Exit Row

by Judi Culbertson

  A FEW MINUTES after Fiona climbed into bed and started to fall asleep, her phone dinged with a text. Groping around the night table, she picked it up and stared at the lighted screen:

  Don’t worry about me. Go home, and I’ll explain everything later.

  My God. She pressed in Lee’s number immediately and listened to the phone ring six times, and then his warm voice telling her to please leave a message.

  “Lee, where are you? Just talk to me. Pick up! I know you’re there.”

  She ended the call and waited. Why are you doing this to me?

  Her phone stayed silent.

  Finally she sat back up and sent him a text: Lee, I have to hear from you. It doesn’t matter; I’ll go home, I just have to know you’re okay.

  Even if you don’t love me or you think moving in is a mistake.

  There was nothing more.

  Sleep was impossible after that.

  WHEN FIONA CAME back to her room from the shower, she saw that the message light on her phone was blinking. Lee was calling back! They would finally talk; everything would be revealed, as devastating as it might be for her to hear. She snatched the phone from the nightstand. Thank God, thank God.

  The message was from Rosa Cooper. They were at Kennedy Airport, about to board a flight to Albuquerque, changing in Dallas. They would drive up and meet her around four o’clock, as soon as they knew where she was staying.

  No. Fiona stared at her phone. Why were they coming out now? This party has been canceled. There was nothing to find out, at least as far as Day Star was concerned. Rosa could still solve the mystery of Susan, and Dominick could try to wrest his daughter back from his wife, but any answers lay elsewhere.

  She punched the redial button immediately. If they were still at the airport, it would be okay. But her call went right to voice mail and Fiona pictured Rosa in an airplane seat, her phone compliantly switched off. She left a message anyway. “Hi, Rosa. I’m not sure there’s anything to find. But if you’re on your way, I’m at the Turquoise Trail Inn on Merriwether Avenue in Santa Fe.”

  A few minutes before ten, Fiona walked over to the Day Star office to pick up the voucher. She hoped she would see Will Dunlea. Somehow seeing him, hearing his sincere reassurances, would make her feel better.

  But when she got to the office, Will was not in yet. The same receptionist as yesterday, the stout woman in the yellow pinafore, eyes still twinkling, told her he had phoned in and made the arrangements for her voucher with his assistant.

  “I know he can decide who’ll fly on Day Star,” Fiona said, “but what about Voyager? What if all their flights are filled?”

  “Oh, they always hold a few seats back. Bereavement flights, professional courtesy. There’s always one or two no-shows.” She cocked her head at Fiona. “So you’re leaving us already?”

  “Looks that way. I think I’ve been left at the altar.” And then she was telling the sympathetic receptionist the whole story: Lee’s never arriving in New York, her waiting frantically at home for him to call, finally coming out here to see what had happened to him. “I guess he didn’t love me. And I don’t have any family I’m close to.”

  She told the woman about growing up scorned in Lamb’s Tongue, her mother’s suicide, her unknown father, embroidering only a little for effect. My life as romance novel.

  The woman’s eyes glistened. “Oh, you poor thing. On top of everything, to feel that this man abandoned you . . . ”

  Fiona gave her a wan smile. “Thanks for listening to my sad story. I guess I’ll just go home and stick my head in the oven.”

  “Don’t do that! I have a daughter, she’s had some hard luck too . . . ” The woman hesitated, biting at her lower lip, but only gestured toward the hall. “You know your way. It’s the office just before Will’s.”

  The young woman who handed her the envelope was friendly enough. “You do know it’s technically standby.”

  “I’ve flown standby before. Thank Mr. Dunlea for me.”

  As she left the office, she found herself assessing the assistant, her blonde curls and wide smile, and wondered if Will was attracted to her. She gave her head a shake. And that mattered because?

  Back into the lobby she glanced again at the R. C. Gorman prints, at the long-suffering Indian women eternally grinding their cornmeal. The receptionist was a blur at the corner of her eye.

  “Oh, you’ve got a leaf caught in your hair!” the woman called to her. “Come here and I’ll get it out.”

  A leaf sounded picturesque, but Fiona turned and went toward her obediently. As the receptionist moved behind her, Fiona felt something stiff being pushed against her hand. Belatedly she closed her fingers around it.

  “There! Now you’re decent again.”

  “I’m never decent. But thanks.” She turned to smile at the receptionist, but the woman, half-glasses at the tip of her nose, had gone back to whatever she had been reading.

  Fiona waited until she was across Paseo de Peralta, around the corner and out of view of Day Star, before she opened her hand. She saw that she was holding a small Post-it note with the Day Star logo. Handwritten in blue ink were the words, “It happened between Taos and Denver.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  SHE HAD TO go back. She didn’t want to get anyone in trouble, but she had to know what had happened. She would be discreet, she would get the receptionist off to the side and talk privately. She would promise not to tell anyone where she had gotten her information. It had been brave of the woman to give her the note at all.

  But I have to know.

  It took less than five minutes to walk back around the corner and up the path to the heavy glass door. Fiona kept herself from running. But when she pulled the door open and stepped inside, the receptionist’s desk was empty. She’s only in the bathroom, Fiona pleaded. She’s just getting a cup of coffee. Instead of hovering beside the modular desk, she went over to the couch and sat down.

  But the receptionist did not return. Finally Fiona went down the hall to the next-to-last office and stepped inside.

  The young woman looked up, startled.

  “Is the receptionist around? I promised to give her something—a book.”

  “She and those novels of hers! No, you just missed her. She said her husband had called; he had been in a fender bender. She was pretty shaken up when she left.”

  “Do you know when she’ll be back?”

  Her pretty face grimaced. “Not today, I’m sure.”

  “Can you tell me where she lives? I’ll deliver the book myself.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to do that! Just leave it on her desk.”

  “Okay, fine. What’s her name, anyway?”

  “Priss.” But her light eyes were appraising Fiona as if she found the question odd.

  Fiona stepped back out the door and stood beside it. In every TV mystery she remembered watching, the person who had been questioned called someone to report it.

  This one didn’t. There was only the click of computer keys.

  Finally, Fiona left.

  BACK IN HER room, she did something she should have done immediately: Google Will Dunlea. A number of listings having to do with Day Star came up, but there was also a short Wikipedia article about him.

  Fiona read it and then sat on the edge of her bed, staring at her laptop.

  Will Dunlea had not grown up in the wilds of Nebraska. He had lived in Bel Air, attended an exclusive Southern California prep school, Chadwick, and then gone on to UCLA. He married his high-school sweetheart and had three children. Jesse and Ginger and their careers were mentioned, of course, in the context of their founding Day Star. In 2001 Will started working for the airline.

  He sure had me fooled.

  But how had he known to mirror her background? She tried to remember if she had talked about growing up on a farm in any of her online travel blogs. No doubt she had. And she had told Ginger Lee where she was from. The only thing she had never written about was being a lawyer.r />
  THE OTHERS ARRIVED at five. Fiona was sitting on the front porch, half-heartedly scribbling notes about the city’s attractions—the cafeteria on Museum Hill, in particular—when a white Explorer with Dominick driving stopped, hesitated, and then pulled into the parking area. Fiona jumped down and ran back to meet them. Odd how glad she was to see them when a week ago they hadn’t known each other. Thank God she’d been too late to stop them from coming!

  Dominick opened the door from behind the wheel, but Rosa was the first one out, beaming at Fiona. She was wearing an expensive-looking black sweat suit with “Courtesy of the Brain Trust” in red letters on the front pocket. Greg, right behind her, gave Fiona a salute.

  “I didn’t expect to see you,” she said.

  “Yeah well, I got a free ticket. To make up for the flight I missed to Portland. I’ve brought my climbing gear.”

  “He wanted to stay in this forty-nine-dollar motel on the highway,” Rosa announced, rolling her eyes. “Can you imagine?”

  “Hey, it had a pool. I don’t see any pools around here.”

  “Pools are for children.”

  “You can’t swim?”

  “We don’t have a pool,” Fiona said. “But we’re right in town.”

  “Next time find a pool. It’s August, for Christ’s sake!”

  Dominick moved around the hood of the truck, smiling, and gave Fiona a bear hug. “This looks like a nice place.”

  “The problem is, they only have one vacancy. With twin beds.”

  “Thank God,” Rosa said. “I hate B-and-Bs.” She squinted at the Territorial-style building and gave her dark wiry hair a shake. “The furniture is uncomfortable, you have to smoke outside like a felon, and they always have pets who want to sniff your crotch.”

  Greg rationalized that if he shared the room with Dominick, it would only cost half as much. “That is, if they don’t want me to stay at the farm. They probably will, but they’d better not expect me to work.”

  “What farm?” Fiona asked.

  “Dimitri’s father’s. I want to know if he knows what the hell’s going on.”

  Dominick grinned at Fiona.

  “Do you want a roommate?” Fiona asked him.

  “Oh, I don’t mind. I’m used to bunking with my boys when we travel. And frankly, I can’t afford to be away more than a night or two. Is the airline office around here?”

  Fiona hesitated. “Why don’t you check in? They’re still serving tea in the garden, and we can talk.” As they climbed the porch stairs, she said to Dominick in a low voice, “Did Rosa give you the message?”

  “That you didn’t find Coral in Taos? Yeah, she told me.”

  “And that your wife has—uh, gone to Mexico?”

  “So I heard.” He made no reference to the “power mower.” “But I want to talk to the neighbors.”

  As soon as the men had taken their bags to their room and Rosa had called the most expensive accommodation in Santa Fe, the Inn of the Kachinas, they sat down at a black metal table surrounded by pots of hibiscus and wild roses. Fiona waited until they had been brought tea and a plate of churros, then unfolded the note and laid it in the middle of the table, centering it on a black iron rose. Each of them leaned over and read it in turn, then looked back at Fiona. No one touched the paper.

  “Is this like Clue?” Greg asked finally.

  “It was smuggled to me when I left the Day Star offices this morning.” Fiona told them about the receptionist, how she’d gone back as soon as she’d read the note, and found the woman had already left. “All I know is that her first name’s Priss. I looked on the Day Star website—sometimes they introduce their personnel with their photos—but nothing. It was just about making reservations for the airline.”

  “She’ll probably be there tomorrow,” Rosa said. “How did you make out last night?”

  “Oh, right.” She told them about dinner with Will Dunlea. “I tried pushing him a little—and he offered me a free flight home! I should have known you don’t try to buy people off if you’ve got nothing to hide. I thought he was just being nice.”

  “You got a free trip too?” Greg looked put out.

  Fiona reached for her cup but didn’t pick it up. The air around them was so fragrant, the dappled sunlight so glorious, that for a moment she forgot Lee and why they were here. Then it came crashing back. But why would he send her a text telling her to go home, and nothing else? There was probably a way to find out where the message was sent from. She turned to Greg. “You know computers. How can I find out where somebody sent me a text from?”

  “You mean what transmitting tower the phone used?” He shook his head. “If that’s what you want, you’re shit out of luck, honey. Only the cell company knows and you’d need a subpoena to find out.”

  “Damn.” Then she noticed that Dominick was sitting with his face in his hands, fingers over his eyes. “Hey, are you okay?”

  He straightened up and gave her a bleak look. “That note makes it sound like something did happen. Why do you think someone who works for the airline would give it to you?”

  “I think she felt sorry for me. I told her about Lee and being an orphan, and it made her tear up. Maybe she secretly hates working there.”

  “But if something happened to the plane, they couldn’t keep it a secret.”

  “Why not?”

  Dominick looked as if she had suggested robbing the mint. “Because people have to obey the law in this country! There are rules for airlines.”

  “You have a lot of faith in the system.”

  He pushed back in his chair, scraping metal on slate as if to reiterate his position. “You don’t?”

  “Not that much. Remember Enron?”

  They smiled at each other uneasily.

  “ ‘It happened between Taos and Denver,’ ” Rosa said somberly. “We’ll talk to her first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “But why aren’t people from other places out here looking for missing passengers?”

  “Who says they’re not?” Greg took a churro from the plate and stuffed it in his mouth, staining his lips with powdered sugar. Fiona looked away. “Say you have thirty people on the Taos shuttle going to Denver. Of those, five are flying on to San Diego, maybe two more to Seattle. Three to St. Louis, four to Long Island. And so on.”

  “Five to Long Island. That’s what I’m talking about. I want to know where the people from Seattle are.”

  “Maybe you just haven’t seen them,” said Rosa. She had a black cigarette holder out and was about to light up. “The airline is hardly going to tell you.”

  “When I asked Will Dunlea, he said no.”

  “I rest my case.”

  “Yeah, why do you believe everything this guy tells you?” Greg asked in a demanding tone. “He’s the enemy.”

  “But we know the problem isn’t with the plane,” said Dominick, spreading his darkly tanned hands on the edge of the table. His normal optimism was back. “It landed safely in Denver. People like Maggie’s father arrived okay.”

  “So what could happen to some people on a plane but not others?” Fiona asked. “Wasn’t there that case where a couple from Australia got sucked out of a window? If an outside piece ruptured, and some of the people were pulled out . . . ”

  Rosa put her hand to her face in horror. Then she laughed. “And no one in Denver would have noticed a hole in the side of the plane when it landed? Passengers would have been on their phones before the wheels hit the ground.”

  “That’s true. But sometimes there are fires on board. That Canadian songwriter died in one.”

  “It’s the same thing, Fiona,” Dominick said. “You can’t keep something like that quiet.”

  “So what could it be? Anyway, we should call Maggie and see if her father’s gotten there or if she’s heard anything else. He’s the one who can tell us what really happened.” She reached down into her bag, her fingers closing over her phone.

  She scanned her own texts first. There was
only one from the magazine editor, wondering when her column on the dangers of beauty would be submitted. Damn. Today was the day she was supposed to have it in.

  She pushed the number that she had stored for Maggie. It was her landline, given to Fiona by Derek’s school.

  The phone rang five times before it was picked up. “Sorry,” Maggie gasped, “I was saying good-bye to the patterning therapist. Do you want to come over?”

  “No, I’m in New Mexico. Did your father get there?”

  A hesitation. “Yes. Yes, he did. This afternoon. I’m so glad he’s here!”

  Fiona covered her phone. “Her father got there.” Then she removed her palm and said, “How’s he feeling?”

  “Oh, you know. The airline even sent an attendant with him, and they arranged for a medi-van from the airport.”

  “That’s great. Did they say what happened exactly?”

  “Well, just that he had—what did they call it? ‘A minor cerebral accident.’ ”

  Fiona held her breath. “Did he talk about what happened on the plane from Taos?”

  There was a long silence across the miles. Then Maggie whispered, “He doesn’t remember anything at all. I asked him when he came.”

  How can that be? “He doesn’t even remember being on the plane?”

  “Not really. But he’s . . . old, Fiona. I told you how confused he gets. The stroke or whatever it was put everything out of his head.”

  It wasn’t anybody’s fault, but Fiona wanted to scream. “Could you ask him again?”

  “I’ll try in the morning. He’ll be fresher then.”

  “In the morning, okay. We’ll call you.” Could she suggest that Maggie take her father to a hypnotist? Would Maggie agree? Fiona decided to wait until tomorrow and see what he remembered on his own. She knew she should tell Maggie again how happy she was for her, but she was too upset. “Okay, we’ll talk to you tomorrow,” she said and ended the call.

  Fiona looked into Dominick’s expectant brown eyes, then at Rosa, who was moving a gold herringbone chain to the outside of her sweatshirt. “Her father doesn’t remember the flight. Our only hope, and he doesn’t remember a damn thing!”

  She heard Dominick exhale. “But he was on that flight? He was on that flight and he’s okay?”