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things you don’t mean.”
    He ran his hand over his mouth and down his chin. “Gloves off? Okay. It’s a shame anybody has to go out like that, but your daddy never did me any favors.”
    “And vice versa.”
    “What did I ever do to him? Oh, wait. If I need to know, I can just read your book. It will enlighten me.” He gave the book an angry poke.
    “If you read it through—”
    “I read enough.”
    “—you know that the character patterned after you—”
    “Patterned after? You did all but use my name.”
    “—comes across as a victim, too.”
    “Bullshit.”
    He’d been leaning across the table toward her, but after that succinct statement, he flung himself against the back of his chair and stretched out his legs, not even apologizing when his foot bumped hers beneath the table.
    “Why’d you dredge it up?”
    “Why do you care?” she fired back.
    “You have to ask?”
    “It happened a long time ago, Dent. It impacted your life for what, a few weeks? A couple of months? You moved on, went on with your life.”
    He made a scoffing sound.
    “Do you have a family?”
    “No.”
    “You never married?”
    “No.”
    “You own your own airplane.”
    “Working toward owning it.”
    “You’re obviously still close with Mr. Hathaway.”
    “Yeah. Until today. Gall is currently every name on my shit list.”
    “He didn’t tell you it was us?”
    “No. Not even when he gave me your check.”
    “The name Bellamy Price didn’t mean anything to you?”
    “I only looked to see if the amount was right.”
    “I thought you might have seen me on TV.”
    “You’ve been on TV?”
    She gave a small nod.
    “Talking about that?” He hitched his chin toward the book on the table.
    Again, she answered with a nod.
    “Great. That’s just great.” He raised the cup of coffee to his mouth, but set it back on the table without drinking from it and pushed it aside so hard that coffee sloshed out.
    “For several weeks, there was a lot of media coverage.” In a murmur, she added, “I don’t know how you missed it.”
    “Just lucky, I guess.”
    Nothing was said for a full minute. People drifting through the lobby for one reason or another moved on without coming into the snack area, as though sensing the hostility between them and affording them privacy to sort it out. Each time Bellamy glanced toward the women working the counter, she caught them watching her and Dent with ill-concealed curiosity.
    It was he who finally broke the charged silence. “So why’d you book a charter with me? You could have got your daddy down here some other way. Private jet. You didn’t need me and my lowly little Cessna.”
    “I wanted to see how you’d fared. I hadn’t heard anything about you since the airline . . . thing.”
    “Ah! So you know about that?”
    “It made news.”
    “I know,” he said drily. “You gonna write a book about that, too?”
    She gave him a look.
    “I can supply you with lots of material, A.k.a. Let’s see.” He stroked his chin thoughtfully. “How about the time the young widow chartered me to fly her to Nantucket? Long way from here. By the time we got to the Massachusetts coast, it was a dark and stormy night. Nobody got murdered, but the lady tried her best to fuck me to death.”
    Bellamy flinched at the word, but refused to let him rile her, which she knew was his intention. Keeping her features schooled, and with deliberate patience, she said, “I hired you because I wanted to learn if you’d read my book and, if you had, what your reaction to it was.”
    “Well, now you know. Cost you two-point-five grand plus fuel costs to find out. Was it worth it?”
    “Yes.”
    “Good. I want my passengers to feel like they get their money’s worth. The widow sure as hell did.” He gave her a goading grin, which she ignored. Then his grin reversed itself and he swore under his breath. “If Gall thinks he’s getting his broker’s fee off this charter, he’s sadly