"Connor called and offered us an obscene amount of money to finish this thing and I said no," Lucy said, talking fast so that Gloom wouldn't say, "Hello, dickhead," when Connor reached them.

The brunette went after Connor, catching his arm, and he stopped and tried to shake her off.

Gloom's dark brows met over his nose. "If you said, no, why-"

"And then Daisy called and said to please come down because we hadn't seen her and Pepper in so long, and I said no, I'd send her the money to come visit us…"

The brunette held on, but Connor yanked free, making her stum-ble back as he came up the bridge, oblivious to the chopper closing in on them. He kept his eyes on Lucy, everything in him focused completely on his objective.

And that's why I married you, Lucy thought.

"So why are we here?" Gloom said.

"Because Daisy put Pepper on the phone and I told her we weren't coming and she cried." Lucy switched her attention back to Gloom. "Pepper's not a crier, you know that, Gloom, but I understand that you hate Connor, so you go tell Pepper we're not staying. Take Kleenex. Meanwhile, I'll explain to Connor why he'll be directing these last four days himself instead of paying us a small fortune to do what we can do in our sleep."

"What?" Gloom said and turned to follow her eyes and saw Connor. "Oh, fuck."

"Be nice," Lucy said. "He-"

She broke off as the bubble-shaped helicopter suddenly gained altitude and swooped over the closest bridge tower, sharp against the red sun. Connor stopped and looked up at it and then got an odd look on his face, anger or surprise, she couldn't tell.

Gloom stepped closer to her as the chopper dived to the middle of the bridge and abruptly slowed, coming to a perfect hover just to the east, well out of the way of the cables that lined the roadway. Then it pirouetted smoothly, moved sideways down the bridge, and to the ground. Pepper came running back from craft services to say, "Wow," as the chopper touched down lightly next to the roadway.