The Flight Attendant(26)
“Yes and no.”
She waited. It took control not to sit back in the seat and fold her arms across her chest. The waitress refilled their coffee, and Mayes poured the last of the milk in the small, tinny creamer into his mug.
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“Yes, to you he was just one more passenger on just one more flight,” he said carefully, and for a moment she began to relax. His construction suggested that no one really knew anything about her involvement with the man. “But I don’t think he was just a hedge fund guy. Yesterday was busier than I like for a Sunday in the summer. I think the FBI is going to want to speak to you again.”
“Me or the cabin crew?” she asked. She heard the quiver in her voice. Her mouth had gone dry.
“Cabin crew.”
“The FBI told you that?”
“They did.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. They wouldn’t tell me.” He leaned in conspiratorially. “Look, you spent the most time with the guy on the plane. That’s a fact.”
“So?”
“He was part of your section in first class. You were the one serving him. Don’t get me wrong, the other flight attendants aren’t throwing you under the bus. But both Megan and Jada said you two were yakking it up every time you brought the guy a glass of wine or refilled his coffee cup. You spent a hell of a lot more time with two C than you did with, I don’t know, four C.”
“That’s not true.”
“You two weren’t yakking it up?”
“No.”
He shrugged. “Look, even if it were true, why would that be a problem?”
“I was polite to him.”
“I’m serious, Cassie. Even if you were flirting with the guy, why would that be an issue?”
“Because it would be unprofessional.”
He chuckled, but it was a mean laugh. “Yeah, flight attendants never flirt with passengers—or pilots. Never.” He rolled his eyes. “You know how high the divorce rate is in your profession. I guess that’s why flight attendants and pilots only wind up married to…each other. You’re away from home all the time, you’re flirting all the time, you’re in hotels all the time. And…”
“And what?”
“And no one gets you except people like you. No one gets the weirdness of the lifestyle. No one else could possibly understand.”
She sighed. “It’s inevitable we wind up together. It’s simply because we all work together. I’m sure ad people marry ad people, and lawyers marry lawyers. All professions have office romances.”
“Yeah, but you don’t all work together. You don’t. That’s the thing. You almost never have the same people on the same crew. I mean, you and Megan are bid buddies, and I guess she and Shane are bid buddies. But there were ten flight attendants on that airplane to Dubai, and seven of you had never seen each other before that JFK/Dubai sequence and may never, ever see each other again. Or, if you do, it will be years from now. And that’s just the cabin crew. Add in the folks in the cockpit. When will you fly next with any of those pilots? A year from now? Two? Ten? No, Cassie, sorry: you don’t work together.”
“Where is this going? I thought you wanted to help me.”
“I do. And that’s why I need to be sure that this Sokolov character didn’t tell you something meaningful or you didn’t learn something about him that you should be sharing with a lawyer or just maybe the FBI.”
“Nope.”
“Because by now the FBI knows you were flirting with him. And by now they know that you were not having dinner that night in Dubai with any member of the crew, including your friend Megan. If I know that from my limited conversations, then they do from their interviews.”
“Why does that matter?”
“Maybe it doesn’t. But just in case: anything you want to tell me about that night in Dubai?”
“I went to bed.”
“In the airline’s hotel?”
“Yes!”
“Did you go out to eat?”
“No,” she answered, wondering the moment the syllable had escaped her lips whether she had spoken too quickly. There surely were witnesses at the restaurant. But she also knew instantly that his next question would be about room service—and it was.
“So you had something sent up to your room?”
“No.”
“You didn’t eat?”
“I wasn’t feeling great. I ate some peanuts from the minibar. I fell asleep.” She couldn’t imagine they could actually check such a thing. How accurate really was hotel monitoring of the minibar?
“So you didn’t go out?”
“Did someone say I did?”
“Not to me.”
“Okay, then.”
“But according to two airline employees in the cabin with you, you were flirting with Alex Sokolov. And then, it seems, you weren’t hanging out with anyone from the flight crew that night. No one. You just disappeared—”
“Into my hotel room!” she snapped, cutting him off. She saw over Mayes’s shoulder that she had spoken so harshly that the two older men having breakfast together at the next table turned, their heads swiveling like owls’.