He can go along for the ride, but I don’t have to make it easy on him.

I hold the door open as graciously as I possibly can. He tosses in his briefcase and awkwardly climbs up and into the back seat.

“Ever flown in a seaplane before?” I ask casually.

“Nothing smaller than the commuter jet from Missoula,” he replies.

I smirk and glance at Ed, who shrugs. I climb into the pilot’s seat and begin my pre-flight checklist.

“Mr. Bridger. Jonathan Bridger had a sizeable estate in Montana and—”

I hold up a hand to stop him. “I need to complete my checks, Shankle. In silence, unless you want me to miss something and risk us taking a two-thousand-foot swan dive into the Sound.”

Shankle remains silent as I strap in and work through the list I have memorized, getting the engines on. I give Ed a thumbs up, and we’re untied and airborne quickly, headed north. I adjust the yoke as we’re buffeted by the high-level winds. Nothing too strong, but I don’t fight them.

“As I was saying,” Shankle shouts over the noise of the engines.

Out of the corner of my eye I see him trying to get his balance. I can barely hear him with my headset on so I tap my ear and glance back at him.

He grabs the headset in the back for passengers and puts it on. “Can you hear me now?”

His voice comes through all too clearly, annoying me, so I tip the yoke, dipping the right wing. The plane plunges a hundred feet or so and I pull up. When the guy reaches out to keep from flying across the cabin, I can’t help a slight smile.

“Might want to strap in,” I say. “Could get bumpy up here with choppy air and all.”

It isn’t all that rough. Low wind, clear visibility. A little bit of chop, just like the water below, but doable, if you’re not prone to motion sickness.

His seatbelt clinks. “You have two half brothers.”

My smile slips. I know about them. Both younger and from the women who took my mom’s place. I turn the yoke again, dropping the right wing once more. Shankle gasps.

“The three of us aren’t going to make a fort in the backyard and take blood oaths, Shankle. Get to the point.”

I tap my sunglasses up my nose and straighten the plane. There is no autopilot, so I keep my gaze on the tree-covered rolling hills of the Pacific Northwest on the horizon.

“You and your brothers are heirs to his estate.”

The man—our father—was rich. Obscenely so, and since I turned eighteen, I haven’t seen a dime of it. Before then, I didn’t get much. Enough for clothes and extra food. He moved on and so did my mom. She started the seaplane company from the ground—or in her case, the Puget Sound—up.

“Great. Mail the china and stamp collection to the company address. You didn’t need to come all the way to Seattle.” I don’t raise my voice. I don’t have to. I’m sure he can tell how much I hate my father through the headset loud and clear.