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Belted in and rolling back, Beth took shallow breaths over lurching sickness and tried to convince herself she was a step ahead. Hers was the first flight to leave. She’d waited in a different departure lounge until the plane had boarded, and she was positive he hadn’t checked in. The flight after hers went to Bozeman, so he’d have a four-hour drive from the airport there to West Glacier. Whether he got on that or was in his car, she still had a decent enough window to find the O’Dooles before he did.
The flight was just under three hours, and all she could think about was the desert road below. Even if he’d left immediately after she’d communicated with him, by the time she’d got to the airport and the plane had taken off, he would only have had a two-hour head start. When she got to West Glacier, he would have been on the road for five hours. Google Maps driving time told her he would still be about ten hours behind her.
If he got the next flight to Bozeman at 6.15, it was an hour longer than hers because it stopped in Salt Lake City. He still then had to drive four hours to West Glacier. That meant it would take him nine and a quarter hours from the time she took off. That gave her six and a quarter hours extra to play with. Depending on how long it took her to get out of the airport. Wait, was that right?
She spent the flight turning the times over and over in her head, coming to the same conclusion but doubting her mental calculations and convincing herself she was missing some other way he could be there before her. He had to know where she was headed, and when she arrived, Beth still had to locate the family. Perhaps he knew exactly where they were staying. That would seriously shrink her time advantage.
Beth doubted the gunman had left anything to chance and was convinced she would be putting herself exactly where he wanted. She looked out of the half-shuttered window and watched the clouds turn coral pink and then darken, dirty blue to black.
