When Ghosts Come Home(88)

Inside, the small airport was alive with people standing in line at the handful of ticket counters, checking luggage and making their way toward the airport’s single terminal. Colleen didn’t know where her father’s airplane would have landed, so she walked toward the huge windows at the terminal’s mouth that looked out on the runway, expecting to see something—police cars or FBI vehicles or the DEA or some other sign that people had been waiting to meet her father’s plane. But nothing outside the windows appeared any different than when Colleen had arrived days ago.

A small information desk sat in the middle of the airport, and an older woman, probably a volunteer from the community, sat behind it. The woman smiled when Colleen approached.

“My father just landed,” Colleen said, but she stopped. She tried to think of what to say next, how to explain what she needed to know in order to find him. “He’s with the FBI.”

“Oh,” the woman said, as if it were the most surprising thing she’d heard all day. “Okay. Well, what airline did he fly in on?”

“He wasn’t on an airline,” Colleen said. “They flew in from Oak Island. They should’ve landed maybe half an hour ago. I just don’t know where to meet him.”

“Okay,” the woman said again with a slowness that Colleen thought might cause her to scream. “Let me check on that.” The woman picked up the phone on the desk and then searched a piece of paper for the correct number she wanted to call. She lifted the phone to her ear and waited.

Colleen looked back out toward the runway, but she was too far away from the windows to see anything. She turned and looked down the expanse of the terminal, expecting to see her father walking toward her, smiling with relief at having landed safely. But there was no one there that she knew.

“Yes,” the woman said into the phone. Colleen turned back around and looked down at the woman. She smiled at Colleen as if getting someone to answer on the other end had accomplished half of what she’d set out to do. “Do we have any flights in from Oak Island today?” she asked. She kept her eyes on Colleen’s, nodding as if she was learning important information. “Uh-huh,” she said. “Okay.” She hung up the phone. “I’m sorry,” she said. “There are no flights scheduled from Oak Island today.”

“This isn’t a scheduled flight,” Colleen said. “I mean, like, this isn’t an airline. I need to know where a plane would land if the police or the FBI were flying it.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” the woman said. “We don’t have any flights today from—”

“Jesus,” Colleen said. She turned away from the woman, and then she walked back toward the windows and looked out. She walked halfway down the terminal, and she looked out the windows there. She still did not see the airplane, and she still did not see her father or Groom or the police or the FBI. She could feel her heart in her chest, and she knew her vision was narrowing as if she were looking at the world through a periscope. She walked back to the information desk. The woman saw her coming. She smiled hesitantly.

“I need to use your phone,” Colleen said.

“I’m sorry,” the woman said. “We just don’t have any flights—”

“I know that,” Colleen said, louder than she’d intended. “I understand that. I still need to use your phone.”

The woman kept her eyes on Colleen and lifted the phone from her desk and set it on the counter between them.

“I need a phone book,” Collen said.

The woman nodded, and she bent at the waist and opened a couple of cabinets at her knees. She found a phone book and handed it to Colleen. Colleen flipped through the pages and found what she was looking for. She dialed the number. It was Saturday, well past 9:00 a.m. The office would be open. That’s where her father would be. That’s where they had taken him instead of leaving him at the airport to wait for her.

A woman’s voice answered on the other end. “FBI Resident Agency, Wilmington,” the woman said. “How may I direct your call?”

“I’m looking for my father,” Colleen said. The woman behind the desk stared at her intently, and Colleen turned her back and spoke quietly into the receiver. “His name is Winston Barnes. He’s the sheriff in Brunswick County.”

“Okay,” the woman said. “Okay, let me—” Colleen could hear the sounds of something—papers rustling, static. She could hear the woman speaking to someone else in the room, her voice muddled as if her hand had been placed over the phone’s receiver. Colleen closed her eyes and tried to recall the names of the agents her father had mentioned.

The woman’s voice came back on the line. “I’m sorry,” she said, “can you hold—”

“Rollins,” Colleen said, the agent’s name suddenly popping into her mind. “Agent Rollins.”

“Okay,” the woman said again.

“Is something wrong?” Colleen asked. “I’m at the airport to pick up my father.”

“Give me one more moment,” the woman said.

Colleen held the phone against her ear with her left shoulder, and she folded her arms across her chest. She closed her eyes tight, realized she was holding her breath while the line remained silent on the other end. And then a man’s voice came on.