Chapter 9 - The Boy at the Gate
They escaped through an alley behind the hotel and emerged into rain just as two Northstar vehicles rolled past the records center. Theo's car was gone. The driver's-side window had been smashed, and a yellow envelope rested on the hood.
“They know we are here,” Lena said.
Mara picked up the envelope with a sleeve-covered hand. Inside was a photograph of a boy standing at an airport gate. He wore a red scarf and held a paper airplane.
On the back, someone had written: HE REMEMBERS THE WOMAN IN ROW TWO.
Evelyn studied the face. The boy was perhaps eleven, with dark hair and a wary mouth. Something about him felt familiar, though she could not place it.
“Nadiya's son?” Theo asked.
“Nadiya was a child,” Evelyn said. “She had no son.”
“Then who is he?”
Mara took the photograph. “The airport code is on the sign.”
“Pine Ridge,” Lena said. “That is a small airport south of the city.”
“We go there,” Evelyn said.
“We need transportation first,” Lena replied.
An old station wagon pulled to the curb. The passenger window slid down, revealing Naomi Bell. She had aged into a compact, silver-haired woman with an orthopedic brace on one wrist and the careful posture of someone who never trusted chairs.
“Get in,” Naomi said.
Mara stood in the rain. “You wrote the note.”
“Which note?”
“The one ordering the airline to keep my mother away from Portland.”
Naomi's eyes moved to Evelyn. “I wrote a warning. Someone changed the wording.”
“You expect us to believe that?”
“No. I expect you to get out of the rain before your phone dies.”
They squeezed into the wagon. Naomi drove without asking for directions.
“What happened to Daniel?” Evelyn asked.
“He found proof that Asterion was moving people under false manifests. He planned to testify. Peter Sloan discovered the plan.”
“Sloan killed him?” Mara asked.
“I never found proof.”
“But you believed it.”
“Belief is not evidence.”
“You are a lawyer,” Mara said. “You used to know the difference.”
Naomi glanced at her in the mirror. “I still do. That is why I have lived with the difference for twenty-three years.”
Evelyn looked at Naomi's wrist brace. “What happened?”
“A door closed on it.”
“By accident?”
“Doors are often given too much credit.”
Pine Ridge Airport had one terminal, four gates, and a vending machine that hummed louder than the baggage carousel. A teenage attendant directed them toward a family waiting area where an elderly man sat beside the boy from the photograph.
The boy saw Evelyn and stood.
“You know me?” he asked.
“No.”
“You were in the picture.”
“I was not.”
He pointed to the photograph. “You are behind the camera.”
Evelyn looked again. The photograph had been taken from inside the terminal. The reflection in the glass showed a woman seated in Row Two of a departure lounge, her face turned away. The woman's coat was the same gray coat Evelyn had worn at Kestrel.
The elderly man rose slowly. “My name is Samuel Ortiz.”
Lena went rigid.
“My father,” she said.
Samuel's face softened. “You should not have come.”
“You knew about this?”
“I knew enough to be afraid.”
The boy stepped toward Evelyn. “My name is Isaac.”
“Isaac what?”
“Isaac Sayeed.”
The terminal noise vanished.
Mara looked at Evelyn. “Sayeed?”
Samuel touched Lena's arm. “The child was left with me after the Kestrel evacuation. His mother was Nadiya.”
“Nadiya survived?” Evelyn whispered.
Isaac nodded. “She told me your name.”
“Where is she?”
The boy's face tightened. “She died when I was six.”
Evelyn closed her eyes. Nadiya had not disappeared. She had lived long enough to have a son, and someone had erased her anyway.
“What does he remember?” Mara asked.
Samuel looked toward the security desk. “A woman in Row Two gave his mother a paper with names on it. Then men came and took the paper. The woman told Nadiya to hide the blue glass.”
“That woman was me,” Evelyn said.
Isaac shook his head. “No. It was another woman.”
Evelyn opened her eyes.
“Who?”
Isaac pointed at Naomi.
Naomi gripped the back of a chair.
Mara's face went blank. Lena reached for her radio, then remembered she no longer had one.
Naomi took a breath. “I was there.”
“You said you were at headquarters,” Evelyn said.
“I lied.”
“Why?”
“Because Nadiya was not the only child.”
The airport lights flickered. At the far end of the terminal, a man in a Northstar jacket entered through the sliding doors.
May you like
Isaac stepped behind Evelyn.
Naomi looked at the approaching man and whispered, “They found us.”
