Flight 19

by Grant Finnegan

  A set of shimmering diamond earrings hung off her earlobes, and coupled with bright red lipstick on beautiful, rounded lips, the effect had Ross almost lost for words.

  “Hello to you,” Melanie said, with an air of confidence. She knew her powers of attraction were still strong.

  Ross could see the candles flickering in her eyes, and felt the urge to sit down before his knees gave out.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  “You can’t be serious,” he gasped.

  Dave could see the expression on her face, and at that moment knew two things.

  One, he should wave to the nearest waiter and order a conga line of tequila shots for their table, and two—she was dead serious.

  He had not expected this.

  Dave reached over and placed his hand over hers. “But you stayed with him even after you found out?” He spoke with as much sincerity as he could muster. The question felt dangerous, especially considering how long he’d known her for, which wasn’t long at all. He didn’t want to offend her.

  Kylie looked long into his eyes before the distant sound of the crashing Pacific waves seemed to catch her attention. She looked into the darkness and asked herself the same question she put to herself every morning when she woke up.

  Even with Andrew gone, she still wondered—why had she remained married to him?

  As Kylie continued to peer off into the darkness, Dave knew one thing was for sure—his respect for the late Andrew Roberts would never be the same.

  “The mile-high club?”

  Ross met Melanie’s eyes. He would soon realize this was one of her signatures: subtly making fun of a person with a small dose of sarcasm infused with cheekiness. He’d never seen anything quite like it in a woman so petite, not to mention drop-dead gorgeous.

  The two Australian expats had enjoyed a sumptuous meal at the Beverly Hills Hotel’s Polo Lounge. Melanie had heard of it in her travels but never had the opportunity to eat there. After they shared what Ross promised her was one of the most addictive desserts he’d ever had (the Nutella chocolate bread pudding—Melanie agreed he was probably right), he suggested they slide on back to Bar Nineteen12, where they could relax over another drink.

  “I’m sure the flight attendants would have been knocking on the cockpit door!” Melanie caught herself at the word coming out of her mouth. As she giggled to herself, Ross realized how much he loved hearing her laugh.

  Ross told her, “I can’t say I was ever a huge fan of squeezing into a closet containing a toilet at 30,000 feet and trying to…”

  Melanie laughed again, and it melted his heart.

  Over her shoulder, Ross noticed his old mate Michael E. Darcy had just entered the bar. Before he could turn away, hoping Darcy hadn’t seen him, the man smiled from ear to ear and gave him a sort of salute, before moving on to order a drink from one of the barmen.

  Ross realized he didn’t have long to brief Melanie on Michael E. Darcy. Most probably, it wouldn’t be long before he made himself at home at their table.

  “It’s okay.” Dave stepped out of his chair and came to the other side of the table.

  Kylie had eventually turned away from her staring contest with the Pacific Ocean, and as she looked back into Dave’s worried eyes, he could see she was struggling to hold back the tears.

  “I’m sorry I burdened you with all this.” Kylie sobbed a little as Dave put his arm around her and pulled her gently into his embrace. Save for another couple many tables away, who seemed to be in their own little world, they were alone on the rooftop balcony. Either way, Dave didn’t care. He would have held her in front of a hundred people; he wasn’t one to shy away from public displays of affection.

  Kylie welcomed his strong arm draped over her shoulder; she could feel his strength and warmth, and smell his very appealing aftershave.

  Dave crouched down in front of her and looked up into her tired eyes.

  “How long ago did this happen?” Dave said to her carefully, not looking away from her.

  Kylie’s gaze drifted from Dave and into the distance. She was lost deep in her sadness.

  After nearly 30 seconds, Kylie’s eyes met his, and she whispered, almost in slow motion, “Nineteen years ago.”

  Dave looked down at her lap, shaking his head, before slowly rising from his crouching position to lean in and kiss her on the cheek.

  “Come on,” he said, motioning to her to grab her handbag. “I know a nice little bar just down the road. It’s called the Misfit Bar. They make the best Manhattans in California.” Kylie stood and reached out for Dave’s hand.

  “That sounds perfect—just what the doctor ordered.”

  Melanie stole a glance over her shoulder at Darcy, who was still at the bar, before turning back to Ross. “You would not believe how much bad press he’s got back home.”

  Ross nodded. He’d seen the Australian news sites.

  “They went to town on him,” Melanie said quietly. “They hung the poor bastard out to dry,” she leaned in and added.

  Melanie stole another glance at Darcy, who was still at the bar, apparently deep in conversation with the young barman. She turned back to Ross and muttered, “And they made out that he deserved it.”

  Ross was taken aback by her words, but more so by the venom that came with them. He knew Michael E. Darcy hadn’t done himself any favors whatsoever during his career, but from what he’d seen of him at the Beverly Hills Hotel, he believed a lot of his reputation was possibly a beat-up.

  Ross recalled a conversation he had with a couple of American pilots a few years ago. Ross and the two pilots from New York were on a layover in London and had got talking in a favorite pub for anyone who earned a living from air travel.

  They’d said Australians, a bit like Americans, had the knack of taking machetes to fields full of tall poppies. It didn’t matter where or how they had got there.

  That night, Ross’s started to take a new perspective on the godawful emotion known as jealousy.

  They were right. People loved to cut down others who grew too high.

  Ross now wondered, after hearing Melanie, if that was what had happened to Michael E. Darcy.

  He looked over to Darcy before turning back to Melanie, and with the grace of a composer in front of a philharmonic orchestra, said evenly, “Trust me, my dear,” Ross said, leaning closer to ensure Melanie heard him clearly, “don’t believe everything you hear.”

  Melanie realized she might have overstepped the mark.

  Feeling slightly embarrassed, she was about to tell Ross how sorry she was. But just as she was about to speak, she stopped. The very man they were just talking about had appeared from nowhere right in front of their table.

  Now she was embarrassed.

  He’d bought her and Ross a drink.

  “I took the liberty of ordering you two another round.” Darcy said, stepping forward and placing the tray on the table with a genuine smile.

  He turned to the barman he’d been chatting to, and nodded as the young guy waved back. That’s what he’d been doing at the bar, Melanie realized.

  Now she felt like a real bitch.

  “Melanie.” Michael leaned forward and offered his right hand. “I don’t believe we’ve officially met.” Melanie was still reeling from having bagged the guy out to Ross only a moment ago. Now he was offering to shake her hand like a real gentleman.

  “Michael.” Melanie buried her embarrassment and reached out to shake his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  Ross then reached over and shook the millionaire’s hand. “How are you holding up, mate?” he said.

  Darcy then stood back with a startled look, “I’m sorry, guys,” he said, turning to both of them, “I should have asked if it’s okay for me to join you for a drink first.” Melanie was surprised: he looked genuinely embarrassed.

  Ross met Melanie’s eyes, and they both almost instinctively nodded to each other, agreeing it was okay with both of them for Darcy to join them for a drink.<
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  An hour or so later, the first round of drinks had become one of three. Melanie didn’t mind. She enjoyed the banter between the three of them, and by the time she was sipping her third drink since Darcy joined them, she realized Ross was 100% on the money—Michael E. Darcy was not as the Australian press had painted him.

  Either that or Flight 19 had made him rethink what was truly important in life, as it had done to most of the passengers and crew. They could no longer answer as they had five years ago, because what they had valued was often gone.

  Melanie couldn’t believe what she heard from Darcy. God, she thought, how poorly he’d been treated by his family since he’d left Vandenberg.

  Only one of his four children had bothered to come to LA to visit him.

  None of his other children had answered his emails or phone calls. His now very much ex-wife had refused to speak to him. “Some people should remain disappeared,” she’d said, not long after he’d returned.

  Wow—that’s fucking harsh, Melanie thought. But there was more.

  The press had gone hard on him not long after Flight 19 had disappeared. Someone had reported that he’d only got on the A380 because his private jet had to make a diversion to Honolulu because a prostitute or some woman he was having an affair with had gotten drunk and vomited throughout the cabin. Melanie had heard this story on some news channel again only a few weeks ago and, like most people, had no reason to disbelieve it.

  Over drinks, Darcy had surprised her by telling the both of them that the girl was, in fact, a close friend’s daughter. On finding out that Darcy was headed to LA, his friend, a Sydney-based businessman, had pleaded with him to take his daughter Lucy with him to make sure she made it to the Betty Ford Clinic, where she was booked in for treatment of her near decade-long drug addiction. Darcy, of course, said it was no problem. Lucy was okay on the flight until they were an hour from Honolulu, where she had an epileptic fit, and Darcy made the decision to divert the plane to Hawaii and get her immediate medical attention.

  When they arrived, as the Learjet was taxiing to the private hangar, a mechanical fault occurred in one of its engines, stopping it dead in its tracks a hundred meters from the hangar.

  And only a few weeks ago, while having a beer with his mate Paul Hogan, he had found out what fate was all about. If they had continued to California in the Learjet, the mechanical fault would have caused the plane to break down at 30,000 feet, dropping like a stone into the Pacific Ocean.

  Darcy had been spared his life, only to have it screwed over by the hand of fate anyway.

  Something seemed to catch in his throat when he told Ross and Melanie what came of Lucy in the end. She had passed away from a drug overdose 12 months after the A380 flew into the abyss.

  She had been just 25, the same age Darcy’s only daughter had been at the time. It broke his heart, and he admitted to them both he cried openly for her when he had contacted his friend in Sydney, Lucy’s father, who broke the news to him.

  The mood at the table eventually lightened once the waiter brought them all another round. Maybe it was the alcohol taking effect, or maybe all three of them just wanted to talk about more positive things.

  And Ross wanted to ask Darcy something that had been on his mind for days. So, after Melanie finished faking a small chorus of laughter to a “dad joke” Darcy had just told (one of the worst she’d ever heard, she realized), he turned to the man and said, “So, tell me—”

  Darcy looked Ross up and down and smiled. “Tell you what, young fella?”

  The pilot leaned forward as his eyes narrowed. “Are you going to buy the plane and get us back on the air?”

  The world’s press was in a lather over the rumor that Michael E. Darcy had somehow negotiated with Pacific International to buy the very plane he had been on when he disappeared five-plus years before. The airline had refused to confirm or deny the rumor, and in doing so had ruled out any mention of how much they were asking, or agreeing to, in exchange for the ghost plane.

  Michael looked at Melanie before turning back to Ross, who seemed to read his mind. “You can trust her,” Ross said, “She is one of us, you know.” Darcy looked at her and smiled. “Can I?” he said, doubtfully but with respect.

  Melanie smiled to Darcy and said, “My lips are sealed.”

  Darcy nodded once before slowing turning to Ross. His expression turned, as if a dark cloud had just passed over his face. He looked down at the table.

  “They want too much for her,” Michael said, with a heavy dose of disappointment.

  Ross looked to Melanie with concern himself before reaching over and patting Darcy on the shoulder.

  “How much?” he asked.

  Darcy studied the single ball of round ice in his drink before muttering, “Three hundred million.”

  “Jesus,” Ross said a few seconds later. “That’s a high price for a plane that’ll never take passengers again.”

  Darcy took a long drink from his glass before placing it down and gesturing that it was time for him to hit the road.

  He looked to Melanie, smiling genuinely, before turning to Ross and shaking his head. “Mate, if I were to buy it for what they want—” He slowly rose from his chair. “I’d have just about nothing left.”

  Darcy stared out from the balcony and into the shimmering lights of Beverly Hills, lost in his thoughts. There was some happiness there, a lot more regret, and the wish that for once he could make everything right. His memories then took him to the giant oak tree in the backyard of the house in Piedmont, Missouri.

  He’d lost count of how many times he’d seen that tree in nightmares. In the last one, he’d been trying to reach the young guy hanging from a rope tied around one of the large branches, but he was always just out of reach.

  In that nightmare, he remembered looking up and seeing the tree house the guy had built for his kids on the opposite side of the enormous tree.

  It was ablaze with fire.

  The guy’s five children were inside the burning tree house, staring at Darcy through the small window. All he could see of them were their sad, haunting eyes.

  “Darce,” Ross said quietly, “are you alright?”

  Ross’s gentle words brought Michael back to Beverly Hills, to his relief.

  Darcy righted himself before turning to Melanie and shaking her hand. He then turned and, as he shook Ross’s hand as well, he patted him firmly on his shoulder with his other hand.

  As Ross was about to say something, Darcy said, “If we could only find someone to chip in the remaining hundred—” He smiled down to the pilot and then to Melanie and added. “I’ll gladly put up 200 million. That’s all I can spare.”

  Ross watched Michael walk off through the doorway, before turning back and seeing the beautiful woman he’d had dinner with staring back at him.

  They both smiled at each other, but Ross was still deep in thought.

  Pacific International would not sell “their” plane for any less than $300 million, and Michael could only afford 200. That was fair enough, Ross thought. Melanie, on the other hand, was thinking the same thing, but her thoughts were on a different track.

  She knew someone who could chip in the other $100 million to get the plane back in the air. Would she agree to do it? She knew she had the knack of talking this person into things if the idea was sound.

  She’d try, next time she saw her.

  And as fate would have it, she bumped into her the next morning in, of all places, the en suite of Ross’s very charming bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

  In the mirror.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Tim had spent the last two hours at his kitchen bench. The three stools still smelled of new leather; Sarah had bought them a few weeks ago and told Tim they would do just fine. And they did, Tim had felt comfortable sitting on the one stool that whole time. It could have been on fire, and he probably would have just gone on sitting there.

  From his place at the bench, he could see
the back half of his kitchen, including the kitchen sink, which sat below the pushed-out kitchen window that had once housed all of Sandra’s little plants. No more. Someone had smashed open every single one of them. Tim had not bothered to replace them.

  He’d poured himself another coffee, this time opting for instant rather than one from his Keurig machine. It sat on the same bench where it always had, and he couldn’t take his eyes off it.

  His mind had been in a whirl since he discovered his late son’s secret, cryptic note. Somewhere deep in his mind, he was starting to begin to join the dots, which would eventually lead him to a place he’d spend the rest of his life wishing he’d never gone. Ben’s death had been plaguing his mind a lot lately.

  He felt worse by the day as he came increasingly to believe that Ben and his young family may have been murdered.

  Tim wasn’t one for conspiracy theories, but he had found himself watching the seemingly endless number of documentaries spawned by this century’s greatest mystery—that an A380 had vanished into thin air and then, five years later, reappeared as if nothing had ever happened.

  As he rose from his stool for the first time in a couple of hours, there was a loud knock on his front door. He glanced at the clock on the wall. 5.03pm. He wasn’t expecting anyone.

  Before he could begin to even turn in the direction of the hallway, there was another knock.

  Tim huffed and was about to shout out “Hold on,” but decided to storm down the hallway instead. If they couldn’t hear him coming, they must be damn deaf, he cursed to himself.

  Todd had been waiting patiently for close to 45 minutes. He’d opted to stand in the shadows, as if a ghost of the darkness, rather than survey his prey from the comfort of his Jeep. Too dangerous. He didn’t want to risk someone seeing him in or near his car and recording his registration or something.