Page 60 of The Last Flight

She dropped her bag on the seat and slid across from him. The red vinyl booths were filled with tourists taking selfies with their cell phones. In the parking lot outside, a tour bus unloaded and a crowd of people made their way toward the walking side of the bridge.

Nerves slipped through her, like long ribbons twirling and twisting into a tangle as she imagined leaving from there. Exiting the restaurant and climbing into an anonymous sedan and disappearing. Her fingers tapped the table, her leg jiggling beneath her. “Thanks,” she said. “But I’m not really interested in a meal and small talk, if that’s okay with you.”

Agent Castro nodded. “My supervisor denied the request for witness protection,” he said.

Eva felt the air rush out of her, the sounds around them growing sharper. The clatter of plates and cutlery, the steady drone of conversations. All of her plans dissolved and vanished, as if they’d never existed. “Why?” she managed to ask. “You told me yourself you’d been after Fish for years.”

Agent Castro took a packet of sugar from the small cup at the edge of their table and traced the edges of it with his fingers, unable to meet her eyes. “I happen to agree with you. But like I said, witness protection is expensive, and we don’t do it very often.”

“Whendoyou do it, then?”

He looked up at her, and she saw genuine regret in his eyes. “We use it mostly for big targets. Organized crime. Major networks. I know Fish feels like a big target to you. And he certainly is for me. I’ve been close to him more times than I care to admit. And every time, he slips away. My contact goes dark, and I’m back at square one.”

“All the more reason to make this happen,” she said, working hard to keep her voice low. To not let the desperation she felt break through.

“I can offer you twenty-four-hour protection at an undisclosed location. All the way through the trial. I promise you’ll be safe. If you have an attorney, now would be the time to call them.”

Eva sat with his words. Let them assemble into a picture. Her, alone in a hotel room, two guards at the door. An armed escort to and from the trial that would surely result in a not-guilty verdict. Or a mistrial. And then what? She’d be free to go back home? To unlock her front door and do what? Wherever she went, Fish’s people would find her. Dex would probably do the job himself. After a betrayal like this one, he wouldn’t rest until he’d found her.

When she was a child, the girls in the group home would go to Sister Bernadette for advice with a problem—a friendship gone bad, an unfair teacher, a foster home that hadn’t worked out. Eva never had, but she’d listened all the same, sliding herself along the edges of their conversations, absorbing whatever wisdom Sister Bernadette had to offer. She would often tell themThe only way out is through, that no matter the situation, one step would lead to the next, and the next one after that. And so Eva leaned into this new development. Wrapped her mind around it and got to work thinking through to the other side. She found it ironic that both Sister Bernadette and Dex offered her such similar advice.Play through.

“Then I guess we move forward and hope for the best,” she said. “What do you need?”

Castro tucked the sugar back into its cup as the server brought their food, the smell of the burger and fries turning her stomach sour. “Ideally, we’d like to put a wire on you and have you meet with Fish.”

“That’s impossible,” she said. “I’ve never met him. It would be a huge red flag if I asked to now.”

Castro’s eyes narrowed. “This whole deal goes away if you start lying to me.” Gone was the apologetic tone, the regret he felt at not being able to do more for her.

“I’m not lying to you,” she said. “That’s not how things work. I’ve been trying to find out more—how the drugs are moved, about Fish himself. But I don’t know much more than my small corner of it.”

Castro sat back in his seat, both hands flat on the table. Finally, he said, “We have proof, Eva. Photographs of the two of you together.”

Eva shook her head, confused. “That’s not possible,” she said. “I swear I’ve never met him.”

Castro reached into his coat for his phone and flipped through photos until he found what he was looking for. Then he held it up so she could see the screen.

It had been taken at Haas, the night she was supposed to meet Jeremy. She recognized the people around them, the sad accountant in his frayed sweatshirt at the end of the row. And there, in the middle of the frame, were Eva and Dex, their heads bent toward each other, deep in conversation. The quality was incredible—the shot must have been taken with a high-powered lens.

She shook her head again, unable to process what she was seeing. “That’s not Fish, that’s Dex.”

Castro pulled the phone back and stared at her, squinting as if he didn’t quite believe her. “I don’t know who Dex is. But that man is Felix Argyros. Fish.”

Claire

Sunday, February 27

I sprint up the stairs and through the kitchen, my shoes tracking Diet Coke into the living room, stuffing Eva’s sworn deposition and voice recorder into my bag. I don’t know what compelled me to take them, what instinct warned me that leaving them behind would be a mistake. My mind flashes back to the man on the porch, how close he stepped, the scent of cigarette smoke still tickling the back of my throat, and I know without a doubt these papers, this recorder, are what he’s after. Then I think of Eva’s cell phone, sitting on the kitchen table, Danielle’s message still on it. I scurry back to grab it, powering it off before shoving it into my pocket.

Outside a car drives by, the radio a faint thump as it passes, and I peek through the curtains, thinking about who might be out there, watching from the shadows. I have to force myself to open the door and step onto the porch, my instincts in disarray, unsure whether I risk more by leaving or staying. But in my mind, I see the basement drug lab, a notarized letter to a federal investigator, and a man who is most certainly not a DEA agent, leaning in too close, a silent promise that he’ll be back.

I cross the lawn quickly, keeping my head down as I walk toward campus, bracing myself for a voice or a hand on my shoulder to stop me. In the distance, a cat yowls, long and low, then rises into a scream that sounds almost human.

* * *

I find a small motor court motel on a busy street, about a mile from campus. My shoulders ache, my feet hurt, and I’m freezing. A light burns in the small office, revealing an older woman smoking a cigarette and staring at a television mounted on the wall. When I enter, she turns to face me, her eyes squinting through a cloud of smoke.

“I’d like a room please.”

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