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I was incredibly hard on Claire—much more so than she deserved. I know I scared her. I sometimes hurt her. I loved her in a broken and warped way that made it impossible for us to truly be happy. But Claire was a good person. A strong person.I shake my head. Even in my imagination, I can’t make Rory say what I need him to say.
I’m so sorry, Claire. What I did to you was wrong.
But the eulogy on the screen in front of me doesn’t say any of that. It talks about my childhood in Pennsylvania and goes on to describe my charity work, the many lives I touched, the people I’ve left behind. Even here, I feel a lack of any real grief or regret. But perhaps that’s all I was to him. The wife from humble beginnings. The wife who tragically lost her family. The wife who was successful in the art world until she gave it up to join her husband’s charitable foundation. And now, the wife who died too young. It reads like the plot points of a secondary character in a novel, not my life.
I imagine my former colleagues from Christie’s, sitting in a back corner of the church at my funeral. People I haven’t spoken to in years, thanks to Rory’s isolation. How many will actually show up? Four? Two? In many ways, I feel like I died a long time ago. Nothing of my former self remains. The person in this eulogy is a stranger.
Just then, Rory’s email pings with a new message, and I toggle over to his inbox. It’s from the director of the NTSB, and the preview sends a chill zipping down my spine.
Dear Mr. Cook, I wanted to follow up on our earlier conversation regarding the section of the plane where your wife…
I’m tempted to open it, read it, and then mark itUnread. I need to know how that sentence ends. But I force myself to wait.
I stand and pace the room, never taking my eyes from the screen, silently urging Rory to check his email. Finally, after fifteen minutes, the message shifts toread, and I immediately race back to the desk to click on it.
Dear Mr. Cook, I wanted to follow up on our earlier conversation regarding the section of the plane where your wife was seated. I’ve just been informed that despite the relatively intact condition of the fuselage, recovery workers report that your wife’s seat was empty. We will continue to prioritize the recovery of her remains, and I will update you on any new developments.
All the air leaves my lungs in a white-hot rush, everything I’d believed shifting and turning into something completely different.
Rory’s reply pops up below this email immediately.
What does this mean? Where is she?
I sit back in my chair, Rory’s questions about what might have happened to my body tumbling around in my mind, evolving into questions about how Eva could have pulled it off. Who else she manipulated, and where she might have gone. A part of me isn’t surprised at all. A woman who lies about killing her husband, a man who doesn’t even exist, is certainly capable of this.
After a few minutes, a reply arrives.
Until we recover the black box and get more details about the crash, it’s impossible for me to speculate. There could be any number of reasons why your wife wasn’t where we expected her to be. I apologize, and ask for your patience. Reconstructing events of a crash takes time. It will be a while before we have any answers.
I see it all again, that flash of pink at the news conference. For the first time, I let myself seriously consider the possibility that somehow, despite being scanned, Eva didn’t get on that plane.
Eva
Berkeley, California
September
Five Months before the Crash
Let’s switch it up and meet at Chávez Park.
Eva hoped her text to Dex would give the impression she was feeling jumpy. Scared.
César Chávez Park was a giant stretch of grass that sat directly on the San Francisco Bay with a path that traveled around the perimeter. On weekends it was crowded with families flying kites, joggers, and lots of dogs. But at two o’clock on a Tuesday in late September, it was deserted. Eva found Dex sitting on a bench, his back to the sweeping views of the bay, hands shoved in his pockets. When he saw her, he stood.
“Let’s walk,” she suggested when she reached him.
Eva gripped her purse close to her side and reminded herself that Dex was just a regular person. He couldn’t read minds or peer through the side of her purse and see the voice-activated recorder she’d dropped in there before she exited her car, the red Record button illuminated. All he saw was a scared woman in front of him. That would be her advantage. It always had been.
Eva was preparing, the way others might prepare for a natural disaster, storing food and water, mapping their exit routes, packing their emergency kits. Castro would return, and Eva would cast her own net, trading the information she already knew and the information she would soon find out for a new identity. A new life in a new town. Castro could give her a backstory that didn’t include drug-addict mothers, foster homes, and expulsion. She could wipe the slate clean. But first, she’d have to walk a razor’s edge and hope she didn’t slip up.
Together, they began a lap around the park on the cement path. A tall, grassy hill rose in the center of it, blocking their view of the Berkeley Hills and marina. “So what do you have for me?” he asked.
Eva crossed her arms against the wind that whipped up off the bay and said, “Tell me the truth. Is it really over?”
“I told you, Fish took care of it.”
Eva looked at him, incredulous. “How can you possibly think that would be enough for me? They targeted me. Followed me to my house.” Her voice rose, trembling with emotion. “Don’t fucking tell me Fish took care of it and expect me to roll over.”