7
He would watch her closely . . . very closely.
—Carla Danger, Secret Police: Forbidden Files
We made a stop in Cameroon a little before sunset. It had been raining, and everything was gray: the wet tarmac of Nsimalen Airport, the sky, all shrouded in muggy, foggy weather. One of the pilots helped us out of the hold, and March guided me away from the plane and toward the jet terminal.
Once we were close enough for me to assess the aircraft that would take us the rest of the way to Venice, I addressed a silent prayer of thanks to both Raptor Jesus and Phyllis. This flight was her work, and it showed—because it was a Gulfstream, with one of those impossibly clean and comfy cabins. I inspected the cream leather seats with renewed energy before checking the contents of the minifridge. Did I want a grenadine soda and a slice of banana bread? Absolutely.
March too seemed to appreciate this change of air. A long sigh of satisfaction escaped him as he flopped into a seat, watching me binge on banana bread with a moan of delight. He motioned to a black suitcase sitting in a corner of the cabin. “Phyllis took care of your luggage.”
As soon I opened it, my knees grew weak. Oh God, yes. Yes to clean clothes and underwear—how the hell did she know I preferred hipsters? My eyes darted to March, who lounged in his seat, eyes half closed in a catlike expression, following my movements. I preferred not to imagine what conversation had taken place between him and his assistant. Would it qualify as yet another control issue if it turned out that he’d briefed Phyllis on what kind of panties I should wear? Definitively. But I would allow myself to be controlled until we landed in Venice. For the sake of clean undies.
There was a tiny shower stall in the lavatory, equipped with a shower head capable of spouting a dribble of lukewarm water. Pure bliss, in our circumstances. We waited until after takeoff to take turns showering and changing. An hour later, I wore a brand-new T-shirt and a pair of denim shorts; March had returned to his default wrinkle-free state, and the rebellious stubble of the past twenty-four hours had been cleanly shaved off his jaw.
Don’t think for a second, however, that this abundance of comfort was enough to distract me from my goals. It had not escaped my notice that while Phyllis had done wonders to equip me, one item was conspicuously missing from my trousseau . . . I shot a sideways glance at the culprit, whose body appeared to have liquefied in a large seat.
If I wasn’t allowed to have a phone, his would have to do.
“March?”
One of his eyes cracked open in lazy watchfulness. “Yes, biscuit?”
“Can I borrow your phone?”
What for? I could practically hear the question sizzling on the tip of his tongue, ready to spill from his lips, but he victoriously held it back. The tiny Stasi officer who lived in his ear and whispered bad relationship advice to him would probably recommend that he check the phone’s logs right afterward anyway. I watched his inner struggle play out, the hesitation in his eyes as he unlocked the device and he handed it to me. “There you go.”
I welcomed it with a little bow and a smile. A graceful blue-eyed ostrich stared at me disapprovingly on the phone’s wallpaper while I sent a brief message to Joy and my dad to make sure they wouldn’t worry. I was still in South Africa; everything was awesome except for the tragic news of the plane crash, love you, Kthxbai.
Joy had left work and was hurrying to the launch party of a painting exhibit in Tribeca with Vince-the-cutest-photographer-in-the-world. I had never really told her what the deal was with March’s job, so all she knew about him was that he was an older guy with a dubious source of income, who had popped up in my life, handcuffed me in my bed, taken me to Paris, only to ruthlessly dump me . . . and pick me up again afterward. From her point of view, March thus belonged to the wide subspecies of sketchy and manipulative studs. She couldn’t, in all conscience, recommend that I indulge in any sort of congress with him, but a stud was a stud, and a girl’s gotta do what she gotta do. She sent me a link to a Cosmo article discussing the best positions for first-timers.
I stopped myself before I hit Read More—I did want specific drawn instructions on how to best achieve the “coital alignment technique”, but not on March’s phone. Besides, I noticed a series of new e-mails in my inbox: my dad had no articles to share with me, but rather repeated demands that I call him. To check on me, to know where I was, with whom? For how long? And, “Island, this is the second phone you’ve lost in six months!”
I considered his e-mails with a wince. Yeah, maybe that phone call could wait another half hour. I turned to March, who had been observing me with carefully feigned indifference. “Can you unlock those folders where you stored the data Colin sent you, please? I’d like to go through them.”
My request was welcomed by the faintest twitch of his brow. “Do you need it urgently?”
I took a calming breath. I would not give up, and certainly not get angry, but I was going to win this. “No, nothing urgent. It can easily wait a few minutes if you have something else to do.”
March straightened in his seat. “You seem exhausted; wouldn’t you rather get some rest?”
“No, I’m good.”
Facing unexpected resistance, he stood up and towered over me. “Can I offer you another drink?”
“I’m not thirsty. Can I see those files now?”
After thirty seconds of silence, he swiped a few times across the screen and handed me the phone with a sigh. “Island, this is external consulting. Nothing more.”
I gave a firm nod. “Nothing more.”
He settled in the seat across from mine and watched me go through the various documents Colin had sent him. Besides the early crash simulations, I found a copy of the passenger list and early reports from the National Transportation Safety Board. For almost two hours, I scrolled through the names, scoured the web for dozens of search engine results, feeling an odd sense of intrusion upon reading the place and date of birth, professional occupation, and personal ties of so many dead people. I was halfway through the list when I paused on a particular entry.
After Google confirmed my hunch was correct, I handed the phone back to March. “Do you believe in coincidences?”
He frowned at the screen. “Sabina Falchi, thirty-six, Italian. Her file is almost empty. Apparently she had a ticket but never boarded. Do you know her?”
“No,” I said. “But it says she’s a materials chemistry engineer. So I checked her résumé. Right after university, she spent four years doing R&D for a company called . . . Novensia.”
“The manufacturer of the plane’s roof? With the terrible commercial?”
“Yeah. Technically, they only provided that Ceraglass compound, and AirBW assembled the roof. They don’t communicate much, but they’re actually the second-largest industrial group in Italy. They specialize in construction materials, and they also branch in telecommunications and even dog food.”
March’s forefinger swiped down a couple of times as he skimmed through the search results. “Mr. Jeon did say he believed the roof could have been faulty.”
I drew an excited breath. “I know. Of course, it could be a lot of other things, like another plane taking them out, and for the record I refuse to rule out an alien intervention. But honestly, if we take Dries’s suitcase out of the equation . . . I think the first thing we need to know why she didn’t board.”
As March’s forefinger tapped the screen repeatedly, for the first time in twenty-four hours, the mints he always kept in his pocket in case of an emergency reappeared. He dropped a couple in his mouth and chewed them thoughtfully. “Sabina Falchi hasn’t been seen since the plane took off; the Italian police are looking for her.”
I leaned forward to check the data on his phone. “So they’re tying her to the attack?”
“No. The file mentions an ‘incident’ shortly before boarding. No further details.”
“Then we need to find her before they do.”
“We?”
I got up from my seat to peck his cheek. “I mean you and Dries. I’ll just be consulting around.”
Outside the jet, the sun was setting. March watched me trot away with his phone to settle on a long couch at the other end of the cabin. He cocked an eyebrow in question.
I held up the phone with an apologetic grin. “I need it for a little longer. I gotta call my dad.”