Nine Lives - Danielle Steel Page 0,10

their son. Maggie had seen what losing Tommy had done to her mother. It was even worse than losing her husband, which was bad enough. Harry was still alive at eighty, and had remarried a nice woman he knew from work. He visited Maggie from time to time, but had moved to Florida with his new wife when he retired, and he was slowing down. He rarely came to Chicago anymore, and he and Maggie had never been close. His marriage to her mother had been a sad chapter in his life, which she inevitably reminded him of.

It felt like a mini-honeymoon when Brad and Maggie left for the airport. Aden had been picked up by his car pool that morning. On the way to the airport, Brad and Maggie chatted about what they were going to do in New York. They were staying at a hotel they both liked and Brad had heard of a new restaurant he wanted to try.

There was a slight delay when they left O’Hare, but nothing major. The flight was more turbulent than usual, and it started to snow heavily half an hour out of New York. Brad glanced outside and wondered if they’d have trouble landing. He hoped they wouldn’t be diverted to another airport, and as soon as he thought it, the captain came on and told them they’d been asked to stay in a holding pattern over LaGuardia for a short time. Twenty minutes later, they were told they’d be landing in Newark. The snowstorm had gotten much worse in the last half hour, and when they left the holding pattern and headed to New Jersey, they hit even worse turbulence. They dropped altitude, and the passengers could hear the landing gear come down. As soon as it did, the plane started to pitch and roll from side to side, and Maggie took Brad’s hand and held it firmly. They could see that they were over the Hudson River by then, with the skyscrapers of New York on one side and New Jersey on the other, then the plane took a sharp nosedive downward. Maggie could see the river rushing toward them when she looked out the window. She glanced at Brad as the flight attendant made an announcement to take crash positions and told them what to do. The snow was swirling around them, they were going down fast, and passengers started to panic.

“Brad…” Maggie said, not wanting to say what she was thinking.

“It’s going to be fine…it’s just a snowstorm.” He squeezed her hand and smiled at her as they took crash positions. Maggie was distantly aware of people screaming, and before she could say anything else to Brad, they hit the river with a bang, and a huge spray of water shot out around them, as the flight attendants shouted at them to follow the floor lighting to the exits. Brad put a life vest over Maggie’s head and pulled her along. She didn’t even have time to panic as passengers jumped down the slides, half crying, some still screaming, a steady stream of humanity sliding out of the plane onto the inflated slides, which detached and became rafts that were hit by waves of icy water, which soaked them. They could see people sliding down the slides into the other rafts. Boats converged on them and the plane sank lower as people continued down the slides into the rafts bobbing on the water. Maggie saw a woman slip overboard on one of the rafts and sink under the waves, pulled down by her heavy winter clothes. Maggie had let go of Brad’s hand and turned to him, but he wasn’t there. He was in the water, clinging desperately to the slippery side of the raft with a frantic expression, as she looked at him and saw him sink. She reached for him but couldn’t grasp his hand as the raft moved away from him. She screamed for someone to help her, but he was pulled by the waves and the currents, and she saw him start to disappear in the water. She screamed again and pointed to him, as someone in another raft tried to grab him. But as she watched, Brad disappeared and she couldn’t see him anywhere, as passengers in both rafts stared at the dark, icy water in horror. There was no sign of him.

* * *

—

All the passengers were out of the plane by then. Some were still in the