That was all I needed to hear. I started running toward the checkpoint. “Thanks,” I threw over my shoulder.
Behind me, I heard Avery’s voice raised in disbelief. “What? You’re letting her go?”
As I turned in to the business-class security screening aisle, I caught a glimpse of Avery being walked out of the terminal by the two officers.
It took me about ten minutes of running—all the time looking over my shoulder—to get to the gate.
I barely made it; I was the last passenger to board the flight to Las Vegas.
I took my aisle seat on the first row, still breathless, while a male flight attendant put my spinner in the overhead compartment. Another attendant locked the aircraft door, then pressed some buttons on a display above a folded jump seat.
And I breathed, relieved and yet shuddering under the jet of air from the vents above my head.
“Perhaps I could pour you a glass of champagne, ma’am?” the flight attendant offered. “We have a couple more minutes until takeoff.” He opened a storage bin and returned with a small blue fleece blanket. “In case you need it,” he whispered, setting it swiftly on the empty seat next to me.
I thanked him as I took the glass of champagne from his hands with a grateful smile.Here’s to Avery Sinclair finding someone else to threaten,I thought, raising my glass in a silent toast to myself.May I never hear the nameSinclairagain.As I dipped my lips to the sparkling liquid, the Jetway started whirring and withdrew. The aircraft set itself in motion, pushing back from the gate. My eyes shifted toward the window, where the sun pierced the sky right above the terminal.
I wondered what had happened to incense Avery so much as to chase me through the airport. And how he’d figured out where I was.
The Seattle business had ended badly; I knew that. It was messy. Andmessymeantdangerous.
I finished my champagne and wrapped the soft blanket around my shoulders. When I rested my head against the seat, I drifted off into thoughts of the past and plans for the future as the plane took off.
One more and that’s it. Only one more.
I promise.
3
Home
A familiar chime marked our arrival at the gate. The sound unleashed a rising rumpus of seat belts being unfastened, luggage being handled, and phones being restored to full service with a cacophony of alerts and rings.
The flight attendant retrieved my suitcase from the overhead bin and set it down gently, extending its handle. “There you go, ma’am,” he said in a quiet, almost intimate voice. “Welcome to Las Vegas.” He had a nice smile that touched his hazel eyes.
“Thank you,” I said, walking past him and the two other crew members lined up by the door to greet deplaning passengers. I passed a group of four slot machines next to the gate service desk and smiled to myself. Only in Vegas.
I kept my pace brisk until I reached a mobile phone store and walked in. A few minutes later, I walked out with a new phone in my pocket, loaded with prepaid minutes and a Las Vegas area code.
On my way to the terminal exit, I stopped at a restroom. After locking the stall door, I pulled out my old phone, powered off since I’d left Seattle, and took it apart. The old SIM card, wrapped in a wad of toilet paper, got flushed. The phone got crushed under the heel of my boot,then wrapped in tissue paper and slipped into the sanitary-products disposal bin. No one goes through that kind of trash.
I should’ve done all that in Seattle, but the Avery incident hadn’t left me enough time.
I’d almost reached the baggage claim area when I noticed two uniformed officers walking briskly toward me, about forty feet away. One of them looked in my direction, talking into the radio clipped onto his epaulet. They both sped up.
My heart started beating fast, and I nearly tripped on my spinner, but I recovered and continued walking straight toward them, thinking through my options. Had that son of a bitch Avery Sinclair told the Seattle cops a little too much? I had no way of knowing, but I knew I didn’t want to walk past them, just in case they had a picture of me on a BOLO. Instead, when I was about twenty feet away, I veered right and casually took a seat. I pulled my new phone out of my pocket, crossed my legs, and started configuring it. As the two cops approached, I held my breath, willing myself steady and keeping my head lowered.
“—white female, twenty-five to thirty, five seven, a buck-twenty or so,” one of the cops was saying to the other, giving a description dangerously close to my appearance.
I held my breath.
“Red hair, thick-rimmed glasses,” the cop continued.
I breathed. It wasn’t me they were looking for.
They walked right past. The sense of relief flushing through me felt like a crashing wave, overwhelming and dizzying.
I hated feeling soafraid.Vulnerable. Hunted, even if only by the monsters lurking in the corners of my overactive mind. It had to stop. Vegas had to be the last time I did this.
