“Will the affected passengers be notified today?”
“We need legal guidance.”
“Will the evidence be preserved?”
“Yes.”
“By whom?”
A pause. “FLOWLINE's compliance team.”
Ravi set down his tablet. “The company implicated in the problem would control the only copy of the evidence?”
“It's their software.”
“And the terminal is our responsibility,” Adrian said.
He stood and reached for his bag. He had no wish to be the angry outsider in a dramatic photograph. He wished the morning had ended with an apology, a reissued pass, and an honest promise. Instead, he had found evidence of something systematic.
“I will send a formal preservation notice to the airport authority and the airline,” he told Graham. “Please don't delay the help these passengers need while your lawyers decide whose logo goes on the mistake.”
Outside, the departure boards shifted as flights boarded and closed. Sylvia remained behind, her fingers clasped so tightly the knuckles were pale. Tessa followed Adrian into the hall.
“Mr. Bell,” she said, “there's something else.”
He stopped.
“This morning, before you came, I heard a manager say they needed the manual-review numbers higher on one particular flight. I thought I misunderstood.”
“Which flight?”
“Northstar 418, to Portland. Your flight.”
“Did they say why?”
Tessa swallowed. “They said someone needed to miss it.”
Adrian looked through the windows at an aircraft easing away from its gate. The sun had emerged behind the rain clouds, turning the apron silver. He had expected to discover a culture of casual neglect.
Now someone had apparently been waiting for him by name.
Chapter 5 — Flight 418
When Northstar Flight 418 left the gate, Adrian was still in Harborpoint's public departure hall. He watched it taxi through a window streaked with rain. He had bought the ticket to see his daughter Maya in Portland, and he had promised her he would not turn the journey into another investigation. It was a promise he had broken before sunrise, without knowing it.
He called her before he could change his mind.
“You're late,” Maya said immediately.
“I haven't left.”
A long pause. “Did something happen?”
“Yes. A problem at check-in.”
“Dad.”
He could hear a kettle clicking off at her apartment. She was twenty-six now, working as an urban-accessibility designer, but the impatience in that single word belonged to the child who had waited for him to return from hearings and meetings. She had wanted him in the audience at her first professional award ceremony. He had wanted to be there too.
“I'm sorry,” Adrian said. “I will find another flight.”
“Will you actually be on it?”
“Yes.”
“You said that when you missed my college exhibit.”
“I know.”
“You said it when I moved apartments.”
“I know that too.”
Maya breathed slowly, as if counting toward a calmer version of herself. “Then don't give me another explanation of how the airport failed. Just tell me what you're going to do.”
“I'm going to finish one urgent step, then come to Portland.”
She laughed sadly. “One urgent step has been following you for seven years.”
The call ended gently but without forgiveness. Adrian kept the phone to his ear after the line went dead. Through the glass, Flight 418 turned onto the runway. He imagined Maya setting two plates on her table and putting one back into the cupboard.
Tessa found him beside the window. “I found the person who mentioned your flight,” she said. “But she's frightened.”