Spirit (Blackwood Security, #10.5) - Elise Noble Page 0,34
help? If you need somebody to talk to, a therapist to help you to process things, we can arrange that.”
“I just want to see Sarah,” Rhoda said. “Do you think she’ll speak to me after the way I abandoned her?”
Fortunately, Gwendolyn had struck me as the understanding type. “Her only Christmas wish was to share the day with you. If you want, we can fly you to her, but you’ll have to hurry up and pack or we won’t make it to Virginia in time.”
“She’s in Virginia?”
“Near Richmond. And we’ve got a plane waiting at the airport.”
“Then we should go.”
“All of us?” Mina asked.
I shrugged. “Why not? We’ve got enough seats.”
Rhoda scrambled to shaky feet. “We need to leave. We need to leave right this second.”
CHAPTER 17
WHY NOT? I’LL tell you why not. Because by the time we’d dropped the Lewises’ dog off with neighbours, helped them to carry their suitcases to the car, and driven to Ted Stevens Airport, the place was bollocksed. Completely bollocksed. An incoming cargo plane had skidded off the runway and ended up in a snowdrift.
So we were stuck there, and most likely would be for several more hours at least. And just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, Bradley decided to start a Christmas sing-song in the departure hall. When my phone rang, I practically ran to the nearest stairwell because even if it was a telemarketer, that was still better than listening to “Jingle Bells” for the seventeenth time.
“Are you near a TV?” James asked.
“No, I’m stuck in a bloody airport.”
“You had to work on Christmas Eve?”
“Yes and no. I got caught up trying to grant one more wish for Bradley’s cockamamie scheme, and now I’m in Anchorage with no way to get home in time.”
“In time for what? Christmas dinner?”
“I don’t give a shit about Christmas dinner. No, I’m meant to be taking that little girl flying tomorrow morning, remember?”
“The one I sent the model of Air Force One for?”
“Yes, her. But a plane missed the runway, and who knows how long it’ll take to get cleared up? Even when the place reopens, they’ll have to land the flights in the air first, so we won’t be able to take off for hours, and if we don’t leave by ten o’clock, it’ll be too late. Bradley’s trying to charter a plane from another airport in between singing the full repertoire of Christmas favourites, but it’s not looking hopeful and my eardrums are about to burst. Dammit, I hate letting people down. Sorry, rant over. How are you?”
“It’s been a busy day. I have a dinner to attend with one speech to give before dessert, and then I’m hitting the sack. What happened in Anchorage? Other than the runway incident, I mean?”
I caught James up on the Christmas convention nightmare, my holly jolly hooker outfit, and the discovery that Gwendolyn’s family was more fucked up than my own. “So the sister’s actually now the mom, and the father’s dead. And it looks as if the old-mom-slash-grandma killed him.”
“Sounds like karma to me.”
“Sure does. Karma’s a bitch, but a smart one.”
I heard somebody talking in the background, and James groaned. “Shit. Got to go. Nine thirty—watch the news.”
“For what?”
“You’ll see. Happy Christmas, Linny.”
And then he was gone.
Back in the departure hall, the hours ticked by. I bought a travel pillow. Catnapped. Ate three cheeseburgers. We had a good view of the action near the runway through the floor-to-ceiling windows, and there seemed to be an awful lot of standing around going on. I was tempted to send Bradley out to help, firstly because the plane would be moved faster but mostly because even through my earplugs, I could still hear every note of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and it wasn’t so much an earworm as a brain-eating amoeba.
At nine twenty-five, I found myself a quiet corner in the farthest bar, ordered a gin and tonic, and tuned in to MSNBC on my phone. Ana slid onto the stool next to me with a vodka on the rocks.
“Sometimes, I wish to go back to the prison cell. At least there was no drama there.”
“Is there room for two?”
“Always.”
“I suppose at least there was a happy ending.”
“Da.” Ana gave a one-shouldered shrug.
“You don’t think so?”
“A shot between the eyes? Too clean. Too easy. Too kind.”
“True. I’d have jammed Enoch’s leg into a bear trap and waited for nature’s consequences.”
“I would have strangled him with his own intestines.” Ana cracked a rare smile. “Made