The Color of a Promise (The Color of Heaven Series Book 11)

by Julianne MacLean

  People walked by, gaping at us curiously. Sometimes it sucked to be a celebrity.

  “Don’t be embarrassed,” I said in a low voice as I took hold of her arm and guided her to an alcove in a less busy corridor. “It was rough in there.”

  She nodded her head and leaned against the wall. “Maybe I should think about retiring. I can’t seem to handle this like I used to.”

  She closed her eyes and shook her head with frustration, then stared at me directly. I was momentarily overcome by the depth of feeling in those beautiful eyes.

  “You’ve seen a lot too,” she said. “I know you have…over in Afghanistan. And this isn’t your first airline disaster.”

  “Unfortunately I’ve covered a few.”

  “And the bomb that you survived…” she continued, “and all your injuries. The pain. You lost your friends. I can’t imagine what that must have been like.”

  We regarded each other steadily, while people flooded through the busier corridor, talking heatedly about the briefing. All I wanted to do was stay hidden where we were and talk to Meg some more, or take her somewhere less chaotic—away from all this—but the clock was ticking. I checked my wristwatch.

  “You have to go,” she said. “You have a show to do. I shouldn’t be keeping you.”

  I didn’t want to leave, but I hadn’t touched base with my producer yet.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Are you going to be okay?”

  “Of course. I’m feeling better now, and I have a lot to do, too. I should text Gary and see where we’re supposed to be right now. He’s probably looking for me.” She pushed away from the wall and pulled her phone out of her pocket, then gave me a small smile. “Break a leg.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I already did that once. Don’t really want to do it again.”

  She grimaced apologetically. “Poor choice of words.”

  I started backing away from her, still not wanting to leave. “I’ll text you later to see how you’re doing. After the show. Will you watch?”

  “Probably not,” she said. “There’s so much to do tonight.”

  I understood. “No worries. But I’ll still text you.”

  “Please do.”

  I experienced a rush of anticipation at her response, and couldn’t wait to text her after my show.

  What the heck was going on here? I felt like I was back in middle school, crushing on the new girl.

  She turned her attention to her phone, while I took off in a run toward the news truck.

  I was halfway across the empty ballroom when I spotted Katelyn, talking to the Portland mayor, who I’d interviewed earlier that morning.

  Still dressed in a suit and heels, having come straight from the station with her red hair swept up in a loose bun, Katelyn noticed me and waved.

  “Don’t you have a show to do?” she called out from the back corner of the ballroom.

  “Yeah, I’m late,” I replied, without breaking my stride.

  “Call me later,” she said.

  I nodded and continued on.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Meg

  As it happened, I did watch Jack’s show on CNN that night, because Gary ordered me back to my room to rest and regroup. He reminded me that I had been working non-stop for thirty hours under high-stress conditions, and that if I was going to be any good to him in the coming days, I had to get some sleep.

  He was right, of course. He was always right about things like that, which was why he was the boss and I wasn’t.

  I followed his advice and took a shower. Then I sat down on the foot of my bed in the white terry hotel bathrobe, with my long, wet hair wrapped in a towel. I pointed the remote control at the TV and turned on CNN.

  Jack’s show was just starting. While I watched the opening, I pulled the towel from my hair and began to dry the ends.

  I had watched his show many times in the past, but everything was different tonight because now I knew him personally. I found myself captivated by every word he spoke, every hint of emotion or reference to something we had seen together or discussed that day. Everything he relayed was accurate and spot on.

  I had no regrets about allowing him to shadow me that afternoon, or about letting down my guard. In fact, I was glad. There was something about Jack Peterson that had a calming effect on me. It seemed to permeate through the television screen as he urged everyone to have patience while we sought answers.

  He was also unbelievably sensitive and compassionate about the human side of this terrible catastrophe. He spent a significant amount of time highlighting the kindness, compassion and generosity of the people of Maine. He described fishermen and yachtsmen who had risen from their beds to help search the waters off Cape Elizabeth all night long. Women’s groups made plates of sandwiches by the hundreds, working tirelessly and with little hope for a good outcome. Others were opening their homes to family members of the victims, or offering their cars for them to use. Stress counsellors had volunteered their services, and emergency workers had stepped up to the plate in every possible way. At times, I could barely watch through my tears.

  The fact that I hadn’t slept in over thirty-six hours didn’t help matters. I was exhausted and emotional, and I felt the grief of the families like never before.

  Inching back across the bed to rest my head against the pillows, I listened to all of Jack’s interviews. He spoke about the recovery of the tail, and I saw the aerial footage we had recorded in the helicopter.

  Part of me wanted to get up off the bed and go downstairs to the command headquarters right then and there, and learn the latest information about the investigation, but I resisted the urge. Gary had been clear. He didn’t want to see me until I had slept for at least six hours. He promised to brief me in the morning.

  As Jack’s show came to an end, I curled up in a ball on the bed, and squeezed the feather pillow under my cheek. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Within seconds, I fell into a deep slumber with the lights and television on. I didn’t wake until my alarm went off at 6:00 a.m.

  That’s when I realized I hadn’t heard my phone buzz with an incoming text, shortly after 11:00 p.m.

  Are you still up?

  Instantly wide awake, I sat up on the bed and replied.

  o0o

  Good morning Jack. Sorry I didn’t reply to your text last night. Gary ordered me back to my room to sleep. I watched your show…it was good. But then my head hit the pillow and that was it. If I don’t see you today, maybe a drink tonight?

  Excitement flooded my veins as I pressed send, even while I worried that I was playing with fire. I still hadn’t spoken to Malcolm since I arrived in Maine, and he was probably wondering what had become of me.

  Jack immediately texted back.

  No worries. I was tired, too. I went back to my parents’ house and slept like a log. I might see you today if you’re at the crash site. My mother has been baking. She wants to do something to help. There will be cookies and coffee tomorrow for everyone within a square mile of our house.

  I smiled and texted him back. That’s very sweet of her. What kind of cookies?

  He replied: Two kinds. Oatmeal raisin and chocolate chip.

  Please tell her thank you.

  He responded with a thumbs up icon, and I set my phone down to get dressed and hurry down to work.

  o0o

  It was too early to call Malcolm, so I sent him a text as I was leaving my room.

  Hey there. Just touching base to let you know I’m still alive. It’s crazy here. Working non-stop. Give me a call when you have some time.

  I pressed send, slipped my phone into my pocket, and approached the elevators.

  o0o

  Malcolm called a few minutes later, not long after I arrived in the conference room for our morning meeting, which hadn’t started yet. I just sat down at the boardroom table when my phone buzzed.

  I rose from my chair and left the room to talk to him.

  “I can’t talk long,” he sa
id, after explaining that he was in his office at the hospital, about to see a patient before surgery, “but I figured I should call. You certainly have your hands full, it looks like.”

  “Yes. Have you been watching CNN?”

  “A bit, here and there,” he replied. “I was in the OR all day yesterday and until late last night. Sorry for not calling sooner, but I figured you’d be busy.”

  “Yeah, it’s been nuts.”

  I was quiet for a few seconds, thinking about how I had reacted after the press conference the night before. A giant mountain of stress had built up inside of me, which had begun the moment I stepped onto the crash site that morning. Then, the briefing for the families had put me over the edge.

  “I’m having a rough time with this one,” I confessed to Malcolm. “It’s rougher than usual. I don’t know why.”

  “How so?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s just hitting me really hard. The pain everyone is feeling… All those deaths…”

  There was nothing but silence on the other end of the line. I waited for him to reply, and when he didn’t, I thought we might have been cut off.

  “Hello?” I said. “Malcolm? Are you there?”

  Another pause. “Hello. Jeez, yeah I’m here. Sorry, I was just reading over a file. I have a patient waiting. It’s a complicated case. I should go. Call me when things calm down a bit. We’ll chat then.”

  A part of me felt completely hollowed out by his response. He seemed so very far away, and not just in terms of the physical distance between us.

  It never bothered me before—the fact that he had his own career to think about and I was not his top priority. It never bothered me because, quite frankly, he wasn’t my top priority either. My job was.

  In that way, we were a perfect match. That’s why it worked so well between us. There was never any drama.

  This morning, however, his lack of interest in what I was going through left me feeling almost devastated. That, on top of the death and despair I had witnessed over the past twenty-four hours, broke me down.

  “Sure,” I replied in a shaky voice that I fought to control. “We’ll talk another time.”

  I ended the call and returned to the conference room for our morning briefing. As soon as I sat down at the table, I realized my heart was pounding hard and my stomach was burning.

  With red-hot anger.

  It was directed at Malcolm, which wasn’t fair. I knew that my emotions were a result of everything combined—the stress of seeing what I had seen yesterday, the lack of sleep, the families’ grief and anger.

  Rationally, I knew it wasn’t all Malcolm’s fault, but I couldn’t help feeling upset over how he had ignored me on the phone. He’d seemed so distracted, as if he didn’t care about what was happening here and how many lives had been lost, or how hard it was on me. Did he not understand the magnitude of this? How massive and horrific it was?

  “Everything okay?” Gary asked from across the table, his brow furrowed with concern. He was good at reading people. Me, especially.

  I waved a hand dismissively through the air and steadied my voice. “I’m fine. That was just Malcolm. It’s no big deal.”

  “Trouble on the home front?” Brent asked, sitting down beside me.

  Brent was a systems guy. He was married with three daughters, all under the age of ten. He often talked about them with humor and love. We worked together closely, sharing information, bouncing ideas off each other.

  “I wouldn’t call it the home front,” I replied. “Home is right here.” I pointed at the table.

  The way Gary looked at me then… I didn’t know how to take it. His eyes were full of sympathy.

  It bothered me because suddenly I felt as if everyone thought I was a pathetic loser with no life.

  Maybe I was. Maybe it was time to re-evaluate a few things.

  “Let’s just get to work,” I said. “What did I miss last night?”

  Gary opened up his laptop and began to fill me in. What he told me about Jaeger-Woodrow Airways left me reeling with shock.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Meg

  “Jaeger-Woodrow Airways is actually Marquee-Goldman Airlines? Are you sure?”

  Marquee-Goldman had been a discount airline that went bankrupt in the early 1990s after a string of accidents related to poor safety standards, where there had been a blatant disregard for the rules of the FAA. As far as we all knew, the fleet had been broken up, and the individual jets sold off to other airlines throughout the world to pay off Marquee-Goldman’s fines and creditors, who got about ten cents on the dollar.

  “How could that happen?” I asked. “Weren’t they fined exorbitant fees, and didn’t one of the executives go to jail for something else…tax evasion related to the airline?”

  “That’s right,” Gary said, “but it was just a slap on the wrist. Reginald Harrison was his name, and he’s been running a bunch of other businesses ever since. He paid it off and barely served any time. The FBI just let us know that when he broke up Marquee-Goldman and sold the planes at a discount to smaller airlines in Europe, those airlines were owned by an umbrella corporation that he also controlled. The process is called creating a corporate veil, and it’s complicated.”

  I sat forward. “So how does this affect our investigation? It doesn’t change the fact that we still need to know what happened on this flight, and why there was an explosion at 30,000 feet.”

  “Absolutely,” Gary said, “and for all we know, it could have been a terrorist’s bomb, although no groups have come forward to take credit for it. So we’re no further ahead in what we know about the accident. But we will be taking a very close look at Jaeger-Woodrow’s safety procedures. Our Human Factors team at the airport is digging deep and hard on that as we speak.”

  “The poor families,” I said, shaking my head. “To think that someone like that, a man responsible for crashes before, and forced out of the airline business, was free to start up another one. With the same planes he always owned. And because of the bankruptcy, he even got out of paying the airline’s debts. Does the press know anything about this yet?”

  “Not yet,” Gary replied. “The FBI will be revealing it later this morning, at another briefing. But from what I understand, there’s no crime on Harrison’s part, in terms of the corporate shenanigans. Unless he’s committing tax evasion again, he hasn’t broken any laws.”

  “That sucks,” Brent said. “My God, was he the airline representative at the briefing yesterday?”

  I remembered the young man from Jaeger-Woodrow who had stood up to speak. He had seemed genuinely saddened and remorseful.

  “No,” Gary replied. “That was just a PR guy, and he’s going to have his work cut out for him today when this news hits the fan. I actually feel sorry for him, because I suspect Harrison is lying on a beach somewhere in the South Pacific. He’s rich as Croesus. Owns buildings and sports teams and all sorts of other high-profile corporations.”

  “That really sucks,” Brent said.

  “Yes, it does,” Gary replied. “But we can’t do much about his extravagant lifestyle, so let’s just focus on our jobs. We need to keep looking at the wreckage, investigating what happened at the airport before the plane took off, and find that black box.” He hit a few buttons on his laptop keyboard, then closed it. “So let’s get to work.”

  o0o

  After I left the command headquarters with my structures team, I stepped onto the hotel elevator and immediately sent a text to Jack.

  Make sure you’re at the press conference later this morning. The FBI has new information. Sorry I can’t say more than that, but it’s not my place. I don’t want to get into trouble. Just make sure you’re there.

  He texted me back immediately: Thanks for the heads up. Will you be there?

  I replied: No, I’ll be at a hangar at the airport, heading up the arrival of the wreckage. Everything that’s been recovered from the water so far is on its way there.

&
nbsp; He texted me back. I know. We’re filming it. They just loaded the wing onto a flatbed.

  I found myself smiling at my phone. I’ll probably see you sometime today then?

  Most likely, he replied.

  The elevator dinged and the doors opened. I stepped off and crossed the lobby with my team to head to the airport. Our goal: to figure out exactly where the explosion had originated. I suspected I’d be doing some detailed structural reconstruction over the coming days and weeks. I hoped it would provide some answers.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Jack

  “How are the kids taking all this?” I asked Katelyn, as we stood in the crowded hotel lobby with our coffees, waiting to be let into the ballroom for the morning press conference. Today, Katelyn was dressed casually in jeans and a fitted blazer, her red hair hanging loose about her shoulders.

  “Ah, you know, they’re kids. They’ve had some questions, but they’re too young. They don’t really understand. They just know that they can’t go to Grammy’s for a while because a plane has crashed next to their house, and we have to wait for it to be cleaned up. Thank God for Dora the Explorer.”

  I nodded with understanding. “Best to keep them away. It’s like a battlefield out the back window.”

  Katelyn sipped her coffee. “We should count ourselves lucky. Every day is a gift.”

  An older woman near the front of the lobby began to weep inconsolably. Her husband pulled her into his arms. Katelyn and I watched in somber silence as she was led away, onto an elevator.

  “Have you spoken to Aaron since the night of the crash?” Katelyn carefully asked me.

  “No, I’ve been busy,” I explained.

  “He’s been busy, too,” she informed me, giving me that look—the one that said she knew better than anyone how our relationship was still strained after all these years, even though we put on friendly faces in front of our families and made an effort to keep things civil.