To Deceive Is To Love (Romantic suspense) by Lynne King Page A

that description.” Grabbing a pen and paper, he scribbled down the numbers. “Yes, of course I’m bloody going up, someone has to!” He slammed down the phone and looked up to see Tony’s disapproving look.
    “You came on a bit strong to that poor guy. After all, he’s obviously just as concerned as you.”
    David was about to retort that he didn’t care about hurting some guy’s feelings when he noticed that even Julie was looking at him warily.
    “The other airfields haven’t heard anything,” she hurried to tell him.
    His voice softened. “Well, keep trying, Julie, please.” He laced his hands together on the desk as he tried to figure out what to do.
    “Still no word.” Tony’s voice broke into his despair. “Look, I don’t know what happened between the two of you.” He placed a hand on David’s shoulder. “You’re not the only brilliant pilot around here. I’ve seen her fly, she’s no novice. Probably she’s made a forced landing somewhere and will be making contact anytime now.”
    David’s troubled eyes met Tony’s. “I can’t wait around, hoping. Manston can’t send a search plane for another hour because of the storm and low visibility, the RAF Sea King has been sent to a trawler in trouble off the south coast, so it just leaves us.” He looked questioningly at Tony.
    Tony nodded. They spread out maps in front of them and with the help of the latest weather report, charted the storm’s progress. It was calculated that hopefully they would only meet up with the tail end of it as the Westerlies wind system pushed the storm back out to sea. They would circle around and come in from behind. It was a long shot, but knowing of her destination, David guessed she would have come down somewhere between her last sighting and Manston. What he couldn’t understand was why there were no reports of a plane coming down. The area wasn’t exactly uninhabited.
    They went up in one of Tony’s planes. Tony flew while David, binoculars resting in his lap, sat anxiously in the copilot’s seat, his lips compressed. They were banking in a southeasterly direction now and meeting up with some turbulence left in the storm’s wake. The plane rocked from side to side, the sleeting rain lashing against the windows. Tony didn’t have to voice his thoughts, his brow creased as the visibility worsened.
    David could see the storm far off in the distance. Continuous flashes of bright light backlit huge white thunderheads, shafts of black rain descending from them. The mass of devil’s own clouds, cumulonimbus was like a giant mountain threatening to crush everything in its path. Manston was right, it was one hell of a storm and they were only seeing its tail end. Anyone caught up in it would need guts and a lifetime of experience and even then, there were no guarantees. The crushing thoughts overwhelmed David.
    Tony veered the plane through a gap in the clouds, enabling them to stay below and see the ground more clearly. As his friend leveled the plane at a safe height of one thousand feet, David scanned the area below. The binoculars banged against his cheekbones as he tried to steady them.
    It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Rain smeared the windows along with a fine mist that caused the terrain to take on an eerie, uninhabited feeling. Towns and built-up areas were out, so at least that narrowed it down; that was if the plane’s last reported sighting was right. After circling several miles of the same area, David looked at Tony and knew they shared the same despondent thoughts, though neither was prepared to admit it.
    Radioing through to Manston, they checked whether any news had been received. The line crackled and broke up. Finally, David got through, but there was no news. No one had heard from Chantelle.
    They were flying over some more arable farmland when through the fine mist; David suddenly caught sight of it. “Circle around again,” he snapped. “And this time, follow the line of