The plane was about to land.
Diana gripped the sides of her seat and braced herself, wincing as the wheels struck the wet tarmac. The engines and the brakes screamed. Jack was out of his seat the moment they stopped beside Terminal Four.
The captain alighted from the cockpit, his smile fading when he saw Jack standing in the middle of the aisle, a finger to his lips, legal pad in hand. The man looked past Jack and toward Diana, who also was standing, her face as pale and as watchful as a ghost. “What’s the matter?” he asked, unsure how to read the situation. “Was the trip that bad?”
Jack’s face darkened.
“No,” he said. “The trip was fine-it was the weather that was a little scary. At one point, I think Diana wasn’t going to make it.”
Before the man could speak, Jack approached him, handed him the legal pad and motioned for him to read it. The man’s brow furrowed, he moved to speak, but Jack shook his head firmly and pointed to the pad of paper.
The captain read. When he was finished, he lifted his eyes to Jack’s. On his face was a look of cold understanding. “We’ll be on the ground for about thirty minutes,” he said. “Meantime, if either of you wants to go inside the terminal and browse around, there’s plenty of time.”
“No,” Diana said. “We’ll stay here. Thank for getting us here in one piece.”
The man managed what might have been a smile under different circumstances and removed his cap. He tossed it to Jack. “No problem,” he said. “But if you two would excuse me, I have to go inside. I promised my daughter a souvenir from the trip.”
And he started to remove his flight uniform.
Five minutes later, Jack Douglas was wearing the pilot’s charcoal-gray uniform and his oversized trench coat. He left the plane and hurried down the Lear’s slick, narrow steps, his head bowed as he moved through the wind and the driving rain.
Diana sat at a window and watched him go, not looking away until he had reached the glowing terminal and slipped behind one of its lighted doors. She knew they were being watched, could sense it just as she had sensed Jack’s fear before he left. Whether they were being watched by a member of the ground crew or by someone looking down at them from Terminal Four’s great expanse of windows, she couldn’t be sure.
She turned away from the window.
The pilot had removed his carry-on bag from a small closet and was quickly changing into a pare of khaki pants, a white cotton shirt and a blue baseball cap. He didn’t look at Diana as he dressed, but instead looked past her and watched his co-pilot, the young man who was standing at the Lear’s open door, squinting in the damp breeze, motioning to a member of the ground crew.
The man bounded up the wet steps, his bright yellow slicker shining, his face flushed and wet and smiling. “What’s up, mate?” he asked, shaking the co-pilot’s hand. “Damn good to see you. How’s your wife-still cheating on you?”
The co-pilot laughed and led the man inside, moving him away from the open door and handing him the yellow legal pad. Diana watched him read. The co-pilot said, “You sorry bastard, it’s your wife who cheats. When are you going to stop lying to yourself and admit it?”
The man finished reading. The humor left his face and he looked down the aisle toward the pilot, who had closed his suitcase and was waiting at the rear of the plane, where there were no windows.
“I’ve got the happiest lass in London,” he said. “She’d never cheat on me.”
And he removed his yellow slicker.
The rain was beating against the Lear when the pilot left Diana and his crew behind. He hurried down the steps and crossed the tarmac, the baseball cap shielding his lowered face, the rain and the wind pressing hard against his bright raincoat.
He had an impulse to glance up the terminal’s glowing windows, but stilled it and instead entered the building. He darted up a flight of stairs, opened a door and turned right, cutting through the streams of people hurrying to make their connections. He checked for inconsistencies in the crowd. If he was being followed, they were doing a damn good job of concealing it.
He went to the men’s room he and Jack agreed upon.
“Hurry,” Jack said, when the man stepped inside. “I’ve got twenty minutes to get my ass on that plane. Move!”
The washroom was large and clean and empty. They entered the last two stalls and started undressing.
“Did anyone follow you?” Jack asked.
The pilot tossed his clothes over the stall partition. “No,” he said. “No one followed me.” He paused to grasp the uniform Jack slipped under the gray metal wall and said, “Before you get on that plane, you should call Redman.”
“Can’t,” Jack said. “His phone might be bugged.”
“Then call ahead to the police. You won’t be there for another seven hours. Ryan might have done something by then.”
Jack left the stall and went to the full-length mirror. The clothes were loose, but not too loose. The baseball cap concealed his sandy hair.
“Forget it,” he said. “Louis Ryan probably owns the police.”
The pilot stepped out of the stall and stood beside Jack. Their eyes met. “Besides,” Jack said, “by the time we arrive, Ryan will be at the opening of his new hotel. The event will just be getting underway. We know he’s planned something significant, but it won’t happen at that party.”
“I disagree. That’s exactly when he’d plan it.”
“I don’t think so,” Jack said. “I’ve got a hunch.”
He moved toward the door, but stopped to shoot the pilot a look. “Buy your daughter a gift. They’ll be watching.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
As soon as Elizabeth laid eyes on him, she knew that something else was wrong, knew it had to do with the envelope he just received by messenger. It was not a familiar look, that brief glimpse of horror she saw in his eyes, but she recognized it just the same.
She closed the door behind her and stood there, not far from him or his desk, watching his features slowly return to normal as he folded the letter in half and tucked it in his jacket pocket. For a moment, he was unmoving, his gaze fixed on the photo of Leana that was on his desk. Then he took a breath and looked up at his wife. The years he had never shown were suddenly there on his face.
Elizabeth took a step forward, out of the shadows and into the light. “What is it?” she asked. “Is it about Celina?”
George didn’t answer. With an effort, he rose from his seat and crossed to the bar. He chose a gold-rimmed highball glass and poured himself a glass of Scotch. He drank.
Watching George, sensing his fear almost as surely as she sensed this sudden tension, Elizabeth felt inept, unable to help him.
She stepped beside him.
George put the empty glass down onto the bar and poured himself another drink. It seemed that forever passed before he finally spoke. “No,” he said. “This isn’t about Celina.”
“Then what’s it about?”
“I can’t tell you,” he said. “At least not now. So, please don’t push me on this. I have to leave.”
Elizabeth watched him walk away from her.
Across the room, through the long stretches of darkness and silence, was the dim glass of an enormous, 18th-century beveled mirror. George hesitated before it and his back stiffened. Framed in gold and heavy with age, his pale face loomed in the night, glowing like some odd, faraway moon. He stared at himself, and there was the sense that he didn’t recognize the person staring back.
Elizabeth went to him.
She put her arms around him and held him. She was eager to know where he was going, but she trusted him enough not to ask and instead stood there, holding him, feeling his body relax slightly against hers.
“I have to go,” he said.