Page 20 of Dearly Departed

I can’t see Raymond Harris with my head through the exit, but I can hear him breathing. It’s a wet, labored sound. I pull one leg out and get it onto the wing.

His footsteps get closer, thudding on the floor of the plane.

If the whole thing tips over because of this asshole, I’ll kill him.

My bag is still stuck, but I can’t leave it. I get it free of the panel with a wrench to my shoulder that I’ll probably pay for later and throw it out onto the wing. It slides off, and Catherine gasps.

“Jacob?”

My blood pressure is so high that a needle could explode my skull, but I heave myself out onto the wing.

Fingers lock around my ankle.

I look down into a face that’s barely a face. It’s mostly blood and two narrow eyes, glowing like a ghost’s.

“Let go,” I snap at him, sounding like a righteously indignant prick, and kick at Raymond Harris’s face.

Then I hurl myself onto the wing.

There’s no time to readjust. Like my luggage before me, I slide off the edge and plummet toward my wife and the ground below.

7

CATHERINE

Jacob tumbles off the plane’s wing, and for a split second, all I can think is catch him.

I’ve taken a step in that direction when I realize there’s no way I can catch him in my arms, and if he lands on top of me while I’m just standing here, I’ll die. Or I’ll be crushed. I’ll be hurt.

I leap out of the way at the last second.

Jacob crashes to the ground at my feet with a shocked grunt.

“Jacob!” I get down on one knee next to him and put my hand to his face. “You’re not okay!”

“No,” he wheezes. The wind got knocked out of him. He tries to roll toward me and winces. “Fuck.”

“Can you sit up if I help you? I’m going to help you. Oh my God.”

Jacob doesn’t speak, but he doesn’t push me away when I put my arm around him. He seems heavier than usual—heavier than he feels when we’re alone in the bedroom—and stiff.

“Is anything broken?”

“Catherine—”

There’s a weird squeaking sound from up on the wing along with several grunts and a frustrated growl. Something bangs. I think it might be someone stomping their foot onto the wing.

Goosebumps prickle all over me, shooting higher than my nape and down to the base of my spine. My arms tense up. My ribs go cold. The air is warm and humid, like it recently rained or might rain soon, but I’m breathing in icy London air.

That’s a person. That’s a person climbing out onto the wing.

A shape pokes over the side. If I could scream, I would, because my mind chooses that moment to remember the man at the window in vivid detail. His face, tilted sideways. His unnatural stillness. His arm hanging down after I thought he was alone.

And that makes me angry.

That makes me furious.

I don’t have any choice this time. I can’t hide behind a locked door. If Raymond Harris is coming for us, then he’s coming, and I want nothing to do with this.