She dropped her suitcase on the floor and pulled me towards her as soon as the main entrance came into view.
“Fuck, I’m scared,” she said, and the sassiness in her voice had shriveled up and gone. “Once we head in there, that’s it. We make it or we don’t, don’t we?”
I dropped my suitcases on the ground and held her tight. As tight as I dared through her healing wound.
“We’ll make it,” I told her, wishing I was as sure as I sounded. “Tomorrow evening we’ll be on the other side of the Atlantic, Penelope Anne Jackson and Jason Ryan Reynolds beginning their new life together.”
I kissed her once, hard and deep, before I sent her on ahead to the entrance. “Do this,” I said. “I’ll be behind you, just pretend I’m not. We can’t be seen together.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay,” I confirmed. “Go do it, Penelope. Go check in for Flight 181.”
She looked back at me once over her shoulder before she reached the main doors with her suitcase in tow, but that was all. I hung back until she was out of view before I put my new fake glasses on and made my own way through the airport.
It was busy, people mingling and chatting and pacing around on missions to different check-in desks. Security were alert but hardly ready to pounce. I walked right on past several of them without them shooting me the slightest glance.
My hopes were true. Believable. We might just make it.
I caught sight of Elaine’s blonde hair as she bobbed her way through one of the terminals. I kept at a safe distance.
My beautiful girl really did look like a regular airport-goer making her way to a transatlantic flight. I only hoped I looked like enough of one to make it onto the plane with her.
She was at security ahead of me. She put her suitcases onto the conveyor belt for scanning and stepped on up with her ID to the counter while I hung back even more, pretending to search in my bag for something as several people stepped up ahead of me in the line.
Elaine was through the desk and out the other side with her baggage before I joined the line for definite.
My heart was pounding as I showed the same attendant my passport. Please, just don’t fucking question me.
The seconds were hours as she looked from me to the fake photo and back again. My fake glasses felt like clumsy weights against my face and my smile felt fake to match.
I could have leapt up with a hallelujah when she waved me on through and my baggage arrived on the conveyor belt on the other side. My heart was still racing as I picked up my bags and headed towards the terminal, but not as fast as it was racing when I saw my beautiful Elaine hovering next to a seating area, eyes wide as she watched for me.
Her smile made my soul soar.
The relief on her face was a blessing from the lord above.
I gave her the slightest nod, because I couldn’t draw any more attention to us, but it was enough that she nodded right back at me, then dashed her way along the corridor, heading closer to Flight 181. Yet again, I held back. Waiting. Praying.
She must have already been through check-in when I reached the desk, as there was no sign of her in the line.
Here we were. The true make-or-break moment. If we got through here and onto the plane… if only…
The gate attendant was chirpy when she looked at my plane ticket and passport. Her smile was bland, but welcome.
“Good evening, Mr. Reynolds. I hope you enjoy your flight. Thanks for joining Jettison Air today.”
I gave nothing more than a nod and pushed my glasses up higher on my nose.
My suitcases were gone. Taken for the flight. There was just me now, and a cruddy little briefcase with my essentials in it, all set for travel.
Yes. Thank fuck. I was there. I’d been accepted through check-in and allowed through to the lounge, all ready to board the flight.
And there she was, my beautiful Elaine, sitting in her own little bench seat on the other side of the lounge, staring right on over at me as I stepped inside.
We’d done it.
We’d made it through the airport.
Now we just needed to make it onto the damn plane and off the other side.
13
Elaine
I stared at the plane ticket. Seat 29C. Flight 181. NYC to London Heathrow.
I was still in shock that I’d made it through security and check-in with nobody saying a word, but I had. Praise God, it seemed Lucian had, too. My whole body flooded with relief when he stepped on into the lounge and took a seat at the other end of the room from me. We were both there. Together, though it seemed apart.
I’d never been so happy in my life.
Other travelers came and filled up the lounge around us, busy with their own business and without giving us too much interest. There was chatter, and excitement, and people busy on their cell phones, while I just stared at the plane ticket in my hands, truly trying to believe this was happening.
Seat 29C of Flight 181. NYC to London Heathrow.
I was now Penelope Anne Jackson and I was going to London. We were going to London.
The voices of a couple sitting next to me were enough to pull me out of my trance. My stomach dropped right down to the pits when I heard their words.
Can you believe it? Lionel Constantine is really dead! Shot on a golf course. It’s just crazy. CRAZY.
First Elaine Constantine gets kidnapped and then her uncle gets murdered!
Yeah, and you know what they’re saying, right? They’re saying it’s Lucian Morelli who kidnapped Elaine! They think that journalist guy was really him!
Madness. It’s fucking madness.
Holy shit, it hit me hard, but I just kept on staring and praying, barely risking a breath since I was sitting right next to them.
I kept my attention on my plane ticket. My thoughts trying to be a mantra.
Seat 29C of Flight 181. NYC to London Heathrow
Penelope Anne Jackson.
The mantra didn’t last long as the couple carried on talking.
You don’t really think Lucian Morelli kidnapped and murdered Elaine Constantine, do you?
I dunno. I’ve heard people saying that he was fucking her. That they were dating or something.
Fuck knows, then. Whole thing seems crazy.
What seemed even crazier was that the both of us were sitting in the same damn room and nobody had noticed.
I chanced one quick little glance at Lucian and he was sitting mute, staring ahead of him. His glasses looked weird on his nose, distracting just a little from the true sculpture of his face. Yeah. They were doing their job. They were helping to make him look a little bit more like Jason Ryan Reynolds and a little less like the man who was wanted for murder.
I heard someone on the news saying that Lucian Morelli was chasing Elaine down so hard at a club that he kneed some security guy in the stomach and threatened to kill him if he didn’t let him through.
Maybe he really is the one who kidnapped her. They think she’s dead.
I was so relieved when the attendants called us for our flight that I leapt up out of my seat and dashed straight over to the doorway. I was right at the front of the line with a big, fake smile on my face as the attendant started letting us through.
“Enjoy your flight,” she told me, and I thanked her with another big, fake smile.
I was straight onto the plane and up the aisle. Seat 29C. 29C. 29C.