him and the helicopter and put my focus on Valentina. I run toward the edge of my balcony and peer down toward the floor below. Her balcony is in no way structurally sound, and the wind whips across my face like a howl.

And Ken’s helicopter and the AC unit dangling and swinging beneath it still don’t look fully stable. One wrong swing, one hard gust of wind, and the damn thing could slam into our building again before anyone makes it down the stairwell.

Valentina screams again, and without thinking, I hurl myself over the railing and pray to God I can create enough momentum to swing my feet into her balcony.

“This is a bad idea,” I mutter—because it is—but it’s the only one that gets me to her now.

It’s only a one-floor drop to her, but I’m eighteen fucking stories high and my heart might as well be in my throat as I dangle off the ledge of my balcony floor. I swing my legs as hard as I can and let go.

My body hits the concrete of her balcony with a hard thud, but I ignore the pain and hop to my feet. She’s standing frozen near the doors, eyes wide, one arm up to shield herself as Ken’s wild ride makes another approach.

“Move!” I shout.

She looks up at me like I’ve just dropped out of the sky—which, yeah, technically, I kind of have—so I grab her stunned body by the waist and pull her down, bracing both of us against the wall as the metal unit swings past, close enough that the wind from it stings my face.

The helicopter stabilizes, the rope jerking back into control, and the AC unit starts rising again, wobbling but ascending toward the roof once more. I don’t move until it’s well above us.

“If Ken fucking survives this, I’m going to kill him.”