announcing the discovery of a lost child. At the same time, a noisy group of New Yorkers went past, complaining about the perceived phoniness of California's have-a-nice-day service ethic, apparently homesick for hostility. Ironheart's words were drowned out.
Holly inched nearer to him.
The fat man frowned down at her, evidently suspecting her of attempted line-jumping. She smiled at him in such a way as to assure him that she had no evil intentions and that she knew he was large enough to squash her like a bug.
If Ironheart glanced back now, he would look directly into her face. She held her breath, heard the clerk say, “… O'Hare Airport in Chicago, leaving in twenty minutes …,” and slipped back behind the fat man, who looked over his shoulder to frown down at her again.
She wondered why they had come to LAX for a flight to Chicago. She was pretty sure there were plenty of connections to O'Hare from John Wayne in Orange County. Well … though Chicago was farther than San Diego, it was preferable to — and cheaper than — Hawaii.
Ironheart paid for his ticket and hurried off in search of his gate without glancing in Holly's direction.
Some psychic, she thought.
She was pleased with herself.
When she reached the counter, she presented a credit card and asked for a seat on the same flight to Chicago. For a moment she had the terrible feeling that the clerk would say the plane was fully booked. But there were seats left, and she got her ticket.
The departure lounge at the gate was nearly empty. Boarding of the flight had virtually been completed. Ironheart was nowhere in sight.
On the way along the tunnel-like boarding gate to the door of the aircraft, she began to worry that he would see her when she had to walk back the aisle to her seat. She could pretend not to notice him, or pretend not to recognize him if he approached her. But she doubted that he would believe her presence on his flight was sheer coincidence. An hour and a half ago, she'd been in a rush to confront him. Now she wanted nothing more than to
The plane was a wide-body DC-10 with two aisles. Each row of nine seats was divided into three sections: two by the window on the port side, five down the center, two by the window on the starboard side. Holly was assigned to row twenty-three, seat H, which was on the starboard flank, one seat removed from the window. As she headed back the aisle, she scanned the faces of her fellow passengers, hoping she wouldn't lock eyes with Jim Ironheart. In fact, she would rather not see him at all during the flight, and worry about catching sight of him again at O'Hare. The DC-10 was an immense aircraft. Though a number of seats were empty, more than two hundred and fifty people were onboard. She and Ironheart might very well fly around the world together without bumping into each other; getting through the few hours to Chicago should be a cinch.
Then she saw him. He was sitting in the five-wide middle section of row sixteen, the port-aisle seat, on the other side of the plane. He was paging through an issue of the airline's magazine, and she prayed that he would not look up until she was past him. Though she had to step aside for a flight attendant escorting a small boy who was flying alone, her prayer was answered. Ironheart's head remained bowed over the publication until she was past him. She reached 23-H and sat down, sighing with relief. Even if he went to the restroom, or just got up to stretch his legs, he would probably never have any reason to come around to the starboard aisle. Perfect.
She glanced at the man in the window seat beside her. He was in his early thirties, tanned, fit, and intense. He was wearing a dark-blue business suit, white shirt, and tie even on a Sunday flight. His brow was as furrowed as his suit was well-pressed, and he was working on a laptop computer. He was wearing headphones, listening to music or pretending to, in order to discourage conversation, and he gave her a cool smile calculated to do the same.
That was fine with her. Like a lot of reporters, she was not garrulous by nature. Her job required her to be a good listener, not necessarily a good talker. She was content to pass the trip with the airline's magazine and her own Byzantine thoughts.
Two hours into the flight, Jim still had no idea where he was expected to go when he got off the plane at O'Hare. He was not concerned about it, however, because he had learned to be patient. The revelation always came, sooner or later.
Nothing in the airline's magazine was of interest to him, and the in-flight movie sounded as if it were about as much fun as a vacation in a Soviet prison. The two seats to the right of him were empty, so he was not required to make nice with a stranger. He tilted his seat slightly, folded his hands on his stomach, closed his eyes, and passed the time — between the flight attendants' inquiries about his appetite and comfort — by brooding about the windmill dream, puzzling out what significance it had, if any.
That was what he
Hell, now he was being disingenuous, because he knew perfectly well why she had been drifting in and out of his thoughts ever since he had met her. She was a treat for the eyes. She was intelligent, too; one look at her, and you knew about a million gears were spinning in her head, all meshing perfectly, well-oiled, quiet and productive.
And she had a sense of humor. He would give anything to share his days and his long, dream-troubled nights with a woman like that. Laughter was usually a function of sharing — an observation, a joke, a moment. You didn't laugh a lot when you were always alone; and if you did, that probably meant you should make arrangements for a long stay in a resort with padded walls.
He had never been smooth with women, so he had often been without them. And he had to admit, even before this recent strangeness had begun, he was sometimes difficult to live with. Not depressive exactly but too aware that death was life's companion. Too inclined to brood about the coming darkness. Too slow to seize the moment and succumb to pleasure. If—
He opened his eyes and sat up straighter in his seat, because suddenly he received the revelation that he had been expecting. Or part of it, at least. He still did not know what was going to happen in Chicago, but he knew the names of the people whose lives he was expected to save: Christine and Casey Dubrovek.
To his surprise, he realized they were on this plane with him — which led him to suspect that the trouble might come in the terminal at O'Hare, or at least soon after touchdown. Otherwise he would not have crossed their path so early. Usually, he encountered the people he saved only minutes before their lives were thrown into jeopardy.
Compelled by those forces that had been guiding him periodically since last May, he got up, headed to the front of the plane, crossed over to the starboard side, and started back that aisle. He had no idea what he was doing until he stopped at row twenty-two and looked down at the mother and child in seats H and I. The woman was in her late twenties; she had a sweet face, not beautiful but gentle and pretty. The child was five or six years old.
The woman looked up at him curiously, and Jim heard himself say, “Mrs. Dubrovek?”
She blinked in surprise. “I'm sorry … do I know you?”
“No, but Ed told me you were taking this flight and asked me to look you up.” When he spoke that name, he knew Ed was her husband, though he had no idea where that knowledge had come from. He squatted down beside her seat and gave her his best smile. “I'm Steve Harkman. Ed's in sales, I'm in advertising, so we drive each other nuts in about a dozen meetings a week.”
Christine Dubrovek's madonna face brightened. “Oh, yes, he's spoken about you. You only joined the company, what, a month ago?”
“Six weeks now,” Jim said, flowing with it, confident the right answers would pour out of him even if he didn't know what in the hell they were. “And this must be Casey.”
The little girl was in the seat by the window. She raised her head, shifting her attention from a pop-up storybook. “I'm gonna be six tomorrow, it's my birthday, and we're gonna visit grandpop and grandma. They're real old, but they're nice.”
He laughed and said, “I'll bet they're sure proud to have a granddaughter cute as you.”
