Page 1 of Mile High Heist

1

OLIVIA

“Emily, are you listening to me?”

My head snapped up too late, forgetting that was my name now. I was 'Emily'. Twenty-one years old. Former head cheerleader. Addicted to matcha smoothies and fictional hockey players. Amateur crusader who once took down an international trafficking ring while rescuing her missing sister.

Emily and I had a lot in common.

“Sorry,” I said, forcing a smile. “Could you repeat that?”

The look Lucille gave me could curdle milk. She was a senior flight attendant and she despised me—that much was obvious. She was older, in her late fifties, with insincere smile lines and immaculate white-blonde hair. She reminded me of my childhood violin teacher, who’d rap the bow across my knuckles every time I messed up. Mistakes were unacceptable. Sloppiness was a crime punishable by death.

And I’d be trapped in a confined space with her for the next fourteen hours straight. Goodie.

Lucille gestured to my uniform with her blood-red talons. “I said you need to fix your scarf. We always knot on the left.” She touched her own silk red scarf, perfectly slotted against her throat.

I adjusted accordingly, wondering if it was too late to strangle myself with it. Lucille gave me another hawkish look, finding every blemish and flaw in my appearance. Was my eyeliner too winged? Was my lipstick the wrong shade? Were my teeth reduced to ground nubs?

Lucille didn’t give me an inch. “I will be in charge of your probationary evaluation,” she said, with an important lift of her chin. “That means I expect you to follow the rules. All of them.”

“Understood.”

Lucille pursed her mouth, her eyes narrowing as if searching for sass in my response. There was. Plenty of it. But I grew up with a mother who served criticism as a side dish with every meal. I knew how to swallow it. Smile through the bitterness.

“This is not your average flight,” she reminded me again, like I’d forgotten in the last thirty seconds since meeting her. “This is the largest passenger airliner in the world. That means we are selling an experience.”

So far, I wasn’t loving the experience.

First days were always hard, more so for me. Lucille assumed I was just like every other probationary flight attendant. She didn’t know about my panic-sweat this morning when I slipped into my uniform for the first time. She didn’t know about my constant rehearsals in front of the bathroom mirror.

You are Emily.

Emily.

Not Olivia.

And she definitely didn’t know that I had almost zero formal training or qualifications, and that I was a big giant imposter.

If she did, I wondered if she’d treat me any better. Probably not.

“You will shadow someone at all times,” she told me sternly. “You will not make any decisions without clearing it with me first. And you will maintain an impeccable standard. Do you also understand that?”

I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I just nodded.

Thankfully, Lucille became distracted by another lost lamb in the room—a latecomer, whose neck scarf was also two inches off center. With a predatory glint in her eyes, she marched across the staff lounge on the attack.

Sighing in relief, I plonked down in the chair closest to the window. For the hundredth time that morning, I searched the sky for signs of an impending storm. There wasn’t one forecast, but my luck was known to take a turn.

I resisted the urge to check my phone. That restraint lasted approximately seventeen seconds before I was digging it out of my suitcase.

No new messages.

A familiar hurt bloomed in my chest. No matter how many times I told myself to stop expecting it, I was always hopeful. Always pathetic. The anger that followed was like a salve, soothing the hurt into something more manageable.

I wasn’t this girl.

I didn’t obsess over unread messages or overanalyze the hidden meaning behind blunt one-word responses. I didn’t pretend to pocket dial the number in the vague hope he’d pick up.