Nine Lives - Danielle Steel Page 0,20

disorder when discharged from the hospital. The other passengers had suffered similarly, and many had died. It was not an event the airline was proud of, and they were prepared to accept full responsibility for it. They acknowledged that it wouldn’t make up for her loss, or the loss of a father for a son, but they were prepared to compensate them in the only way they could. They offered her a ten-million-dollar settlement if she would sign a release. They were making similar offers to the other passengers, depending on the degree of damage they had suffered. One woman had lost her legs, a child, and her husband. They didn’t tell Maggie they were offering her a hundred million. She hadn’t accepted yet, and her attorney said she was still too traumatized to discuss it.

Maggie felt as if she were in shock again after they made the offer. They left her with the paperwork outlining their settlement package and the release she would have to sign, and advised her to seek the advice of a lawyer. They were kind and compassionate and very humble. Not knowing what to do, she called Phil after they left. He said he wasn’t surprised, and thought it was the least they could do if the crash had been due to poor judgment on the part of the airline, which they readily admitted.

“You can probably get double that, if that’s where they started,” Phil said gently.

“I don’t want double that!” Maggie said, horrified. “I don’t even want ten million. I don’t want to get rich because my husband died, Phil. You already told me we have more than enough from the insurance and Brad’s savings.”

“You have a right to that money, Maggie. You suffered a terrible loss and went through unspeakable trauma yourself. You should take it. It could make a big difference to Aden one day. I think Brad would want you to take it.” She was shocked. It felt immoral to her, but pointing out that it might matter to Aden one day resonated with her. “You might even get more if you sue them, and they know that,” he added, and she groaned.

“Is everything about money? I lost the husband I loved, and Aden lost his dad. Money doesn’t make up for that.”

“Aden could have seventy years ahead of him, and you could have fifty. He’s a boy, and you’re a young woman. Don’t turn your nose up at that kind of money.”

“I’m not. I just don’t want blood money. It’s bad enough that I survived and he didn’t.”

“It’s damn lucky you did,” he said, “for Aden’s sake. Imagine if you had both died. What would happen to him now?” They had no other relatives and Aden would have been an orphan, on his own at seventeen. It suddenly made her realize even more acutely how important it was for her to make good decisions now, for her son’s sake. She called Brad’s lawyer after she talked to Phil, and sent him the paperwork the airline had left with her. She told him about Phil offering to buy the business too, and he thought it an excellent idea, particularly selling it to someone who knew it so well, had worked there for twenty years, and loved Brad deeply as an employee and friend.

It was a lot for her to think about.

The lawyer suggested that she turn down the settlement and ask them to double it. He thought she’d come out somewhere around fifteen million if she did, which he thought was fair, and he advised her again to sell the business to Phil, and said he thought Brad would approve.

In the end, she accepted the ten million the airline had offered her, which seemed like more than enough to her. More would have seemed obscene, for the price on her husband’s head. She told Phil she would sell the business to him. They agreed on a million two, with two years to pay her in full.

When it was all over, she had fourteen million dollars, with a million more to come from Phil. He was elated about it. The airline’s check arrived in the mail two days after she signed the release, and they thanked her for being so reasonable. Her lawyer had requested a confidentiality clause that they not disclose the amount of the settlement, or that there had even been one, so as not to make her or Aden targets for people with profiteering or criminal