Julie Clark - The Last Flight

“Of course,” Rory says. “Thank you, Danielle, for handling all of the details with the NTSB. I know how much you loved and respected Mrs. Cook.”

“There’s so much I wish I could have done differently,” Danielle says.

I hear the rustle of papers, then Rory’s voice again. “That should do it. Please close the door on your way out.”

Danielle’s voice sounds farther away as she says, “No problem, Mr. Cook. Thank you.” Then an opening and closing door.

I expect the recording to end there, but it doesn’t. Rory’s voice speaks again, a shade colder. “What have you found out?”

Bruce finally speaks. “In 1996,” he says, as if reading from a file, “Charlie Price—or rather, Charlotte, as she prefers to be called now—was arrested for possession with the intent to sell. They couldn’t make it stick, and the charges were dropped.” I hear a page turn. “She moved to Chicago, where she worked as a server. Seemed to stay out of trouble. She still lives there.”

Charlotte? She? Charlie’s a woman?

“Anything else?” Rory asks.

“Not really. No husband, boyfriend, or girlfriend. No kids. Family seems to be either dead or estranged. Nothing we can use as motivation.” Bruce’s voice grows softer. “Nothing we’ve said so far has swayed her. Not money, not threats. She insists on telling the truth.”

Rory’s voice is low and dangerous, sending a chill rippling through me. “And what does she claim to be the truth?”

“That you and Charlie were having an affair behind Maggie’s back. That you were there when Maggie died, and you timed the fire to start after your departure. That you showed up at Charlie’s apartment, frantic and shaking like a leaf.” A pause. When Bruce continues, I can barely hear him. “She doesn’t care about the NDA she signed. She doesn’t care about anything we’ve offered.”

“That’s not acceptable!” Rory yells, and I recoil, as if he were in the room yelling at me. “This will derail everything. You have two days to make this problem disappear.”

I hear Bruce gathering things, collecting papers, the snap of a briefcase latch. “Understood,” he says.

Footsteps, the sound of a door opening and closing. Then silence. I’m about to stop the recording when I hear another knock on the door.

“Enter,” Rory says.

Danielle again. “I’m so sorry to bother you. I think I dropped my phone somewhere. May I come and look?”

A grunt from Rory.

“Here it is. It must have fallen—”

And the recording ends.

I sit on the bed, stunned. There’s so much I wish I could have done differently , Danielle had said, the words spinning a different meaning, now that I know she was saying them to me. Offering an acknowledgement, and perhaps also an apology.

That Danielle would risk so much to get this for me is astonishing. All those years of scrambling behind me, of meticulously keeping me on schedule. I thought she was just another arm of Rory, controlling me. Perhaps, if I’d bothered to turn around and really look at her, I’d have seen something else. Not someone intent on bringing me down, but a woman desperately trying to prop me up.

I listen again to Danielle’s message, to the urgency in her voice, the way it cracks, the whispered edges of fear. Use it. I’ll back you up.

On the silent television screen, two political commentators are talking, their lips moving soundlessly. Across from them, Kate Lane says something to the camera, then smiles. I turn up the volume in time to hear the familiar tune for Politics Today fading into commercial.

It’s unreal that just a week earlier, I was making the final preparations for my Detroit trip, imagining a life as Amanda Burns, living peacefully in Canada. And how quickly things went wrong, landing me here instead, pressed between the secrets Eva was keeping, forced to dance between landmines I can’t even see.

I’m not going to call Rory. Threats will never work on him. If they did, I would have used them long ago. What Danielle has sent me is so much better. Rory’s voice, Rory’s anger, packaged into the perfect sound bite.

I Google the email address for Kate Lane, then go to the Gmail homepage and set up a new email account and draft my email, the words coming effortlessly. When I’m done, I hesitate. The minute I send it, everything will be set into motion. There will be no way for me to go back. But this is the only trick left in my bag.

I reread the email one final time.

Dear Ms. Lane, My name is Claire Cook, and I am Rory Cook’s wife. I did not die on Flight 477, as has been previously reported. I am in California, and I have recently received evidence that implicates my husband in the death and cover-up of Maggie Moretti. I would like to speak with you about it at your earliest convenience.

And then I hit Send.

Eva

Berkeley, California

February

Two Days before the Crash

Dex was Fish.

Fish was Dex.

Eva felt her reality shift, pieces sliding into place in a different order, a different picture, as panic and confusion pounded through her. What had she missed?

“Didn’t you wonder why you’d never met Fish, why Dex was your only contact?” Castro asked.

“I was told that’s how it worked. I didn’t question it.” Eva shook her head. “But why would Dex lie?” she whispered.

“By allowing the people who worked for him to believe he was just carrying out orders from above, it gave him a measure of deniability. It allowed you to trust him in a way you wouldn’t have if you’d known he was the guy at the top.”

“Is this common?” she asked. “Don’t people work really hard to earn that spot? Don’t they want everyone to know what kind of power they have?”

Agent Castro shrugged. “Sometimes,” he said. “But to be honest, those types of dealers are pretty easy to catch. They’re in it for their ego. They want everyone to know how important they are, and to be afraid of them. But Fish”—Castro tipped his head toward her—“or rather, Dex, is what we call a long-term operator. Someone who cares more about longevity than anything else. More than power, more than fear. They’re smarter and harder to pin down.” Castro took a sip of his coffee and continued. “I’ve only seen this once before. A woman up in El Cerrito who pretended she had a husband who was calling the shots. She had her finger in a lot of things, mostly because people trusted her to keep them safe from a man who never even existed.”

Eva thought about how Dex had put himself between her and Fish. How he protected her and warned her. Led her to believe he was on her side, that they were working together. She thought back to how rattled he was at the football game last fall. How scared he’d been of angering Fish. All of it an elaborate act.

And then her mind flew back to that early morning when he’d shown her the body, and events rearranged in her imagination as she saw Dex executing the man and then calmly walking to Eva’s door, knocking, and leading her back again, to show her what he’d done.

She felt sick at how naive she’d been.

“So now what?” she asked.

“It’s time for you to get an attorney and make a deal. We’ll put a wire on you and see what we can get.”

Eva thought of all she’d gathered and tucked that knowledge close, her final card to play. There was no way she was going to wear a wire. “And what do I get in exchange?” she asked. “Since witness protection is not an option.”

“You get to not go to jail when this is all over.”

On the table, Eva’s phone buzzed with a text, and her gaze flew to Castro’s phone, wondering whether it, too, would light up. But it remained dark.