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GILLIAN: We need to end this. Now. I’m sorry...
HE DIDN’T RESPOND.
And entire hour passed before I stopped staring at the screen and realized he wasn’t going to. Figuring silence was his easy way of accepting things, I opened my laptop once more and opened up a few new tabs.
Since I’d managed to go several weeks without giving in to my curiosity about Jake’s family, and we were now practically over, I had to know what he meant by Evan being his brother. Why he said it in a way that looked as if he hated to admit the fact.
I typed in “Evan Pearson” in one tab and “Elite Airways CEO Nathaniel Pearson” in another.
I clicked on the best picture of Nathaniel and enlarged it, raising my eyebrow as I noticed the similarities between him and his son, Evan. Then I pulled up a picture of Jake.
At first glance, there wasn’t much to compare—Nathaniel’s features were far softer and his hair in his younger years was a dark brown that complemented his full mustache. But his eyes—those bright blue and stunning irises were damn near identical to Jake’s.
So he couldn’t have been adopted...
I stared at the two of them for at least five minutes, wondering how the hell something like this had gone undiscovered for so long, how some opportunistic reporter hadn’t already spun the story to the tabloids at least. I was certain ‘family-oriented CEO fathered a secret son’ would’ve fetched a high price.
I made a cup of cheap hotel coffee and started to read over the short biography on his father’s ‘About the CEO’ page. Everything was exactly how I’d remembered it years before, all standing still in its fairy tale glory:
AT SIX YEARS OLD, NATHANIEL Pearson was a young boy who only dreamed of being a pilot. Growing up poor, his parents were unable to afford lessons at the local glider school, so he learned how to build planes instead. After dropping out of high school at age fourteen, Pearson worked two jobs to help support his family, and eventually enrolled himself into flight school and became one of our country’s most decorated pilots.
After decades of service, he started Elite Airways, with the inaugural flight of a plane he helped design. However, the very first flight ended in fatality—killing his own wife, Sarah Irene, and severely injuring his only son, Evan.
Although Evan healed completely, Sarah succumbed to her injuries, forcing Nathaniel into years of depression. Amidst his heartache, Nathaniel vowed to make his airline the safest in the world and Elite has had no fatal crashes since.
He hopes to see this record continue.
I CLICKED ON EVAN’S profile, but his biography was far shorter, far less informational. It was simply a rehash of his university years and his love for flying. His picture was an older one of him in a navy blue pilot uniform.
Frustrated, I leaned back and played a YouTube video of him being interviewed several years ago. As the questions were asked and answered plainly, I started to think that whatever ties Jake had to him were maybe long lost, or that maybe he was the product of infidelity the family wanted to keep hidden. I read a few more articles and prepared to turn off the interview, but I heard Evan say something that caught me off guard.
“Yes,” he said. “I only spent a few years in the flight academy. I graduated with honors. I still have the uniform.” Then a faded, younger picture of him in his grey academy uniform appeared onscreen.
I paused the video and rewound it—replaying that small part again and again, watching as the interviewer moved to the next question with ease.
I searched through my email and pulled up the notes I’d written years ago, looking for the direct quote that never made it into the article, but one I knew I’d marked down: “I went to the flight academy, but I struggled to make it. I finished, not with honors, but the experience was worth it. I still have the uniform.”
Out of an old researching habit, I rewound the YouTube clip to his flight academy picture, zooming in on the faint grey digits etched in the side of the photo—his student ID. Then I searched for the number of The Flight Academy—dialing the listed extension the second it hit my screen.
“Admissions Department,” a male voice said after two rings. “How may I help you?”
“I’m—” I cleared my throat. “I’m doing some research for The Times. We’re doing a profile on a graduate of your academy.”
“Oh, great.” He sounded honored. “We love seeing those. What do you need from me?”
“I’m just fact-checking, want to be sure I have the right background for our person.”
“I got it.” The sound of keyboard keys clacking was in his background. “You can never be too sure these days, huh? One second...” More typing. “Per our policy, I can only confirm or deny based on a student ID number you give me first. Do you have that?”
