Exit Row (11 page)

F
IONA TRIED
M
AGGIE
several times and let the phone keep ringing in case she was busy with Derek. Maybe she was driving him to one of his programs. But there was never any answer and no machine picked up.

As soon as she hung up, “La Marseillaise” began and she answered quickly without looking. It could be Maggie just reaching the phone, it could be Rosa saying she had found the list. It could be . . . But it was Will Dunlea.

“Good morning, Fiona,” he said cheerfully. “Good day sightseeing yesterday?”

“Yes.” Was it time to confront him? “I went to two of the museums. Very interesting.”

“Well, good. The Folk Art Museum is spectacular. I just wanted to wish you a safe trip this morning.” His voice was warm and she felt herself responding just a little.

“Well, I'm not going back quite yet. My friends came in last night. We thought we'd drive up and take a look at the Pueblo.”

“Los Alamos is interesting too. I'm afraid I can't offer you another voucher, though, until we open again on Monday.”

“You're closed today?”

“We close on Fridays in the summer. A lot of businesses around here do.”

“Even in tourist season?”

“Well, not restaurants or hotels. And we still take reservations and handle cancellations by phone or on the website. So we don't shut down completely. But it's summer vacation for our employees too.”

Fiona cast around frantically for a way to ask him Priss's last name. “Listen, I really liked your—”

But he cut her off. “I'm leaving for the mountains in a minute myself. But I'll keep in touch, in case you have any free time . . . ” He clicked off.

She sat there stunned on the side of her unmade bed.
Concentrate. Focus.

Picking up her laptop, she went to the University of Cincinnati website. There was no one named Sealand on the faculty, but she found a Dr. Martin Seelander in the anthropology department. Close enough? Several more clicks and she had his home phone from whitepages.com.

What had people done before the Internet?

She pressed in the number quickly, and a woman answered.

“Mrs. Seelander?”
Why aren't you out in New Mexico searching for your husband?

“Speaking.” She sounded older than Fiona had expected, cheerful and self-possessed.

“I'm—uh, calling from Santa Fe. Is Dr. Seelander available?”

“Is this a work call? It doesn't matter, I'll put him on.”

“He's
there
?”

“The dig ended last weekend.” She laughed at Fiona's surprise. “He's working from home, getting over a fall. I'll get him to pick up.”

A pause, then, “Hello?” The voice was open, Midwestern, the kind of voice Fiona had heard all her life.

“Dr. Sealand—Seelander, my name is Fiona Reina. I'm looking for people who were on the Day Star shuttle last Sunday.”

He chuckled. “Well, I started out Sunday. A month of scrambling around the rocks with no trouble, then I go and tumble down a flight of boarding steps. Or so they tell me.”

The phone was wet under her fingers. “What do you mean?”

“Evidently I lost consciousness for a while and banged up my ankle real good. They kept me overnight to check me out, then sent me on home. I'm fine if I keep my ankle elevated.”

She made herself breathe out. “But you remember the shuttle flight from Taos?”

“Remember it? What about it?”

“Nothing about any—complications?”

He laughed again. “Well, there was a rather vivid movie about a crash. I was surprised, I thought airlines kept away from movies like that. On the other hand, on a transatlantic flight once I saw one about a computer hack threatening to blow up the world. So I guess you're no longer so sensitive, am I right? Although—”

“But you don't think you were
in
a crash?” she asked, interrupting. Didn't he know they never showed movies on short hops?

“In a crash? How could I be? Didn't you say you were from the airline? Don't worry, I won't sue.”

“No, I didn't say. But thanks.” She hung up.

Did that mean there hadn't been a terrorist takeover? Or had they just released him after swearing him to secrecy? More troubling, why was he associating a crash with the flight?

She couldn't make sense of any of it. But there was an answer here somewhere—there had to be.

S
HE FOUND
D
OMINICK
waiting for her in a wicker rocker on the front porch.

“They're closed. Day Star offices are closed. Will Dunlea just called me; he thought I was leaving today. But then he said they closed Fridays in the summer. Don't you think that's suspicious?”

Dominick tilted his head. “No.”

“No?”

“Lots of businesses at home do that. I can't, of course; I'm on call twenty-four-seven in the summer. Which reminds me, I have to get home by Sunday.”

“It's already Friday.”

“I know. But once Eve confirms that she has Coral . . . ”

“Coral's name was on the flight roster,” Fiona said gently.

“That just means she was supposed to be flying. Not that she actually did.”

The air had a crisp, unspoiled smell. “Okay, but let me tell you about Dr. Seelander.” She detailed the conversation as exactly as she could remember it. “But don't you think it's funny about Dr. Seelander thinking he was watching a movie?”

“Maybe he was.”

Keep calm.
“It couldn't be. They don't show movies on short flights like that.”

“Fiona
.
” He looked up at her as if gauging how upset she was getting. “I'm no Einstein, but so far all you've done is find people who were on the flight and are okay.”

“With injuries,” she said stubbornly.

“You don't know that. Not that man at MacArthur Airport.”

“Him? I think he was a plant. I think he was sent by Day Star to tell me that.”

Dominick shook his head. Now he was openly laughing at her. “And how did he know to tell
you
?”

“Because I was asking! It's not rocket science. I was obviously waiting for someone who hadn't come. Anyway,” she said, smiling back at him unwillingly, “let's go to Taos. I need to see about those guys from the Pueblo.”

“And what about that text from your boyfriend?”

“The one Wednesday night? I think it was a fake.”

“Fiona.” He stood up then and put his hand on her upper arm. “You're—what does my wife call it?—you're in denial.”

She pulled away. “I'm in denial?
You're
in denial.” What an aggravating man.

“Okay, but just tell me one thing. How many survivors will it take to convince you?”

“All of them.”

“Good luck with that.”

And then, inexplicably, they started to laugh. He reached out and put his arm around her shoulder.

A
S SHE STOOD
beside the Explorer, Rosa hesitated. She was registered as one of the drivers, but she didn't like trying to maneuver anything this large, especially on unfamiliar roads. No, she would take a cab. Susan lived in a gated community overlooking the hills, so the house wouldn't be hard for a driver to find.

Since she had not seen any taxis prowling the streets, Rosa walked around to the Turquoise Trail Inn reception desk. “I'd like a cab,” she told the young woman, a Mia Farrow waif with blonde bangs and a wistful face. “I need one that will wait for me and bring me back.”

The girl's green eyes danced. “Good luck with
that.
We only have one taxi company, and people make a lot of complaints about them online. They don't show up on time, they don't know where they're going, and they charge too much.”

Rosa sighed. “That bad?”

“That bad.”

“I guess I'll just have to drive.”

“You have a car?”

“A rental car. But I don't really know the area.”

“You have a GPS?”

“Yes.”

“There you go.” The young woman turned away and picked up a ringing phone.

There had been a time when this would not have been a concern. When had she gotten so cautious? It must be this situation that was putting her on edge: last-minute flights and the drive up from Albuquerque. Fiona's hysterical phone call about the missing passenger list. Rosa supposed Fiona and Dominick had gone to the Day Star offices, but she didn't want to wait to find out what they'd learned.

She went back to the parking lot and unlocked the Explorer. Fastening her seatbelt and looking over the controls, Rosa programmed 454 Margarita Way into the GPS. As soon as she turned onto Washington Avenue, her confidence flooded back. The cheerful English butler's voice that had guided them to Santa Fe—Greg had called him “Jeeves” and enjoyed mimicking him—took over. Rosa was soon above the city.

As she drove, she thought about what could have happened to Susan. She lived by herself; what if early Sunday morning, showering and getting ready, she had slipped and fallen? She could be lying unconscious on her bathroom floor! Or she could have locked herself in the bathroom by accident.

Rosa had heard stories about people who had done that, people who had been unable to break down a jammed bathroom door. The worst story had been about a woman who had been scheduled to leave for Europe the day she locked herself in. She missed her flight and was found starved to death three weeks later.

After hearing that, Rosa never closed her bathroom door all the way. It was something Susan might not have known about.

What if Susan had been in her house all this time? People could survive for a while, but it had been nearly a week.

The drive only took twenty minutes. There was no one in the wooden gatehouse and no impediment to driving in, so Rosa followed Jeeves's instructions to turn right. She parked the Explorer and moved up the path, past a monkey-puzzle tree set in white stone chunks. A black enameled door was firmly closed and did not yield when Rosa twisted the knob. She tried to look in the metal casement windows, but the glare of the sun was too strong.

She banged on the door more loudly.
Susan, can you hear me? Give a sign!
But if she were trapped or unconscious . . .

Did people leave keys with their neighbors out here? Edging across the grit, she approached an identical stucco house next door. As she moved closer, she thought she heard the smooth voice of a radio commentator coming from the backyard.

“Hello?” she called, moving to the side with the metal gate. “Hello?”

After a moment, a woman close to her own age came around the side of the house. Rosa was glad to see her white hair and the expensive, unfashionable light blue Bermuda shorts.
My kind of people
, Rosa thought
.

The woman smiled graciously.

“Hello, I'm Rosa Cooper, Susan Allmayer's editor.” She gave a quick nod toward the house.

“But what are you doing here? She told me she was going to stay with you in New York. I
think
I got the name right.”

“Yes, you did. But she never got there.”

“She never got to New York?” The woman unlatched the gate quickly and brought Rosa to a small patio with a white iron table and chairs. A man, also in his seventies, was sitting with a cup in one hand, reading the newspaper.

“Frank, this is Rosa Cooper, Susan's editor. Susan never got there!” She turned to Rosa. “I bet you'd like some coffee.”

“I'd kill for coffee.”

Frank laughed and pulled out a seat at the table for her. “What did Alice mean about Susan?”

Rosa waited until Alice was back. “I went to the airport to meet her plane Sunday, but she wasn't on it. I haven't heard a word since, and I'm really worried!”

“Of course you are,” Alice said warmly. “She's such a wonderful person. But we haven't seen her since Sunday either.”

Rosa took a long sip of coffee. It was strong and black.

“I know she never would have missed
Good Morning America.
We watched, but she wasn't on,” Alice said.

“Could it have something to do with her book?” Frank asked. “Someone she may have antagonized?”

“I never thought of anything like that,” Rosa admitted. “She's interviewed a lot of criminals, but most of them are already in jail.”

“Maybe she had a relapse,” Alice said. “She got to the airport and didn't feel well enough to fly after all.”

“A relapse of what?” Susan hadn't mentioned having the flu.

“You know. Her health issues.” Alice gave her an urgent, appealing look, as if she did not want to have to talk about them.

“What health issues do you mean?”

Alice sighed. “Sue has stage-four liver cancer. She's fighting it, but I know it's spread. She's in so much pain, I don't know how she stands it. Some mornings she can't even get out of bed.”

“Are you kidding? She never told me! Why didn't she tell me?” Was she the kind of person people didn't confide in?

“She said she didn't want it to interfere with publicizing her book.”

Now it was more important than ever to get in the house. “Do you have a key?”

“Of course. We water the plants and check if there's anything suspicious. Not that there ever is.” She pushed up from the table and disappeared, but was back immediately.

She held out a key threaded with a blue ribbon. “Do you want Frank to come with you?”

“Yes, please.” Now besides locked bathroom doors, there was the real worry that Susan might have collapsed.

They passed between the two yards, and Frank unlocked the door for Rosa.

When Susan had turned fifty four years ago and mentioned moving into this community, Rosa was skeptical. “Why would you want to shut yourself off with a lot of old people?”

“It's not that way. You wouldn't understand, but I'm a woman by myself. I need good neighbors and my mod cons.”

And if everyone was as nice as Alice and Frank, Rosa could understand the appeal.

The living room was dim and quiet, with nothing out of place. It might have been in a model home.

Susan's kitchen was bright from the skylights set into the roof. Strings of chiles, garlic, and dried flowers were everywhere. A bay-leaf wreath hung above the sink, and invitations and
New Yorker
cartoons were magnetized to the refrigerator. Rosa guessed that the shelves inside would be tidy and nearly bare except perhaps for jars of imported mustard and a bottle of white wine. She thought of her own refrigerator crammed with odd condiments and restaurant meal leftovers that didn't seem as appealing the next day.

The only room in any disarray was the office off the master bedroom, and that was because it was piled with books and file folders. On the desk was a state-of-the-art computer system and a laser printer. Next to it was the one-volume edition of the
Oxford English Dictionary
with its magnifying glass dome sitting on top. Susan claimed that the online dictionaries were for the verbally challenged.

Rosa was suddenly anxious to check the bathroom. She looked for it and saw that the door was ominously shut. Her heart beating fast, Rosa twisted the knob and pushed the white-painted door back, then stared into the room. There was no one inside. She gave a quick glance at the fluffy white towels and plants grouped under the skylight, feeling her heart drop as she understood how badly she had wanted to find Susan here, weak but alive.

Returning her attention to the bedroom, she found it model-home neat as well, except for a carry-on suitcase sitting open in the center of the bed. Rosa moved toward it and looked inside. Piles of neatly folded clothes, and on top a black Chanel jacket and ecru blouse.

Rosa knew it was Chanel because Susan was planning to wear it on
Good Morning America.

She turned to Frank suddenly. “How was Susan planning to get to the airport?”

He chuckled. “That was a bone of contention. We thought she should take a limo to Taos, but she was determined to drive. She said it would cost a fortune to hire a cab, and they weren't that reliable.”

“So I've heard. We could see whether her car's here or not.”

“Good idea! She always keeps it in the garage. I don't have the opener, but I doubt it's locked.”

The garage was not locked. Frank pulled the door up, and they stared at the silver Toyota Camry centered in its space. Rosa was the one who noticed the black plastic bag stuffed in the exhaust pipe.

She rushed to the passenger side. Susan was slumped against the steering wheel, her dark curly hair hiding her face. Rosa didn't try to separate and identify the terrible odors coming through the window.
I'm not seeing this. This is not real.

“It's locked,” Frank said from the driver's side.

But Rosa was looking down at a note on the passenger seat, printed large and angled so it could be easily read: “I can't pretend anymore. This is getting worse.”