Oh, EXCELLENT, I am completely thrilled to hear this! And especially thrilled that the villain reveal landed where it's supposed to, because it turns out that the hardest thing about writing murder mysteries (at least for me) is not visibly telegraphing "this person is bad news, do not trust them" as soon as they show up. ;D

As for the hot pilot:

My brain: You know, normally in these kinds of books the love interest is the investigating police officer, but what if ...
The logical part of my brain: oh Layla no
The rest of my brain: oh Layla yes