A strip of light leaked out from under the door at the storage unit. Kaitlin stared at it for a long moment, wondering if she should go in to see Agent Dennison. Her flight from Atlanta had landed an hour earlier and when she’d called Dennison again to update him, he’d sounded even more manic than when she’d left him.
The truth was, her mother’s news about Conor still haunted her. She’d pulled together so much information about the passengers on Flight 702, but she still couldn’t see how the pieces fit together, if at all. She wasn’t sure if Dennison was helping or making it worse, either.
Before she could reach a decision, the door rattled up and light flooded out. Dennison loomed, silhouetted against the glow from the bare bulb. Kaitlin noticed an odd posture, one hand thrust into his jacket pocket. Did he have a firearm tucked away?
‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said. He stepped out and looked up and down the line of darkened units. ‘I heard something. Can’t be too careful.’
Kaitlin froze. Could he have shot her?
‘People are watching me,’ he continued, beckoning her inside. ‘Not sure which agency. NSA? Homeland Security? Maybe the CIA. That means we’re getting close. But that means this is the point of greatest danger. They’ll stop at nothing to prevent us from revealing the truth.’
‘OK.’ Kaitlin half wondered if she should run. Instead, she stepped inside the unit and Dennison clanged down the door.
She couldn’t do this on her own, that was true. But the knot in her stomach told her Dennison wasn’t the right ally.
‘I’m getting close to finding out where they are,’ he said, spinning off to one of the piles of files.
‘Where? Where who are?’
‘My daughter! Your brother. The passengers. They’re all still alive.’
‘I don’t think that’s true. There’s no evidence. It’s just wishful thinking.’ She couldn’t let herself be led down that road. She’d drive herself mad.
‘There’s evidence. All right, not evidence. But enough to cause a strong suspicion. Don’t lose heart now, Kaitlin.’
‘I need to focus on the reason why the flight went down. Not get distracted by—’
‘Wait. Hear me out.’ Dennison crashed over to the pile of files and began riffling through them. ‘There’s just a few more details that I need to … OK, for example, I think there was a passenger travelling with a fake passport. The Bureau were cagey about it, so it might have just been a smokescreen.’
‘You mean Dimo Dragov. Yeah, I already looked into him. He was a Bulgarian crime boss.’
‘No, no, no. I’m not talking about him. It was a woman.’ Dennison flipped through a file with frantic movements. ‘Laura something. She seemed to be … She was definitely … They had something about her.’
‘Agent Dennison …’
‘Seemed really—’
‘Agent Dennison!’ Kaitlin snapped.
‘Fishy.’
‘Jim!’
Dennison snapped out of his manic state and stared at her.
‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry for your daughter,’ she began.
‘No. No, no. No. Don’t! Don’t give up on this, Kaitlin. Don’t let them get to you.’
‘No one’s getting to me. I don’t want to believe it any more than you do, but—’
‘No. My daughter’s still alive.’
‘Jim, this is—’
‘And she’s being held in a top-secret facility, along with your brother and … and … and the other 254 passengers of Flight 702. And I’m gonna find her.’
Dennison ranged around the unit, tearing open the drawers of filing cabinets, grabbing files and books.
‘Jim, I’m leaving,’ Kaitlin said in a gentle voice.
Dennison didn’t seem to hear her. He continued to search and even when she was back out in the night, she could hear him crashing around his space like a wounded beast.
On the way back to the East Village, Kaitlin dialled Dylan’s number again. The same voicemail message, the same futile wait for him to call her back. She wanted to fill him in on her visit to Atlanta and get his perspective on what she’d learned. But it looked like she’d have to keep it to herself.
As she climbed the steps to her apartment, Kaitlin felt the isolation close in around her. She’d forged this path on her own, but she’d always had Amelia and her other college friends around. Now she felt truly lonely.
In the dark of her bedroom, she stared out at the city lights. Who could she turn to now?
‘Mr Murray, you have a visitor.’
Kaitlin looked around the cramped office. The reek of the garbage boats hung in the air. Had she made the right decision? There was still time to get out.
The lawyer jumped up from behind his desk when he saw her, rocking the take-out coffee from its coaster, splashing fresh brew over a pile of papers.
‘Don’t worry about that,’ he said, hastily shaking the moisture off them. ‘Come in. Take a seat. And thank you, Shana. Thank you. Hold all of my meetings until further notice.’
‘But, Mr Murray,’ his assistant began.
The lawyer held up his hand and gave the woman a firm stare.
‘Thank you, Shana.’
She hesitated a moment, then she left, closing the door behind her.
‘Mr Murray,’ Kaitlin began.
‘Rory,’ he corrected. ‘Please.’
Kaitlin sat. She felt bone-weary, like she’d been running a marathon for days. Hungry. Directionless. The solution to the mystery of Flight 702 hovered like a mirage on the horizon and she never seemed to get any closer.
‘Tell me why I should trust you,’ she said.
Rory held out both hands. ‘A great start. Let’s lay everything on the table. You know I’m putting together a class-action suit.’
‘I’m not interested in winning any financial award. I just want the truth.’
‘A noble pursuit. And of course, that lies at the heart of what I do.’ Rory paused and stared into the corner of the room. ‘OK. I’ll be honest with you. When I started to pull this together, I saw an opportunity. I’m not proud to admit it. I understand the suffering and the pain. But this is the business. It’s not a charity. And if I didn’t step forwards, someone else would. It’s easy to be dispassionate, treat it as just another legal conundrum, until you see the human face.’
Rory looked at Kaitlin and for the first time, she thought she saw some honesty in his features. The last time he’d cornered her, in the park, he came across like a performer. Good with words, a surfeit of charisma and a dollop of flamboyance. That might work with some people. Not her.
‘Go on,’ she said.
‘I met with some of the families. I saw at first-hand what they’re going through.’
‘Grief does terrible things to people.’
He nodded. ‘I want to help.’
‘So, now it’s about charity?’
‘No, I’ve not had some Damascene conversion. You’re a highly intelligent person, I could see that the first time we met, so I’m not going to try to give you the patter. You’ll see right through it anyway. I need this case, for my business, and personally. But that doesn’t mean that at the same time I can’t do it for the best of reasons. To help people find answers. To champion those who don’t have a voice, and to take a stand against the corporate cover-ups and the government lies.’
‘A knight in shining armour.’
‘I wouldn’t go that far. But if you want to say that, who am I to argue?’ Rory’s eyes twinkled. ‘And if I come out of this a better person, that’s win-win, right?’
Kaitlin nodded. Maybe this was the right decision. ‘So, how do we do this?’
‘We have different areas of expertise – that’s always good in a team. Let’s exchange notes, see what we both know, and then we divide up the lines of inquiry.’
‘OK,’ Kaitlin said, holding out a hand. ‘Partners.’