He Shoved Her Into a Luggage Cart — Then Found Out She Owned Half His Private Jet

Chapter 07 - What Dale Signed

Dale's handwritten notes filled six pages by the time Priya finished cross referencing them against dispatch records.

Kayla read them twice, sitting in Priya's cramped home office surrounded by law books nobody had opened in years and a space heater that rattled every few minutes like it might give out entirely.

"Ray always called from a blocked number," Priya said, tapping the page. "But Dale remembers a detail. Every time Ray called, there was a specific background noise. A metal shop grinder, the kind used for brake work, not aircraft."

"So he's not calling from inside our hangar," Kayla said.

"He's calling from an auto shop, or something dressed up to look like one," Priya said. "I checked Halsted Aero's registered business address. It's a storage unit facility eleven miles from here."

"A shell," Kayla said.

"A shell with a real FAA repair station number stolen from a legitimate but defunct company that closed four years ago," Priya said. "Whoever set this up did their homework."

Kayla leaned back, rubbing her eyes. She hadn't slept properly in three nights, the drawer and its fifteen tail numbers running through her head every time she closed them.

"There's something that doesn't fit," she said slowly. "If Ray's running a shell company forging inspections for profit, why go after Grant specifically. Grant's jets are the most scrutinized in our fleet. High profile client. More eyes on every flight."

Priya considered that. "Unless Grant was never the target."

"Meaning."

"Meaning maybe Grant's jets got caught up in this because it was convenient, and the actual target was always Meridian itself," Priya said. "Discredit the safety record. Tank the company's reputation. Force a sale at a depressed price."

Kayla sat up straight.

"Denny," she said.

"Your retiring partner?"

"He sold to me eleven months ago because he said he was tired," Kayla said. "What if he sold because someone made him tired. What if someone was already squeezing this operation before I ever bought in, and I just happened to buy the exact shares that would put me in the crosshairs."

Priya's pen stopped moving.

"You think Denny knew," she said.

"I think Denny knew something," Kayla said. "I need to talk to him."

She found Denny Okafor two days later at a fishing cabin forty minutes north, retired in the way men retire when they're still restless but have run out of reasons to stay. He looked older than she remembered, grayer, quieter.

"I wondered when you'd come," he said, before she'd even said hello.

"Why'd you really sell, Denny."

He was quiet for a long moment, staring out at gray water.

"Somebody left an envelope on my desk about a year ago," he said. "Photos. Old ones, of a maintenance shortcut I signed off on back in the nineties, before regulations tightened. Nothing that ever hurt anyone, but nothing I wanted my grandkids reading about in a lawsuit deposition either."

"Blackmail," Kayla said.

"They never asked for money," Denny said. "Just asked me to sell my shares. Quietly. To whoever offered first."

"And who offered first."

Denny's eyes were tired in a way that had nothing to do with age.

"You did," he said. "I made sure of that part myself. I liked you, Kayla. I wasn't going to hand my half of that hangar to whoever was squeezing me. So when I heard you were quietly buying, I sold to you instead of the broker they'd sent."

Kayla felt something loosen in her chest, some fear she hadn't named until it wasn't true anymore.

"You saved me a step," she said. "Whoever's behind this didn't get what they wanted."

"They got something," Denny said. "They got you in a position where you'd have to fight for the company the second you took it over. Maybe that was the plan all along. Weaken it before you arrive so it's easier to finish weakening once you have."

Kayla drove home in silence, her father's pen resting in the cup holder where she'd set it without thinking, watching the road blur gray and wet ahead of her.