“Hey there,” shouted Gordon May, running to catch up. “Prince, you bastard. Hold up. You almost killed me.” He was fifty, a fiery bantamweight with red hair and a complexion like mottled leather.
Ian didn’t break stride. “I could say the same.”
May laid a hand on Ian’s shoulder. “You passed on the inside. That’s against the rules. I’m going to file a complaint with the stewards.”
Ian stopped. “I had no choice,” he said calmly. “You kicked out twice. It was pass inside or collide. I think the stewards will see things my way.”
“Is that right?” said May. “Or else what? Not all your rivals crash and burn.”
“Excuse me?” Ian said.
“I’m talking about Titan. John Merriweather wouldn’t sell you his company if it was the last thing he did. Those machines were like his children. Merriweather was a genius. Not some one-hit wonder who cashes in, then spends the rest of his life on a shopping spree, taking credit for everyone else’s achievements. He was a visionary.”
“Yes,” said Ian. “He was. We’ll honor his legacy.”
“Now that you forced his heirs to sell.”
“I made them an offer. They accepted. I completed the deal out of respect for John. The company isn’t the same without him.”
“Maybe they were afraid their plane might go down, too.”
A crowd had gathered. Ian was careful with his words. “Be quiet, Gordon.”
“Crash and burn,” said May accusingly, enjoying his audience, the chance to make Ian squirm. “Without John there was no one left to oppose you.”
Ian grabbed a fistful of the pilot’s flight suit. He felt the rapt eyes on him, sensed their violent ardor. He could not walk away. Not after what May had said. “You’re out of line.”
“Is that what you said to John Merriweather when he refused to sell?”
A fit, ruddy-faced man wearing a tan suit broke through the bystanders and took hold of May’s shoulder. “That’s enough,” said Peter Briggs, Ian’s chief of security. “You have a problem, take it up with the stewards. Mr. Prince is otherwise occupied.”
Still May held his ground. “The race is on tape,” he said, jabbing a finger at Ian. “You can’t buy your way out of this one. No one cares about your money here. No senators, no congressmen to smooth your way.”
“Goodbye, Gordon.”
“Last race is next week. I’ll see you there. Crash and burn, buddy. Just you try something.”
Ian didn’t respond as May stalked off toward the control tower.
“Miserable prick,” said Peter Briggs.
“I need to get cleaned up.”
6
Mary Grant sat in her car, bathed in the gloom of the parking lot. She had signed all the paperwork and collected Joe’s belongings: his wallet, watch, belt, and tie clip. His suit had been cut off him by the paramedics, and it was hinted that she might not wish to see the ruined garments. The phone was government property. She had thanked Don Bennett and all the other agents from the Austin residency who’d come to the hospital. She had looked for a Sid, but none of the agents present had that name. She had cried and was done crying. And when Bennett asked if she’d like an escort home, or to have someone stay with her, she had declined his offer, politely but firmly.
Everything was copacetic.
The married couple’s code.
Mary took her phone from the dash tray and accessed her voice messages. She needed to hear Joe speak to her one last time. She needed to believe for one more minute that he was still alive. She recalled her daydreaming in the car earlier that afternoon. Dinner at Sullivan’s. A night on the town to celebrate their seventeenth anniversary.
Stop, she ordered herself. It was too easy to fall into the abyss.
She glanced at the screen. The first voice message listed belonged to Jessie and came from that afternoon at 1:55.
“Mom, I’m waiting by the fountain. You’re late. Where are you?”
Actually, she’d been on time. Jessie’s summer school class in computer programming at UT ended at two. The second message was from Carrie Kramer, her next-door neighbor, confirming that she’d be over at 6:30 to babysit. Several more followed. From friends, from the new school, from the doctor’s office.
But nothing from Joe.
Mary sat up straighter. Joe’s had been the last message she had received. It should stand at the top of the list. She felt a pang of anger as she accessed the deleted voice messages. How could she have been so careless?
Again there was no record of Joe’s message.
She popped back to the home screen and checked all recent calls. Joe’s number popped up at the top of the list. Call received at 4:03. Duration: 27 seconds. There it was.
Back to voicemail.
Nothing.
The message was gone.
Mary shifted in her seat, assiduously reviewing her actions. She’d left the phone in the car the entire time she was in the hospital. She’d listened to the message twice before that: once as she’d left home and a second time prior to running into the hospital.
Again she checked the call log. Again she confirmed that Joe had called, before she jumped back to the screens showing current voicemails and deleted voicemails, then back to the home screen.
No message.
Mary lowered her head, fighting a raw, physical urge to scream. It was impossible. The message couldn’t be gone. For it to be truly erased from her phone, she would have had to first delete it from the current messages, then delete all the previously deleted messages. She had done neither. So where was the message?
Dread took hold of her. Joe was gone. Forever. She’d never hear the last words he spoke to her again. Loss pooled inside her. Her breathing grew labored. The abyss beckoned. She dropped the phone onto the seat next to her and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Red-eyed. Frantic. Losing control. Queen Mary the Lionheart was nowhere in sight.
Someone rapped on the window, and Mary jumped in her seat.
“I’m sorry,” said Don Bennett, kneeling beside the car. “You okay?”
Mary wiped at her eyes before rolling down the window. “You surprised me.”
“I know it’s a tough time and I hate bothering you, but I was wondering if I might hear that message.”
“I don’t have it anymore,” said Mary. “It was here-I mean, it was on my phone. I listened to it twice earlier and now it’s gone.”
“Did you delete it?”
“No.”
“It might be in the deleted messages file. I do that all the time.”
Liar, thought Mary. “I checked,” she said. “It’s not there.”
Bennett pursed his lips, the handyman who just might have the right fix. “Do you think I could take a look at your phone? Maybe you missed it.”
“No,” said Mary. “I looked everywhere. It’s not there anymore. It’s not anywhere.”
Bennett thrust his hand through the open window. “Please.”
“No!” Mary recoiled and turned her body away from Bennett, clutching the phone against her body.
Bennett withdrew his hand. He remained on his haunches, face-to-face with her. “Mary, this is a serious matter. There’re going to be a lot of questions about what happened to Joe out there. I’d be grateful for anything that might shed light on it.”
“I’m not an idiot. I know how to use my phone. If I can’t find it, you can’t.”
Bennett nodded, then smiled easily. It was his patronizing, “I’m in the FBI and know better than you” smile. Joe had one, too, and it drove her crazy when he flashed it. “Maybe if you let us take the phone to our lab,” he said, “we can get a closer look. Often something you think is deleted isn’t actually permanently erased.”