The Last Flight(65)
I want to let go. Disconnect. But a tiny voice inside my head warns me that this isn’t over. That with the video out there and the search and recovery still active, I need to use every resource available until I’m certain the danger has passed.
“And when will that be?” I say into the empty room. I wait, as if I might get an answer. With a sigh, I close my computer and slide it into my bag, then click the light off, plunging the room into darkness, trying not to think about how flimsy my plan feels. Paper-thin and already ripping along the edges.
Downstairs, I set my bag by the couch and go into the kitchen to put away the last of the dishes I’d washed that afternoon. Inside the refrigerator, a lone can of Diet Coke sits on the top shelf, and I grab it, popping it open, eager to get as much caffeine into me as I can.
The window over the sink is a black square, reflecting the room back at me, so I tug the curtains closed and take a long swallow, the bubbles reigniting my energy. Behind me, Eva’s phone buzzes with a call.
I pick it up, the screen flashing Private Number. That woman again. Still worried. Still hoping Eva will call her. I wonder how many more times she’ll try before she gives up and assumes Eva doesn’t want to talk, that the friendship must not have been what she thought it was. I feel sorry for her, whoever she is. Tossing her worry into the void, never knowing that it’s landing in the wrong place.
After a few seconds, the screen lights up with a new message. I’m tempted to ignore it, to delete it without listening, but curiosity pushes me forward. A part of me wants to hear her voice again, to pretend the worry she feels is for me. That there’s someone out there hoping I’m safe. Happy. I press Play.
But it’s not the woman looking for Eva. It’s a voice I recognize, one I’ve heard hundreds of times, speaking directly into my ear.
Mrs. Cook. It’s Danielle. I know you didn’t get on that flight. You need to call me.
A loud rushing fills my head, my heart slamming against my chest in a rhythm that seems to say They know. They know. They know. The Diet Coke can slips from my fingers and crashes to the floor.
I stare at the phone, unable to breathe. How many messages have I listened to that began exactly like this? It shoots me straight back in time, tension and fear twisting me into a hard knot.
It’s Danielle.
With questions about my failures, or things I forgot to do.
It’s Danielle.
Always pressing me, watching me.
It’s Danielle.
And she’s found me. Which means it won’t be long until Rory is on his way. Below me, the can lays on its side, dark-brown liquid pooling out, a growing puddle that resembles blood.
Eva
Berkeley, California
January
Five Weeks before the Crash
The day Liz moved, Eva stayed hidden inside her house, watching from her upstairs office as Liz’s rental furniture got loaded onto the company’s truck. Liz had slipped a note through her mail slot a few days after their argument, just a piece of paper, her neat script slanted, as if from another era. Everything you ever wanted is on the other side of fear. Eva had crumpled it up and tossed it in the trash can by her desk.
She knew that when Liz’s apartment was empty and the truck was ready to leave, Liz was going to want to say goodbye. Eva tried to imagine facing Liz on the porch after two weeks of near silence, searching to find the words to apologize, to tell Liz that their friendship had mattered to her, despite the way she’d behaved.
She distracted herself by getting her own affairs in order. She checked her bank account in Singapore. She organized the evidence on Fish she’d been able to gather so far. She’d had all of it notarized the other day, just in case. The bored notary public had cracked her gum—thumbprint here, sign there—not even looking at what Eva had typed up.
But something tugged on her subconscious now, some piece of unfinished business that wouldn’t let go until she looked at it, one last time. Soon, she’d be gone, with a new name and a new life. And once she was, she could never return. The opportunity to see her birth family, maybe even speak to them, would be closed forever.
She entered her grandparents’ names into a Google search and clicked on one of the people-finder websites, quickly entering her credit card information to access the premium options that would give her a phone number and a street address.
It wasn’t hard. All this time, the information had been there, waiting for her to find it. Nancy and Ervin James, and an address just a few miles away in Richmond.
When Liz went to buy sandwiches for the movers, Eva slipped away. She wasn’t cut out for prolonged goodbyes. And there was too much she’d left unsaid to pretend otherwise.
*
She drove north, marveling at how close they’d been all this time, and wondered if they ever thought of her. If they ever looked for her. Perhaps they didn’t pay for access to her address like Eva had, but maybe they’d done their own web search. Eva James. And there she’d be, on a list of people who shared her name. Age 32, Berkeley, California.
She exited the freeway and navigated the last few blocks, finally driving down a wide, barren street filled with run-down houses. The yards were filled with junk, dead grass and weeds leaching all the color out of the environment. This was nothing like what she’d imagined, and she was tempted to keep driving, to hang on to the illusion she’d built for herself over the years.