Chapter 41 - The Passenger in Seat 14A
The Boeing 777 leveled off at thirty-four thousand feet, cutting cleanly through the deep indigo velvet of the Atlantic night.
Below, the endless dark ocean stretched toward the curvature of the earth; ahead lay the golden, tiled rooftops and warm sea breezes of Portugal.
I settled back into the wide leather seat of the business class cabin, sipping a glass of sparkling water, watching the digital map on the seatback screen track our steady progress toward Europe.
The nightmare was finished. Tori was locked behind steel bars, facing twenty years without parole. Caleb was raising his children with dignity and strength. The house on the hill was safe, secure, and scrubbed clean of deceit.
I opened my leather handbag to retrieve my reading glasses.
As I pulled them from the zippered interior compartment, my fingers brushed against a thick, heavy cream-colored envelope that I hadn't placed there.
It didn't have a postage stamp.
Written across the front, in sharp, vintage fountain pen ink that I recognized with a violent jolt to my heart, was Arthur’s distinct, elegant handwriting:
*Myrna — If you are reading this on an airplane, it means the lockbox was opened.*
My breath hitched in my throat. My hands began to tremble as I turned the envelope over.
Arthur had died four years ago. The lockbox had been buried under the oak beams for over a decade.
I broke the wax seal with my thumb and pulled out the single sheet of aged parchment inside.
*My beloved Myrna,* the letter read.
*If you found the ammunition canister, you know about Tori’s fraud. But what I could never bring myself to tell you—what I took to my grave to protect you from—is who Tori was working for.*
*She didn't find those shell companies on her own. She was hired by someone who has spent thirty years waiting for me to die, someone who believes I took something far more valuable than money from them in 1988.*
*Look at the passenger manifest for your flight, Myrna.*
*He didn't want the house. He wanted you out of the country.*
My heart stopped.
May you like
I slowly, terrifyingly raised my eyes from the parchment and looked down the dimly lit aisle of the cabin.
In Seat 14A, three rows ahead of me, a man in a dark charcoal suit slowly turned his head toward the aisle, met my gaze through the dim cabin light, and smiled.
