“Sorry, ma’am. That line has to stay free. No personal calls.”
She sighed. “Here. You can use my phone.” She walked over to a plastic bin at the end of guards’ table. I saw that it was filled with electronics, mostly smartphones, but a few other devices as well—mp3 players, pedometers, portable battery chargers. Shaunessy rummaged around in the bin for a while before surfacing with a Nexus in a hot pink skin.
“You just leave your phone in a bin?” I said.
“They’re not allowed in the building, and nobody’s going to leave them in their car in this weather,” she said.
“Aren’t you afraid it’ll get stolen?”
She raised an eyebrow, and her mouth quirked slightly in an amused smile. She held out the phone.
I took it, noticing that the pink skin had a cute cat design on it. I thumbed it on and dialed the new number my brother had given me. Apparently his phone had ended up in the river, and he’d been forced to buy a temporary replacement. “Paul,” I said when he answered. “It’s Neil.”
“I was wondering,” he said. His voice sounded scratchy, like he had a cold. “Where are you calling from? This isn’t your number.”
“My car broke down,” I said. “I’m still at the…” I trailed off and glanced at the implacable face of one of the MPs, not sure if I was supposed to say where I was. “I’m going to have to call a tow truck and a taxi, and I’ll have the taxi pull around and get you, too. It might just be a little while.” Actually, I was pretty sure I didn’t have enough money for a taxi, and I wasn’t sure they would let one through the gate anyway.
“Look, forget about that,” Shaunessy said. “I’ll give you a ride.”
“What?” I put my hand over the phone. “You don’t have to do that. My brother’s at the airport, and I have to—”
“He’s at BWI? And where are you going after that?”
“My father’s house in Glen Burnie.”
She waved her hand. “That’s a ten minute drive. Tell your brother we’ll pick him up, and I’ll drop you both off.”
“You’re sure?”
“Don’t worry about it. I can spare half an hour.”
Paul had been talking at the same time, but I’d missed most of it. “Stay where you are,” I said. “We’ll be there in five minutes.”
Shaunessy drove a black Infiniti, only a few years old and still looking factory new on the inside. I thought of the landfill of fast food wrappers that was the back of my Nissan, and I was glad it wasn’t me giving her a ride.
“So, no family, then?” I said.
She didn’t wear a ring, and I assumed her willingness to give a ride to a near stranger meant she wasn’t in a hurry to get home to anyone.
“A father, three brothers,” she said. “No husband or kids, if that’s what you mean.”
“My sister just had a baby girl,” I said. “They named her Ash.”
“Ash?”
“Yeah. Not Ashley or Ashlynn or anything. Just Ash.”
“That’s pretty,” Shaunessy said.
“I think it’s a little weird,” I said. “But I’m pretty pleased at being an uncle.”
She didn’t respond. We rode in silence for a bit. A sign read “Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport” and pointed the way toward Arrivals. Shaunessy turned into the right lane and followed the arrow.
“How about your name?” I said. “I’ve never heard it before.”
She angled her head away from the road long enough to raise an eyebrow at me. I was beginning to recognize that as one of her favorite facial expressions.
“Seriously,” I said. “Where’s it come from? Your mother’s maiden name?”
“The bottle of stout my parents were drinking at the time,” she said, her voice flat.
I barked a laugh. “You’re kidding.”
She shook her head. “Wish I were. That’s the whole story. Though the name of the stout is spelled with an extra ‘gh’ in the middle.”
“Well, I think it’s really beautiful.”
She grunted noncommittally.
“Are you really Irish?”
“Sort of,” she said. “Both of my parents were born and raised there, but they moved to Virginia when I was five.”
She turned again, following another sign toward Arrivals.
“Thanks for doing this,” I said. “My brother had a harrowing time in Brazil, and I’m glad not to keep him waiting.”
That caught her attention more than anything else I’d said so far. “He was in Brazil?”
“Yeah. Did you see the news about the group of tourists that were gunned down on a boat? That was my brother. He was there. He was one of the survivors.”
“Did he get a good look at his attackers?”
She was oddly engaged now, and her question took me aback. “I don’t think so,” I said. “He hasn’t said a lot, though I know he talked to the police down there.”
“I’d like to talk to him.”
Her interest seemed strange to me, but I just shrugged. “You’ll get your chance.”
She pulled into the pick-up zone. “Which airline?”
“American. There he is; I see him.”
She stopped the car, and I climbed out and waved until Paul saw me and headed in our direction. Shaunessy got out and opened the trunk for his suitcases.
I thought my brother might look tanned from his Amazon jungle expedition, or at least a bit more rugged, but he looked as pale as if he had spent the month in an office under fluorescent lights. I supposed not all that much light filtered down to the rainforest floor, so maybe it wasn’t all that surprising. He studied mushrooms, after all. They weren’t known for growing in places with a lot of sunlight.
I gave him a brief embrace. “Back from the wilds of the Amazon,” I said. “Welcome to the frigid North.”
He started to respond but was prevented by a coughing fit that took him a few moments to clear. “It’s good to be back,” he finally managed.
“Whoa,” I said. “What tropical disease did you pick up?”
“It’s nothing. A cold.”
I introduced him to Shaunessy. “Shaunessy, this is my brother, Paul. Paul, this is…” I hesitated, wondering what to call her. My friend? My interviewer? “…Shaunessy,” I finished lamely. “She was kind enough to give me a ride.”
Paul didn’t respond. He seemed frozen in the moment of shaking her hand, holding on for longer than was polite. Did he recognize her? Shaunessy’s expression was alarmed. Paul’s face was pale, paler even than I had realized at first. “Paul, are you okay?” I asked.
He coughed again, and blood erupted from his mouth, spraying Shaunessy and spattering the pavement. His eyes unfocused, and he started to tip. Shaunessy gave a little shriek as his hand pulled out of her grasp. “Paul!” I shouted. I tried to catch him, but he was too big, and he was sliding away from me. Making no move to protect himself, Paul collapsed, falling backward over his suitcase and knocking his head against the street with an audible crack.
CHAPTER 4
I sat in the waiting room of the Baltimore Washington Medical Center, wondering how long it would take before they would tell me anything. The hospital vending machines accepted my credit card, and I loaded up on peanuts, barbeque-flavored potato chips, and Snickers bars, the first food I’d eaten all day. Outside, it started to snow.
As soon as Paul collapsed, Shaunessy had dialed 911, and an ambulance appeared in an impressive five minutes. Paul had regained consciousness by then, and complained loudly that he was fine while the EMTs strapped him to a stretcher and loaded him into the back of the ambulance. Another EMT asked me questions. I told him everything I knew about where Paul had been and what he might have come into contact with, but it wasn’t much.