Exit Row (14 page)

T
HEY MET FOR
dinner at the Jackalope Café, a restaurant with dark pine walls and oil paintings of Western landscapes. Because it was early, they were able to get a table in the back where they could talk.

But no one had anything to say. They sat silent, exhausted and disheartened. Fiona had nothing to contribute. The ride back from Taos had been somber. No more talk about Territorial architecture or native building materials. Dominick seemed to have finally accepted that Coral was missing.

Coming into Santa Fe, he decided he had to file a missing person's report immediately.

Fiona pointed out that Santa Fe was not the place to do it. “She hasn't even been here, as far as you know. Taos would be more logical.”

Then he wanted to turn the Sentra around, but Fiona would not let him. In part because she thought it would be hopeless, in part because she was tired of driving through mountains. “We'll talk about it at dinner. We'll make a plan.”

He'd given her an outraged look. “This isn't a committee decision! This is my daughter we're talking about.”

“And my—and Lee. Look, we'll try to reach Maggie and see what her father remembers. There has to be an explanation.” Although Fiona had dialed Maggie's number numerous times during the day, there was never any answer. “You said yourself that all we've turned up are people who made the flight okay. Coral's probably fine.”

“So where
is
she?”

Being held by terrorists, which none of you believe in
. They had not talked for the rest of the trip.

T
HE GROUP ORDERED
dinner listlessly.

“You look sunburnt,” Rosa said to Dominick. “Even over your tan.”

Fiona nodded. “The sun is closer to earth here.” It sounded like a geography lesson. “Or maybe it's the thinner air.”

“And it's dry,” Greg put in. He was wearing his striped polo shirt. “It really dries out the snot in your nose. I've got to keep cleaning mine out.”

“TMI, Greg.”

“Fiona? Welcome to the real world.”

If her Uncle Eimer had been there, he would have reassured them that it was always darkest before dawn. And over the carafe of white wine and pitcher of Dos Equis, the mood normalized slightly. Fiona told Rosa and Greg what they had learned at the Taos Pueblo.

Rosa pulled out her electronic cigarette. “Do you think this Jackson actually exists?”

What kind of a question was that? “Well, his wife and Mrs. Black Hook seem to think so.”

Rosa blinked at her patiently. “I mean, exists now. You couldn't find him, and his wife wasn't cooperative.”

“Mrs. Black Hook said she saw him after the flight. He told her that her son had gotten on the bus to Boulder okay.”

“See?” said Dominick. “It shows the plane got there just fine.”

But Rosa leaned back in her chair and looked wise. “Maybe if you were struggling to eke out a living on an Indian reservation, and someone offered you, say, ten thousand dollars to tell people something, you might figure, what's the harm?”

“Ten thousand dollars usually means harm to
someone
.” Fiona was suddenly furious at Rosa's cynicism. “And she hardly seemed like the type to lie. You met her, Dominick.”

“I thought she was very nice.”

Rosa raised her hands in surrender. “Okay, she wasn't bribed. But I have to tell you something else.” She put it off for a moment while she dipped a newly served shrimp into a green sauce. “I went to Susan's today, as you know. There didn't seem to be anyone inside so I talked to her next-door neighbors, and they told me she was very ill with liver cancer, stage four.”

Fiona sucked in her breath.

“But the neighbors thought she had left for New York anyway. I told them she had never arrived, so we went in her house to look.”

“And you found her?”

“Well, she wasn't in the house. So then we checked her garage. She was in the car. She'd turned on the gas because of the pain, because she was dying anyway.”

“
What?
She killed herself? And you were the one who found her?” Fiona couldn't make it seem real.

“We called the police, and they came right away. I was there most of the day. Frank—the neighbor—drove the Explorer back, and I came with his wife in their car. They were so nice; they took care of everything. They knew her better than I did, of course.” She stared at the tabletop, morose.

Fiona reached over and squeezed her hand. “Had you ever met her before?”

“Not in person. But we talked on the phone a lot. Especially lately. I can't believe she never told me how sick she was.”

Dominick learned forward urgently. “So she was never on the plane?”

“No. She never left Santa Fe.”

“That's why her name was in parenthesis,” Fiona said. “Because she never made the flight.”

“Yeah, she was a no-show,” Greg said.

“She's hardly a ‘no-show.' It's not like she blew the flight off.” Yet, in a way, that was what she had done. “How did you make out today?” Fiona asked.

Greg looked wary. “With what?”

“With whatever you were trying to find out.”

“Yeah, you know what? Even if you know someone's post office box number, they won't tell you where he lives! And even if you have his cell phone number, the phone company won't give you the address. What kind of rinky-dink town is this?”

“A law-abiding one,” Fiona said mildly. “Did you try finding him on Google?”

“Yeah, the usual shit. I'm looking for a place anyway, not a person. Dimitri's apartment. He's got some stuff I need.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Are you always this nosy?”

Fiona reached for one of the last two shrimp. “Let me get this straight: Your friend's missing, and you want to break into his apartment and take stuff?”

“Easy, Fiona,” Dominick cautioned, lifting a hand.

“It just sounds strange to me.”
No wonder no one would give you the information. I wouldn't either.

“He's got something I need, okay?”

“Okay.” Fiona closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, there was more food on the table. She had ordered blackened redfish, but when she saw it she couldn't imagine picking up a fork and eating it.

“Tired?” Rosa asked sympathetically.

“I guess.” Tomorrow it would be almost a week since she drove to MacArthur Airport to pick up Lee for a celebratory dinner—to celebrate his return to her and discuss their plans for finding an apartment. A
week
. She had been out here three days herself, and what did she have to show for it? Nothing but contradictions and lies. She was still no closer to knowing what had happened than she had been standing at the kiosk in Islip-McArthur Airport.

“Bon appétit!” Rosa announced. She seemed determinedly cheerful. Would she be leaving now that she had found out what had happened to Susan?

Fiona realized how abandoned she would feel.

They ate in silence for several minutes, but then she said, “We need a better approach. We need—”

“A psychic,” Rosa said.

“We need to pull in the police and the FBI,” Dominick corrected her. “We need them to find my daughter.”

Fiona had been going to say, “To talk to people along the route and see if they've seen or heard about anything unusual.” But she considered their suggestions. “Okay. First we use a psychic to tell us what happened. Then when we know, we go to the police.”

Dominick shook his head. “I'm not waiting. I'm going to the police now.”

“And you can ditch the psychic,” Greg said.

“No, no, the police use them all the time.” Rosa leaned forward earnestly, forearms on the deep red tablecloth. “A man in one of Susan's books could look at someone and see the rest of that person's life. The police used him to pick up information at murder scenes.”

“Where does he live?” Fiona asked.

“Oh, nowhere around here. South Carolina, I think.”

“But isn't Santa Fe supposed to be some kind of center for mystics?”

Greg snapped his fingers. “Right! We'll just look in the New Age yellow pages.”

“You really think it works?” Fiona asked Rosa, ignoring him.

Rosa considered, sipping the last of her wine. “I think some people have an extraordinary way of grasping bits and pieces of things. It's uncanny. And sometimes a hint is all you need.”

Greg put his head in his hands dramatically. “You really think some psychic is going to tell us what happened? What if she gives us bad information? That's worse than no information at all.”

“Well, we don't know anything now, so what's the difference?” Fiona turned to Dominick, who was taking out his wallet to settle up, and reached into her purse for her own. “Day Star isn't going to admit anything. They'll point to people like Dr. Seelander and Maggie's father and Jackson and to the FAA, who says the plane came in. They'll give the police a doctored manifest that shows Coral and Lee weren't on the plane. I think we should go to the police, but they won't investigate a plane no one says is missing.”

“But
people
are missing!” Dominick cried. “We haven't actually talked to anyone at the Denver airport to find out what happened when the plane got there. How many people were on it or anything else.”

Fiona nodded. “Good point. We could get up early tomorrow morning and drive to Denver.”

“And see a psychic tonight,” Rosa insisted.

Greg looked as if he was going to object again, but then seemed to reconsider. “You think she could tell me where Dimitri's apartment is?”

“She'd probably tell you to look in the white pages.” It was a bad joke; Fiona knew they didn't have a reverse directory for cell phones. She started to stand up, but was distracted by Rosa. She was waving at a woman in a fringed buckskin dress who was overseeing the tables, a woman in her fifties whose hair was pulled back in a gray braid that reached her waist. Fiona had identified her as the owner earlier.

“Is everything okay?” she asked when she reached them.

“Perfect,” Rosa said. “But we need a good psychic.”

P
AOLO
R
ECCHIA LIVED
far up Canyon Road, past the galleries and artists' studios and cafés. By the time the two women reached the residential neighborhood, Rosa was out of breath. “I'm not used to this,” she gasped.

“I thought you went to the gym.”

“I do. For Stretch 'n' Sculpt and water aerobics—not mountain climbing.”

Because the restaurant owner had assured them it was only a short walk, they had not gone back to the inn for the car. Fiona had imagined she meant five or six blocks.

“I'm so sorry about Susan,” she said. “What a sad way to end.”

“I think she had a different idea about dying. Maybe it was because she wrote so much about death, but she seemed to act as if it was no more than checking out of a hotel. That you just went on to your next destination.”

Fiona shivered.

“What makes me feel so badly for her is that she was finally getting the recognition she deserved. Okay, part of it was the story—it's very dramatic. But Susan did a beautiful job writing it. And then her body betrayed her.”

“How long had you known her?”

“I'd been her editor for seven years, and we had a very friendly relationship. She was going to stay at my house. It wasn't as though our publisher was rolling out any red carpets; I'd worked hard to get her the TV spot, and we hoped things would take off from there.” Rosa stopped walking for a moment. “It can't be much farther. Have you ever been to a psychic?”

“Once. At a bridal shower. It was supposed to be light entertainment.” She laughed. The woman, a tarot card reader, had smelled of musk and carried her cards wrapped in black velvet. During Fiona's five minutes, the reader had laid out the cards, then reared back a little. “You're not the bride, are you?”

“No.”

“Good.” She frowned at the layout. “You have an eventful life ahead of you.”

“Lots of travel?”

“If you want.”

“Am I going to be happy?”

“Who's happy?” The woman shrugged. “Better to keep busy like I do.”

“What did she tell you?” Rosa asked.

“She was glad I wasn't the bride.”

“Well, this man sounds impressive.”

“I guess.” She would have to try not to act skeptical. But she was no believer.

When they told the restaurant owner what they wanted, she had mentioned Paolo Recchia, then said, “But he's booked for months. Maybe for years. I can ask around for someone else.”

“No,” Rosa said firmly. “We need the best. Can't you just call and see if he's had any cancellations? We're very flexible as to time. And we'll
pay
.”

She made it sound like a bribe, but the woman treated it good-humoredly and left to call. She returned with a slow smile creasing her face. “Nine fifteen. He said he was expecting you to call.”

Despite herself, Fiona felt a chill. “How do you know?”

“He described you. In a general way, of course.”

But now Fiona wondered if Day Star, anticipating they might look for a psychic in Santa Fe, had coached several of them to give out misinformation. No, that
was
truly paranoid. It was more likely that someone from Day Star would follow them, go in afterward, and demand to know what he had told them. What if they tortured or even killed him?

She whirled around and saw no one behind them.
Get a grip
.

But the thought of putting someone else's life in danger made her think about Egypt.

She had been there for two weeks when the instructor who had taken her hang gliding offered her an expedition by moonlight to the pyramids in Giza. The monuments were closed to tourists at night; they would be beautiful and deserted. Fiona had agreed right away and cajoled a French photojournalist from her hotel, Marcelle Delame, into coming along and taking pictures.

There was a reason for that. A newspaper travel editor had been questioning whether her
Eccentric Traveler
blogs were—uh—exaggerating just a little, and Fiona wanted the photographs to show him. The truth was that, once in a while, she veered into what
might
have happened.

“It will be awesome,” Fiona promised Marcelle.

Three men had driven them the sixteen miles from Cairo in a jeep and then walked them in by flashlight for the last half mile. When they reached the Great Pyramid, Marcelle, excited, had decided to climb to the top to take photos. The moon was full, casting its magic. One of the Egyptian men had accompanied Marcelle—to protect her, Fiona assumed.

She stayed at the bottom herself, making notes on her iPhone. She needed to climb to the top as well, but wanted to detail the atmosphere first.

She had been describing the light on the sand when a voice cried out in protest, and Fiona jerked her head up to look. Marcelle was not at the summit yet, but the man had his arms around her and they were struggling.

“What's he doing?” Fiona cried to the men beside her.

But instead of answering, the younger of the two had grabbed her roughly around the waist from behind, and in a moment was pushing on top of her in the sand. Too late she realized how foolhardy she had been. He had her skirt up and was clawing at her underpants while trying to hold her down with his other forearm. She fought him bitterly, finally getting close enough to bite his shoulder through his shirt.

It wasn't his surprised outrage that saved her, but the scream that came from above them as Marcelle lost her footing and plunged to the lowest stones with a thud that echoed in the desert air.

The men had run then, dropping the flashlight on the sand as they raced toward the jeep. Fiona ran to Marcelle, gasping as she saw blood pulsing from the wound in her forehead. She grabbed her wrist for a pulse, then put her face down next to Marcelle's, her hand on her chest. She was not breathing. The pyramid was several stories high but recessed enough so that she should not have reached the bottom. Unless she had been pushed . . .

Fiona had taken the flashlight and fought her way through the sand, wondering if the men were lying in wait to kill her for what she had seen. But when she reached the parking area, the jeep was gone. She had finally been able to get a phone signal and dial 122 for the police. When she was connected to someone who spoke English, she reported that there had been an accident at the Great Pyramid in Giza, that a woman had fallen. Instinctively she had not identified herself. When they demanded her name, she broke the connection.

What happened next haunted Fiona months later. She waited for the police, sitting shakily on a low metal guardrail while she agonized over what to do. Could she find those men again and have them arrested? Would the police turn it around and blame her, like Amanda Knox? At the least they would arrest her for trespassing. Even in the best case, it could take weeks. When she heard the sirens, she hid in the brush. Then, dazed, she limped back to civilization and took a taxi to her hotel.

The next morning, she confronted the hang-glide instructor.

To her shock, he denied knowing the men or what she was talking about, denied making any arrangements for her to go to Giza. “You Americans are crazy,” he'd said firmly. “No one will believe here what you say. They will put you in jail for a long time!”

So she had fled. Bruised, terrified, she had flown out of Cairo that night and not looked back.

The Eccentric Traveler
disappeared.