Page 24 of Release

I know how he means it, but I say it back to him anyway, because I know he needs to hear it. “Love you, too, Chase.”

After I end that call, I close my eyes and conjure my last sight of Ellen, of hugging her good-bye before they left.

Of whispering into her ear.

“Love you, girl.”

How she smiled. “Love you, too.”

I can’t let it sink in yet that I’ll probably never see her again.

If I do, I know I won’t be able to function.

* * * *

Once we’re in Manila, I end up taking over with government officials about George and Ellen, because Chase is an absolute wreck. Understandably, but still, it’s an additional burden I really didn’t want, even though I’m the one with the powers of attorneys for them.

Numb resignation sets in as the days pass and no additional survivors are located. I think Carter Wilson and I have a lot in common. He’s the husband of Florida’s missing lieutenant governor, Susa Evans. He’s also former military, and the chief of staff to the governor of Florida—his best friend, Owen Taylor, and a man who’s safely in Florida right now. Neither man was on the flight. They’d stayed behind.

Carter ends up becoming the de facto spokesman for the family members. When he’s not available, I end up making the comments to the press, and he and I seem to think a lot alike when it comes to PR. To a spooky degree.

We even have drinks alone together one evening and cry together over what we are both pretty sure are our losses. This after some survivors are recovered, but none of them any of the people we’re hoping are still alive.

Then they located the wreckage.

I hate myself for the mixture of dread and relief filling me as we watch them transfer the body bags from the ship to a refrigerated truck to take them to the hangar acting as the staging area. There, the government has pre-staged refrigerated shipping containers for makeshift morgues to hold the remains ahead of autopsies.

Carter got me and him in there late that evening, the day before anyone else would have access. I didn’t even tell Chase what we were doing, because I didn’t want him telling the other family members. I think Carter bribed a government official or something.

The smell was…

Let’s just say I hope in my life Ineversmell anything like thateveragain.

He held me when I broke down after identifying Ellen. I knew it was her, because I gave her the shirt she was wearing, and her hair color was right, as was her nail polish, going by pictures she’d sent me the day before the crash.

I also identified Ed and Tina Willis, our governor and his wife, and John and Ceely Stinson, our state tourism commissioner and his wife.

But no George.

And no Susa, or Connie Drucker, their state’s tourism commissioner. Carter did have one grisly identification to his credit, however. Connie’s husband, Michael, was found strapped into his seat in the row behind Ellen. The seat directly behind Ellen, in fact. We know this because of tags with each body bag that identify the seat number they were found in, or the location of the plane, if the body wasn’t in a seat.

George frequently didn’t wear a seat belt during flights if he was going to nap. It’s possible whatever happened, he—and maybe Susa—might have gotten sucked out of the plane. Their rows were located by the hole ripped in the side of the fuselage.

Carter doesn’t admit that possibility, but I can tell he’s thinking it.

My girl, at least, can come home one last time. This is going to break the kids’ hearts, but no worse than they already are.

Closure, sort of.

Whatreallypisses me off, though, is that her rings and necklace are missing. Other bodies are bearing jewelry, so where’s hers?

Carter has to hold me back because I come un-fucking-glued when I ask them for her jewelry and they tell me she wasn’t wearing any when they found her.

Which is utterfuckingbullshit. Sheneverwent anywhere without her wedding rings or her necklace—her engagement and wedding rings were, to her, day collars.

It’s not like some chain-snatcher strolled through the sunken airplane and took them. Someone, either on the recovery ship, or one of the forensic techs,musthave taken them off her before she was brought to the main staging area.

We sit in Carter’s rental car and I sob in his arms, this man I’ve just met, who seems to understand exactly what I mean when I scream that it’s not fair my girl is gone.