Chương 11
A small black suitcase stood beside her.
The photograph had clearly been taken from several rows away.
Daniel’s expression changed immediately.
“That’s current.”
Meredith zoomed in on the departure board.
Most destinations were blurred by motion and distance.
One line was readable.
Lisbon.
Departure time 6:05 a.m.
Meredith checked the timestamp.
3:34.
Daniel reached for his phone.
Meredith caught his wrist.
“No.”
“She is at Logan.”
“I can see that.”
“We can have someone there in fifteen minutes.”
“To do what?”
“Make sure she’s safe.”
“By surrounding her with security?”
“One person.”
“She’ll know.”
“Probably.”
Meredith stared at the photograph.
Her mother looked strangely small beneath the airport lighting.
She was holding a paper cup with both hands.
No jewelry except her wedding ring.
Elaine, who had spent decades treating presentation as oxygen, looked like a woman trying not to be recognized.
Meredith released Daniel’s wrist.
“We go ourselves.”
He looked at her.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Meredith picked up her phone.
“Because if I send someone else, I’m doing exactly what I accused you of doing.”
Daniel stood.
“You’re planning to confront her?”
“No.”
“What then?”
Meredith looked again at Elaine’s distant figure.
“I’m going to give her one chance to tell me why she left before someone else decides the story for her.”
Daniel did not argue with her until they were halfway down the stairs.
“You’re still wearing pajama pants.”
Meredith looked down.
“So I am.”
“If you intend to confront an international fugitive—”
“My mother is not an international fugitive.”
“She did take several million dollars and buy a ticket out of the country.”
“You are enjoying that phrase too much.”
“A little.”
Meredith went back upstairs, changed into jeans and a black sweater, and tied her hair into a knot without looking in the mirror.
When she returned, Daniel had changed too, although his shirt was still creased and he had apparently decided that shaving was a problem for civilization at a more reasonable hour.
His driver was already outside.
Meredith stopped in the doorway.
“I thought we were going ourselves.”
“We are.”
“You called a driver.”
“I am not operating a vehicle after being awake for twenty-two hours.”
She considered objecting.
Then she remembered clipping a parking meter the last time she drove while exhausted.
“Fine.”
The streets were almost empty.
Boston at that hour looked briefly relieved of its audience.
Delivery trucks idled behind restaurants.
A man in a reflective vest hosed something from the sidewalk outside a bar.
At a red light, Meredith watched a woman in hospital scrubs eat a banana while waiting for a rideshare.
The normality of it irritated her.
She wanted the city to acknowledge that her mother had vanished.
Instead, a sanitation truck lumbered past.
Daniel sat beside her without speaking.
His phone buzzed twice.
He ignored it.
Meredith noticed.
“You can answer.”
“No.”
“You have a company.”
“It will survive until breakfast.”
“That confidence must be nice.”
“It’s mostly delegation.”
“That confidence must also be nice.”
He smiled faintly.
Her own phone rested face down on her thigh.
She had not received another message from the international number.
That bothered her more than if it had continued.
“Who took the photograph?” she asked.
Daniel looked out the window.
“Someone close enough to know where Elaine was.”
“Rourke’s daughter?”
“Maybe.”
“That doesn’t explain how she knew Mom would be at Logan.”
“No.”
“Unless Mom told her.”
Daniel nodded.
“Or they’re working together.”
Meredith watched the dark storefronts pass.
“If Mom wanted me to know where she was, she could text me.”
“She may not be the one controlling the communication.”
The sentence made Meredith turn.
“You think she’s in danger.”
“I think we don’t know.”
“She was sitting at a gate drinking coffee.”
“People in danger also drink coffee.”
“Helpful.”
“I try.”
At Logan, Daniel’s driver left them near the departures entrance.
The terminal smelled of floor cleaner, coffee, and tired people.
A toddler was asleep across three plastic chairs while his father stared at a laptop.
Two college students argued softly about whether they had packed a charger.
No one recognized Daniel at first.
Then a man near the security line looked at him twice.
Meredith lowered her head.
“Congratulations.”
“On?”
“You’re becoming inconvenient.”
“I’ve been inconvenient for years.”
They checked the departure board.
Lisbon was still listed for 6:05.
On time.
Meredith checked her phone.
4:12.
“Gate?”
Daniel looked toward the security checkpoint.
“We can’t get through without tickets.”
Meredith stared at him.
“You own aircraft.”
“Not the airport.”
“Disappointing.”
He pulled out his phone.
She caught his sleeve.
“No special access.”
“I was going to buy tickets.”
“To Portugal?”
“To anywhere past security.”
Meredith blinked.
“That’s legal?”
“Yes.”
“Ridiculous, but legal?”
“Yes.”
“Do it.”
They bought refundable tickets on a morning flight to Washington.
The security officer recognized Daniel but did not react beyond comparing his identification twice.
Meredith found that strangely reassuring.
At the gate area, she searched the rows of seats beneath fluorescent lighting.
Families slept against carry-ons.
Business travelers guarded power outlets with tribal intensity.
A cleaner pushed a cart slowly between chairs.
No Elaine.
Meredith checked the photograph again.
“Gate C21.”
Daniel looked up at the sign.
“Other direction.”
They walked quickly.
By C21, the crowd was thicker.
The Lisbon flight was boarding in less than an hour.
Meredith scanned every face.
Nothing.
Then Daniel touched her elbow.
“Left.”
Elaine sat near the window.
Same jeans.
Same black suitcase.
Same paper cup, now empty.
For a few seconds, Meredith could not move.
Her mother looked smaller in person than in the photograph.
Not frail.
Elaine had never permitted frailty.
But stripped of her jewelry, perfect hair, and social armor, she looked almost ordinary.
A woman traveling alone before dawn.
Daniel stopped beside Meredith.
“I’ll stay here.”
She nodded.
Then she walked toward her mother.
Elaine noticed her when Meredith was ten feet away.
Her face changed once.
Shock.
Then control returned.
She stood.
May you like
“What are you doing here?”
Meredith almost laughed.
