Julie Clark - The Last Flight

“This feels like a dream,” she said through her tears. “When I saw that the plane had crashed…” She trailed off and pressed her fingers to her eyes, taking a deep breath. “And then you show up on CNN and eviscerate that motherfucker.”

It turned out, I hadn’t copied her phone number down wrong. “I had it disconnected,” Petra had explained when I’d asked why it didn’t work. “After I talked to you at the airport, I worried Rory might do some kind of reverse directory assistance and figure out who it belonged to. So I got a new one. But then the news…” She’d shrugged, unable to continue, tears tumbling down her cheeks again.

I close the lid on one box and slide another one toward me. “Pack it all,” I tell her now. “The lotions and makeup are expensive. It’d be stupid to throw them away.”

“I still think you should stay here,” Petra says. “This is your home and you’re entitled to it. Maybe not all the contents.” She glances at the Rodin statue. “But you should fight for what’s yours.”

“I don’t want it,” I say, turning back to the box and sealing it closed. “I don’t need all this space.”

“It’s not about the space,” Petra argues. “It’s about what belongs to you.”

“Then we’ll sell it and I’ll get half.”

“I want you to stay in New York.”

I walk toward her and give her a hug. “I know,” I say, pulling back. “But you know why I can’t. I need to start over somewhere new. You should come to California. The light, the air…they’re different there. You’d love it.”

Petra looks skeptical. “I’d better finish that bathroom. We’re almost out of time.”

She leaves and I open the last box, sorting through it quickly, discarding most of it. The money from my jewelry will allow me time to explore my options in California. Maybe I’ll keep working events with Kelly. Or I’ll go back to school. I imagine myself taking the BART into San Francisco, perhaps working at the museum there, going out to dinner with the friends I hope to finally make.

After I’d finished the CNN interview, Agent Castro had taken me back to Eva’s house to walk him through my time there. I wasn’t sure what more I could tell him that he didn’t already know. They’d submitted Eva’s DNA to the NTSB and were waiting to see if it matched any of the remains they’d recovered so far.

“It’s possible we’ll never know,” he says. “They tell me there are any number of reasons why she might not have been in your seat. Maybe she traded with someone, or perhaps the impact of the crash caused her to get thrown from the wreckage and carried away with the current. If that’s the case, we may never recover her body.” He shrugged and looked out the window, as if the answer to what happened to Eva might be out there somewhere, visible only to him.

“What about the drug dealer?”

“Dex,” Agent Castro said. “Also known as Felix Argyros, or Fish. We have a lead on him up in Sacramento.”

An agent passed through the living room, carrying Eva’s camping stove bagged in a clear plastic evidence bag. “She must have been so desperate, to have chosen a life like this.”

“I think Eva would argue that this life chose her.” Agent Castro sighed. “She was a hard person to know. I’m not really sure I ever had a good handle on her. But even though she ran, she still tried to do the right thing. What she left behind will be critical in indicting Fish.”

“She sounds complicated,” I said.

“She was. But I liked her. I wish I could have done more for her.”

I didn’t say what I was thinking, that Eva didn’t need anyone. She’d done just fine on her own.

* * *

I pick up a pile of clothes and carry it into the living room, setting it alongside the rest of the things I’ll be taking with me. I check the time. We only have about thirty more minutes. I hear Petra closing drawers in the bathroom upstairs, muttering something to herself, and I smile.

My work mostly done, I walk down the hallway that leads to Rory’s office and peek inside. It’s been completely cleared out. His desk, Bruce’s, even the books on the shelves are gone, all of it confiscated by the attorney general. I cross over to the empty bookshelves, reaching up and engaging the button, and the drawer below opens. As I suspected, it’s empty.

I hear someone unlocking the front door, and I straighten up, feeling guilty because I’m not supposed to be in here. But it’s only Danielle. She stops in the doorway when she sees me. “Looking for ghosts?” she asks.

I smile. “Something like that.”

Danielle had been waiting for me when I first returned to the townhouse. She’d led me into the kitchen and made me a cup of tea. When we’d settled across from each other at the center island, I finally asked the question that had been nagging at me since her first message. “How did you know where to find me?”

She gave a small, sad smile. “Eva was a friend of my mom’s.” She took a tentative sip of her tea and told me a story of an unlikely friendship between two women—one who’d believed she didn’t deserve to be loved, and the other who’d tried so hard to love her anyways. “Although I only met her briefly, there was something furtive about her. She had an edge that felt dangerous.” Danielle set her cup down on the island and traced a swirl of marble with her finger. “But my mother was devoted to her. Swore that Eva was a good person who needed to know someone believed in her.” Danielle shrugged.

“But that still doesn’t explain how you knew to call me on her phone.”

“She was at my mother’s house in New Jersey the night before the Detroit trip. She must have eavesdropped on a conversation I had with my mom, because afterward, I caught her Googling photos of you. I was worried she’d try to target you somehow.” Danielle shook her head, as though the thought embarrassed her.

“How’s your mom doing?”

Danielle looked toward the living room, where the sun streamed through the tall windows, laying patches of light on the hardwood floor. “Not well,” she said. “It’s been hard for her to reconcile that Eva’s really gone. That if Eva had just followed the plan they’d agreed upon and returned to Berkeley, she’d still be alive.”

I took a sip of hot chamomile tea, letting the flavor bloom in my mouth, knowing I could never tell Danielle or her mother about what I believed really happened to Eva. I would leave it up to Eva to reach out, if and when she ever wanted to. “Eva Googling me couldn’t have been enough for you to know where to look.”

“It was the video,” she said. “There you were, in Eva’s hometown, with hair similar to Eva’s and…” She trailed off. “I took a chance. Looked up Eva’s number on my mom’s phone and hoped you’d answer when I called.” Danielle bent her head down, turning her cup slowly in her hands. When she looked up again, her eyes were wet with tears. “I had to do something, after all those years of staying silent. I’m so, so sorry I didn’t do more to help you.” She let out a shuddering breath. “I thought that by keeping you on task, on schedule, I could protect you. If I worked hard enough, maybe he wouldn’t have a reason to be angry.”

I reached across the island and put my hand on top of hers. “You helped me when it mattered most. More than I ever could have hoped for.”

She squeezed my hand, a silent apology. Late, but not too late.

* * *

The faint sound of a siren travels through the thick glass of Rory’s office window. I look around the room, trying to picture the afternoon of Danielle’s recording and where she might have dropped her phone in order to catch it. “One last question,” I say. “How did you know to record that particular conversation? Did you know what they’d be talking about?”