Page 16 of Always

I don’t need a night at the club.

I need to…

Fuck.

Iwantto go to Kansas.

Iwantto meet Skye’s parents. See where she grew up.

On pure instinct, I rise and walk to the cockpit.

“Yes, Mr. Black?” the copilot says.

“I need you to change the flight plan,” I say. “I want to go to Kansas City.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” he says. “We’re cleared for New York. It’ll take a few minutes.”

“How long?”

“Hard to say. I’ll let you know if there are any issues, but I don’t foresee any. I just need to get approval from air traffic control and then log the new flight path.”

“Great. Thank you.”

Back at my seat, I make the necessary arrangements. I’ll meet with Dimitri and Lizzie over Zoom tomorrow and be in New York for the meeting on Tuesday.

The flight is longer but uneventful, and two hours later, we land in Kansas City.

Once I deplane, I grab a taxi and ask the driver to take me to the hotel in downtown Liberty, Kansas, where I’ve made a reservation for the night.

“That’s an hour away, sir,” the driver says.

“I’m aware. I’ll be generous with my tip.”

“I appreciate that, sir.”

And we’re on the way.

…

The hotel is a small brick building—only four rooms available. My room has a queen-size bed. I’m used to a king-size, but I’ll make do. The style is early American, so different from the sophisticated decor at the hotels I normally frequent.

In the corners of the room stand lamps with tasseled shades, shedding dappled light on the weathered hardback tomes arranged on a mahogany bookshelf. The rich, worn carpet underfoot releases a faint scent of old tobacco mingled with a touch of lavender. Odd, but not unpleasant.

The bathroom is small and tiled in black and white. The claw-foot bathtub gives a quaint air to the space, in stark contrast to the modern stainless-steel fixtures. The sink has separate faucets for hot and cold water. The edges of the mirror above the sink are tarnished with age.

The view from the window is simple. Liberty, Kansas is hardly a booming city.

Outside, the streets are lined with turn-of-the-century buildings, their facades a quilt of chipped paint and age-old brick. So different from the sleek glass skyscrapers I’m used to in Boston and New York. The town square features an ornate park with a rusted wrought-iron gazebo at its center, surrounded by a smattering of trees in varying stages of bloom.

The bed creaks under my weight as I settle onto it, but it’s surprisingly comfortable. I take out my cell phone. I have the number for Skye’s parents, Steve and Margaret Manning. They live on the outskirts of town on a small corn farm.

Is it too early to call them?

Maybe they’re at church. Are they churchgoers? So much I don’t know.

Skye doesn’t talk about her family, about her past. That never struck me as overly unusual as I don’t talk about my childhood, either.

On the off chance that the Mannings are at church, I choose to call later. Sometime this afternoon. In the meantime, I fire up the laptop to check emails.

---