The Last Flight(83)
In the next room, Danielle said, “Somehow I don’t think staying in Puerto Rico is an option for her. I feel terrible that she has to go, that she’s going to wake up and Bruce is going to be the one to tell her of the change, that he’ll be the one to take her to JFK.” With an impatient sigh, she continued. “Anyways, I’m sorry I was rude to Eva. I’m sure she’s lovely. What’s the real story? Why is she really in town?”
Eva held her breath, staring at the details of Claire Cook’s face, but not seeing them anymore. Instead, she waited to hear whether Liz would keep her secrets or reveal them all, dishing them up to her daughter like a late-night snack.
“Eva’s hit a rough patch,” Liz said. “But she’s going to be fine. She’s a survivor.”
Eva let out a quiet sigh of relief.
“Look,” Danielle was saying. “I need to pack since we’re leaving at the crack of dawn. Do you know where my black wool coat is?”
“Upstairs in the spare bedroom closet, I think. Let me see if I can find it.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
Such a simple sentence, probably uttered hundreds of thousands of times. And yet, the power of it nearly brought Eva to tears. What it must be like to have someone always in your corner. She thought she’d had that with Liz, but seeing her together with her daughter, the way they trusted and confided in each other, Eva knew what she and Liz shared was nothing more than a close friendship. And she felt stupid for ever thinking it was more. What would Liz advise her daughter to do if she found herself in Eva’s position? Would she also encourage Danielle to turn herself in to the authorities? Or would she help her daughter escape?
On the screen in front of her, she imagined what Claire Cook would think tomorrow when she woke to discover her husband had changed her itinerary. That she’d be flying out of JFK to a tropical paradise instead of into the freezing Detroit temperatures. Perhaps she wouldn’t care. Perhaps Danielle’s instincts about the importance of this trip were wrong. But if they were right, if Claire was planning to run, she’d find herself desperate for a solution. Another way out.
And Eva might have just the solution in mind.
“What are you doing?”
Eva whipped around to find Danielle in the doorway, holding the bag she’d dropped there earlier. Eva closed the lid of the computer, hoping Danielle hadn’t seen too much, and gave her a blank smile. “Nothing.”
She held Danielle’s gaze until Danielle finally turned away, up the stairs to pack for her trip.
Eva opened the laptop again and toggled away from the photograph of Claire Cook, and over to the airline website. She clicked on Change my reservation, and in the drop-down menu, she switched out Newark for JFK, Liz’s words echoing in her mind. She’s a survivor.
Eva was determined to make that true.
Claire
Monday, February 28
I press my back into the seat, my gaze leaping from Danielle’s text to the driver’s right hand, resting casually on the steering wheel. A tattoo sleeve on his right arm.
My mind flies back to the motel lot, and I realize he hadn’t said anything about CNN. He’d said Claire Cook, and like an idiot, I got in the car.
Vehicles press in on us, all the way to the edge of the bridge. Steel cables rise into the sky above a small strip of sidewalk, and then a two-hundred-foot drop to the cold water below.
Castro’s advice, to get to the studio as soon as possible, taunts me now. This man will take me somewhere else—a deserted beach perhaps, or north to somewhere even more remote, and finish this.
A green Jetta slides up next to us, with a woman behind the wheel, her lips moving in silent conversation with someone I can’t see. I’m no more than three feet away from her, so close I can see her pink nail polish and the delicate silver hoops in her ears. I fight back tears, trying to think. If I screamed, would she hear me?
Our car moves several feet forward before stopping again, and now I’m looking at a white panel van with no windows. My eyes trace the tiny openings between the cars, an ever-shifting maze as vehicles inch forward. I’m going to have to jump out and run.
The lane next to us begins to move, and again I’m looking at the woman in the green Jetta. She throws her head back and laughs, unaware that I’m watching her from behind tinted glass.
About thirty yards ahead, a dark tunnel looms with signs for Treasure Island. The driver’s eyes find mine again in the rearview mirror. “Traffic will clear up once we get through the tunnel,” he says.
If I’m going to get out, a dark tunnel might be a good place to do it.
I rest my arm on the windowsill, my palms sweaty and slick against the door, and carefully lift the lock, watching him in the mirror, making sure his eyes remain on the road.
I’m only going to get one chance.
Jazz music swirls around the back seat, the rhythm fast and erratic, matching my pulse, and I hug my purse close, making sure it’s secure over my shoulder. I have one hand resting on the latch of my seat belt and my other hand lowering to the door handle, ready to yank it open and leap out. If I scream for help, surely someone will step up.
I regulate my breathing, counting down the feet until the car is plunged into the darkness of the tunnel.
Twenty feet.
Ten.
Five.
The driver looks at me again in the mirror. “You okay?” he asks. “You look a little pale. I have some water up here if you need it. The CNN studio is just a few blocks once we get off the bridge. Not much farther now.”