Julie Clark - The Last Flight

But I can’t fit it together. The plane wasn’t supposed to crash. And I never intended to end up at Eva’s. I was going to call Petra. Slip into and out of Eva’s life within a few hours. Rory couldn’t have known I would end up here. He certainly couldn’t have orchestrated it.

I let the silence of the house wash over me, willing myself to calm down and look at events as they really happened, not through the lens of an abused woman, paranoid and seeing threats where there are none. My mind works backward. Somewhere, somehow, there’s a link. I pick up the phone again, tracing the edges with my fingers, staring at the black screen, my faint shadow reflected back at me.

Me. Bruce told Rory he was looking into the number I’d called the day of the crash. I think back to the evening I unlocked Eva’s phone and dialed Petra’s number again, hoping somehow the call would connect. If they can access the records for Petra’s number, it’s possible they can also see who else tried to call her.

I’m the one who led Danielle here. If they know the number, what else do they know? Could they somehow use the phone to track me? I look toward the kitchen window, the back door, tempted to open it and toss the phone into the bushes.

“Think, Claire.” My voice sounds scratchy in the empty room. This isn’t television or a bad movie. Rory has a lot of money, and Bruce has connections that might give him some information, but I don’t think they’d have the capabilities to track the phone. To follow me the way law enforcement could.

I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. I do it again, and then once more, allowing the most important question to surface.

Why is Danielle calling and not Rory? It doesn’t fit with how Rory likes to operate. And if they knew where I was, they wouldn’t have called at all. Rory would have just shown up, slipping up next to me when I least expected it. Hello, Claire.

With shaking fingers, I listen to the message again, Danielle’s voice still sending a jolt of fear through me, even though I’m expecting it. I know you didn’t get on that plane. You need to call me. This time, I notice her voice, low and urgent, as if she’s delivering a warning, not a threat.

One thing is certain—I need to go. The oven clock reads just past ten. Late enough that I can ease out of town without anyone noticing, but early enough that I won’t be the only one on the road. I leave my bags by the door and grab Eva’s key ring, heading toward the garage. Time to see if Eva’s car works.

* * *

The garage is locked with a padlock. I strain my eyes in the dark, flipping through the keys until I find the right one, and pop the lock open, praying the car will start. That it has gas. That it’s in enough working order to get me out of here.

The door lifts easily on well-oiled springs, and I enter the even darker space, letting my eyes adjust, making out the edges of dusty shelves with paint cans, a cobwebbed ladder leaning against a wall. But no car. Just the shadow of tire marks to show where it should be, a large tray in the center, spattered with dried oil. I feel the loss like a blow, crushing what little hope I had. No matter which way I turn, opportunities and openings slam closed again, forcing me into a tighter and tighter corner.

I walk all the way to the back, my gaze scanning the bare walls, as if I might find a clue if I just look hard enough. When I turn around to face the darkened street beyond, my mind fights to rearrange my plans into a new configuration. One more night at Eva’s. An early morning BART train to San Francisco. Precious money spent on a bus ticket north. Gone before the sun comes up.

I relock the garage and start to head back inside. But when I step around the tree and into view of the front porch, I pull up short, nearly dropping Eva’s keys. Peering into the uncovered windows of the apartment next door is the man who bumped into me the other day. The one who seemed to be watching me through the window of the coffee shop.

I shrink back into the shadows, glancing over my shoulder and down the street, wondering if I should slip away. But I’ve left Eva’s door unlocked, with my bag, computer, and purse sitting just inside.

I take a deep breath and approach. “Can I help you?”

He turns and gives me a warm smile, as if we’re old friends. “Hello again.” The light coming from my living room window illuminates his face enough for me to see his eyes—a startling gray color that looks like a stormy ocean. “Can you tell me who I might call to inquire about renting this apartment?”

I take a few more steps onto the porch and put myself between him and Eva’s unlocked front door and say, “Seems a little late to be apartment hunting.”

He opens his hands wide. “I was just passing by and I wondered about the empty unit.”

“I wouldn’t know. I’m just staying here while my friend travels.”

“Ah. When will she return?” He holds perfectly still, his face a mask revealing nothing. But I feel a shift as he waits for my answer, as if whatever I tell him is of the utmost importance.

When will she return.

“She’s out of the country,” I finally say, wanting to put as much space as possible between Eva and this man.

He nods as if this explains something, a smirk curling the corners of his mouth. He steps closer to me, reaching out to pluck something from my shoulder. “Spiderweb,” he says. But he maintains his proximity, and I feel the heat of him, the smell of cigarettes and cologne enveloping me, and I shrink back toward Eva’s door, wondering suddenly if he might follow me inside.

He gestures toward Eva’s front door and says, “I know this looks like a good neighborhood, but you really shouldn’t leave that unlocked for any length of time, especially at this time of night. Berkeley isn’t as safe as it seems.”

I feel as if he’s punched me, my chest constricting into a tight ball that makes it hard to breathe. Without responding, I grab the knob and twist, slipping inside, locking the door behind me.

I hear him say, “Thank you for your help,” before descending the stairs again. I scour the room, searching for any hint that he’s been inside.

But everything is as I left it. My bags, undisturbed by the wall, nothing amiss. I sniff the air, but there’s no trace of his cologne. He couldn’t have been inside. I was in the garage for less than five minutes. I press my fingers against my eyes, trying to hold myself together, trying to think rationally amidst the panic racing through me.

I enter the kitchen and nearly step in the puddle of Diet Coke, which has spread out from the tipped-over can, traveling all the way toward the shelves and under it. My eyes follow the path, catching on the cast wheels of the shelving unit. I bend farther down, being careful not to kneel in the brown liquid, and peer underneath, where the Coke has pooled up against the bottom edge of a doorframe.

I circle around to the end of the unit, pushing it forward until I’m looking at a door with a padlock looped through a steel hinge. “What the hell, Eva,” I mutter.

I grab her keys again and find the one that pops the lock, and when the door opens, I feel around on the wall for a light switch, turning it on. A fan below me begins to whir, and I creep down a small set of stairs that leads into a tiny basement that might have been a laundry room at one point.

But it’s not a laundry room anymore. Counters and shelves line the walls, with a small sink and portable dishwasher in the corner. Ingredients are arranged on the shelves—large containers of calcium chloride, at least thirty bottles of various cold and cough medicines. A camping stove sits in the corner, several silicone pill molds upturned next to the sink, as if to dry. High above me in the wall is a boarded up window, the fan centered in it, spinning.