The Last Flight(39)

Across the room, Rory threw his head back and laughed at something one of the cousins said. Aunt Mary followed my gaze and shook her head. “You remind me a little bit of Maggie—a nice girl from a simple background. Like you, Maggie seemed to have integrity, which is something this family is sorely lacking. But she and Rory fought like dogs, about every little thing.” She looked at me, her smirk somewhat blurred by alcohol. “She couldn’t control him. I’m guessing you can’t either.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.

Aunt Mary’s watery eyes held mine, the years etched into the deep lines around them. “This family is like a Venus flytrap—shiny on the surface, but dangerous underneath. And once you know their secrets, they will never let you leave.”

She was drunk. Bitter. A resentful old woman spreading poison. And yet, what she said haunted me through the years as Rory grew silent. Then angry. And eventually violent. I wanted to believe the version Rory meticulously fed to the world, but he beat that desire out of me, one bruise and broken bone at a time.

Aunt Mary died a few years later, the last of that generation of Cooks to pass. But her words trailed after me every time I wore that sweater, a whisper—or a warning—that Maggie Moretti’s fate might also be mine.

*

Somewhere outside, a dog barks, pulling my attention back to the room and to my computer. I drag the cursor backward to replay the video from the beginning, staring so hard at that blurred figure in pink, my eyes begin to burn. No matter how I try, I can’t see anything else. Just some blond hair—long or short, I can’t tell. Just a flash of pink—there and then gone—and I try to remind myself that plenty of people wear pink sweaters, in all kinds of weather, and that Eva was scanned onto the flight. You can’t fake that.

*

“One drip coffee, room for cream please,” I tell the barista early Thursday morning. I keep my eyes averted, and I still wear my NYU cap, too nervous to show my entire face. Will it always be like this, terrified to look anyone in the eye and smile?

I tossed and turned all night, my mind replaying the flash of pink at the news conference, but no matter how many ways I imagined an alternative for Eva, I kept coming up against the fact that my ticket was scanned onto the flight. It’s unlikely she had enough time to talk someone else into switching with her, and the flight crew would have noticed when they did the headcount if she’d gotten off the plane before takeoff. I woke this morning convinced it was just a coincidence, that it was only guilt, wishing it had turned out different for Eva.

I pay for my coffee and settle into a soft leather armchair with a clear view of the door and the street outside.

Last night, wanting to try calling Petra again, I’d Googled how to reset the password on a prepaid phone and was able to unlock Eva’s. As I expected, it didn’t reveal much. No photographs, no emails. She used an app called Whispr, and the texts that arrived my first night were gone, vanished into the ether. If any others had been received since then, they were gone as well.

Once I was in, I dialed Petra’s number again, imagining the relief I’d feel to hear her voice. To see her standing on Eva’s front porch, hired car idling at the curb, ready to lift me out of this nightmare and deposit me somewhere safe. A fancy hotel in San Francisco where we’d order room service and wait for Nico’s guy to make a new set of documents for me.

But the call ended again with the three tones. No longer in service. I tried a few variations, transposing numbers, swapping different ones in. I reached a deli, an older woman who spoke only Spanish, and a preschool before I gave up. Nico’s words floated back to me: You can never go back. Not once. Not in any way, ever.

I look out the coffee shop window and watch Berkeley come to life. A small trickle of people enter, order, and leave again, the morning rush aligned with a college town’s later start. By six thirty, it’s empty again, my coffee nearly gone.

The barista comes out from behind the counter and begins wiping down the table next to me. “You from out of town?” she asks.

I freeze, unsure how to answer, afraid that I’ve somehow been recognized. But she keeps talking a steady stream, giving me time to catch up. “I know just about everyone who comes in here—if not by name, then by face. But you’re new.”

“I’m just passing through,” I say, gathering my things and preparing to leave.

She gives the table one last swipe and looks at me. “No need to go,” she says. “Take your time.” Then she moves behind the counter and starts a fresh batch of coffee. I lean back in my chair and watch the light at the intersection blink from red to green and back again.

Around seven thirty, the shop grows crowded and I leave. The girl behind the counter gives me a wave and a smile as I exit, and I return it, feeling a tiny tendril of pleasure wrap around me.

*

I decide to push myself out into the world and go for a walk, knowing I can’t hide forever. So instead of heading back to Eva’s, I turn west on Hearst Avenue and trace the northernmost perimeter of campus, marveling at the giant redwood trees that stand, thick among the buildings and grassy expanses. When I hit the western edge of campus, I turn south, and circle back east again, this time on the south side. This is the Berkeley you see on television and read about in books. A drum circle has positioned themselves outside the student union, and people swarm past them, on their way to class or their offices, heads down in the brisk morning air. As I make my way up the hill toward the old stone stadium, I turn and look west, a sharp wind cutting through my thin sleeves. I shiver, staring at the white expanse of San Francisco, the gray water contrasting with the deep greens and golds of the hills to the north, the Golden Gate Bridge a dusty-orange silhouette. Somewhere out there is the convent where Eva grew up. An entire childhood lived and lost among the buildings that seem to shimmer in the distance.