Chapter 2 - SEVENTEEN
The flight attendant held my gaze for less than two seconds.
It was long enough.
Her name tag read CLAIRE DONNELLY, and although her professional smile never changed, something sharpened behind her gray eyes. She had seen my fist close around my thumb. She had counted the three taps against my leg.
She understood.
“Let me make you more comfortable,” she said.
Paul Danner tightened his grip on the handles of my wheelchair.
“She’s already medicated.”
Claire looked at him rather than me. “That’s exactly why I need to assess her before takeoff. The captain won’t accept an unstable passenger.”
Danner was a broad man with a shaved head and the permanent stillness of someone accustomed to frightening people without raising his voice. His dark suit concealed the shoulder holster I had felt beneath his jacket when he dragged me out of St. Catherine’s.
He glanced toward Adrian Vale.
The hospital CEO stood near the forward cabin, speaking quietly with Dr. Marcus Redd. Vale had changed out of his hospital suit and into a navy travel jacket, but he still wore the same silver cuff links. The initials AV flashed whenever his hands moved.
He had boarded the plane because he did not trust anyone else to make me disappear.
Redd had boarded because Vale did not trust him either.
“Thirty seconds,” Vale said impatiently.
Claire crouched beside me.
She pretended to adjust the blanket covering my knees. Her fingers brushed my wrist brace, then paused near the strip of tape beneath its lower edge.
Her eyes moved to mine.
I gave the smallest shake of my head.
Not yet.
“Can you tell me your name?” she asked.
“Leah Morgan.”
“Do you know where you are?”
“On a plane.”
“Do you feel safe?”
Danner leaned over us. “She fell down a staircase and suffered a concussion. Don’t encourage her confusion.”
Claire’s hand disappeared beneath the blanket.
Something small pressed against the seam of my hospital gown near my collarbone.
A microphone.
It was no larger than the head of a thumbtack.
Claire rose smoothly. “I’ll bring water.”
Danner caught her wrist.
“You’ll remain where I can see you.”
For one terrible moment, I thought he had felt the device.
Claire’s smile cooled.
“Remove your hand, sir.”
Danner stared at her.
She did not look away.
Vale sighed. “Paul.”
Danner released her.
Claire turned toward the galley, moving at the unhurried pace of someone who knew that running would expose everything.
The cabin door closed behind us.
The engines grew louder.
Outside the oval window, terminal lights slid across the glass as the plane began to move.
Vale settled into a cream leather seat across from me. Redd sat beside him, staring at the floor.
Danner remained standing.
“You were supposed to die on those stairs,” he whispered.
I let my head fall weakly against the seat.
“That was the plan?”
His mouth twisted. “The plan was simple. You fall. Your injuries look accidental. The medication in your blood makes everyone believe you were impaired.”
“You drugged me before you pushed me.”
“You were always too observant.”
The plane turned toward the runway.
I could feel the microphone against my skin.
Three inches from Danner’s mouth.
I closed my eyes and forced my breathing to sound shallow.
“How many patients did you kill?”
Silence filled the cabin.
Redd looked up.
Vale’s expression changed.
Not fear.
Annoyance.
He understood what I was doing, but he believed I was asking because I was afraid.
He believed fear made people careless.
Danner leaned so close that I smelled peppermint on his breath.
“Seventeen.”
My eyes opened.
The number struck harder than the fall.
I had found evidence of six dialysis deaths connected to contaminated fluid. I suspected three earlier cardiac arrests had been staged, but seventeen meant the conspiracy had lasted far longer than I imagined.
“Six from dialysis,” Danner continued. “Four who threatened lawsuits. Two who saw things they shouldn’t have. Three employees who became inconvenient.”
“That’s fifteen.”
His smile widened.
“The first two were practice.”
Redd went pale.
Vale rose from his seat. “Enough.”
Danner straightened.
“You wanted her frightened.”
“I wanted her quiet.”
“She’ll be quiet soon.”
The jet accelerated.
My damaged ribs screamed as the force pressed me backward. The runway lights blurred into shining lines, and then the ground dropped away.
We were airborne.
Vale crossed the cabin and bent over me.
“You were a good nurse once,” he said. “Patients trusted you. Doctors respected you. You could have spent thirty years at St. Catherine’s if you had learned one simple lesson.”
“What lesson?”
“Institutions survive because ordinary people know when to stop asking questions.”
I looked past him toward the galley.
Claire stood with one hand beneath the counter. Her lips moved silently.
She was speaking into the crew phone.
Vale followed my gaze.
Claire immediately lifted a bottle of water.
“Here we are.”
Vale blocked her path.
“Who were you speaking to?”
“The cockpit.”
“Why?”
“She may have internal bleeding.”
Redd stood abruptly. “That is possible.”
Vale turned on him. “Sit down.”
“She has fractured ribs, a head injury, and abdominal tenderness. She should never have been cleared to fly.”
“You cleared her.”
Redd’s face tightened.
“Because you threatened my family.”
The words escaped before he could stop them.
Danner took one step toward him.
Redd sat down again.
Vale’s voice became dangerously soft. “We will discuss your loyalty later.”
Claire approached with the water. As she handed it to me, her fingers pressed a folded napkin into my palm.
I opened it beneath the blanket.
Four words had been written in blue ink.
Audio transmitting. ATC notified.
For the first time since waking in the hospital, hope became something more than an act.
I folded the napkin around the microSD card and slipped it into Claire’s hand as she retrieved the empty bottle cap.
She had the evidence now.
Even if they killed me, the truth had left my body.
Danner watched the exchange.
His eyes narrowed.
“What did she give you?”
“Nothing,” Claire said.
He moved faster than I expected.
He seized her forearm, twisted it behind her back, and slammed her against the bulkhead.
The bottle fell and rolled beneath a seat.
Vale closed the cabin shades.
Redd stood again, but Danner drew a compact pistol from beneath his jacket.
“Sit down, Doctor.”
Redd froze.
Claire’s cheek pressed against the wall, yet her voice remained steady.
“Assaulting a crew member is a federal crime.”
Danner laughed. “Only if someone reports it.”
The cockpit speaker chimed.
The captain’s voice filled the cabin.
“Ladies and gentlemen, due to a developing medical concern, we will be diverting to Albuquerque. Emergency personnel will meet the aircraft upon arrival.”
Vale’s face went still.
Danner released Claire and aimed the pistol at her chest.
“You contacted them.”
Claire stared at him.
“You brought an injured woman onto my aircraft against her will.”
“This is not your aircraft,” Vale said.
“No,” she replied. “But it is my cabin.”
Danner grabbed the front of her uniform and searched her pockets.
He found no card.
Claire had hidden it well.
He pushed her into the rear galley and locked the divider.
Vale strode toward the cockpit.
The reinforced door remained closed.
He pressed the call button.
“Captain, this is Adrian Vale. Cancel the diversion.”
No answer.
He pressed it again.
“I own the charter contract. You will proceed to Arizona.”
The speaker chimed once more.
“We have been instructed by air traffic control to land in Albuquerque.”
Vale looked at Danner.
“Open that door.”
Danner reached into his jacket and removed a black electronic device.
A security bypass tool.
I recognized it from St. Catherine’s restricted pharmacy doors. Danner’s team used similar devices during lockdown drills.
Claire began pounding from inside the galley.
“Don’t let him access the cockpit!”
Danner ignored her.
As he passed me, I let my injured hand drop toward the aisle.
My fingers caught his trouser cuff.
He looked down.
I smiled weakly.
“Seventeen people,” I said. “Did any of them beg?”
His expression changed.
He kicked my hand away, then bent over me.
“They all begged.”
The microphone remained against my gown.
Still transmitting.
“You think the police will save you?” he whispered. “Vale owns judges. He owns reporters. He owns half the hospital board. By tomorrow morning, you’ll be remembered as a drug-addicted nurse who killed six patients and fled the state.”
My throat tightened.
That was their final plan.
They were not only going to murder me.
They were going to make me responsible for the contaminated dialysis fluid.
Vale opened the forged transfer folder and removed several additional pages.
Medication logs.
Incident reports.
A confession.
Every page carried my forged signature.
“You altered the batch numbers,” I said.
Vale smiled.
“You altered them.”
Danner attached the bypass device to the cockpit keypad.
A red light appeared.
Then another.
Redd stepped beside my seat and pretended to check my pulse.
His fingers moved beneath the blanket.
He slipped something cold into my hand.
A small metal key.
“Rear medical cabinet,” he whispered. “Top shelf.”
I stared at him.
“Why are you helping me?”
His face twisted with shame.
“Because seventeen is not the final number.”
Before I could ask what he meant, Danner’s device beeped.
The cockpit lock disengaged.
A narrow strip of darkness appeared as the door began to open.
Danner raised his pistol.
Then the aircraft banked hard to the left.
Unsecured glasses flew from the counter.
Vale crashed against a seat.
Danner lost his balance but kept hold of the gun.
Through the opening cockpit door, I saw the captain slumped over the controls.
The first officer was fighting someone hidden behind his seat.
And across the instrument panel, one warning flashed in bright red letters.
CABIN PRESSURE FAILURE.
May you like
The plane began to descend.
Fast.
