The Long Way Home

by McQuestion, Karen

  Troy answered, “There’s a guy down there with a dog on a leash and he’s letting the dog crap right in the parking lot. Geez.”

  She smiled, so glad to have him back. It put her in a good mood. Between that and the solid night’s sleep she found it easy to swing into action, getting herself and her suitcase ready to go in record time. Troy watched TV while she bustled around. Laverne and Jazzy were doing the same in the adjoining room, and they planned to go downstairs to eat breakfast and have a talk. At that point, Marnie was entirely sure that there was nothing that could convince her to board a plane. She’d have bet every dollar she had in savings, which was a considerable amount, since she’d banked most of her paycheck for a decade.

  All through breakfast, she was firm in her decision, even to the point of thinking she and Troy would take the airport shuttle with Jazzy and Laverne, to rent a car there. Somehow, though, before she even finished her coffee, they tag-teamed her. Jazzy started up again about how Marnie had evolved as a person. “It’s like you were here,” she said, pointing to one edge of the table, “and now you’re over here.” She slid her finger all the way to the other side.

  While Marnie was trying to figure out what that meant, Laverne started yammering about how she’d never flown before and how she couldn’t wait. “I can’t believe we’ll get there in only two hours. Imagine that. Two hours!”

  Both of them asked her to reconsider, and she felt herself getting angrier and angrier that they wouldn’t drop it. She was just about to snap when Troy said, “Marnie, couldn’t you just give it a try? It’s really not such a big deal.”

  Poor boy did not realize that there was no such thing as giving it a try. Once the plane was in the air, she’d be stuck. “It’s not that I don’t want to, Troy,” she said, starting to explain, but then stopped when she saw the sweet, serious expression on his face.

  Troy looked at her intently. “I’ll be right next to you the whole time.” And then he said the thing that made her falter. “You can hug me if you get scared. I’m going to be there. You know I won’t let you down.”

  She was losing her resolve and everyone at the table knew it. When Laverne pulled the Ziploc out of her purse and said, “I got just the thing to help you relax. You take one of these and you won’t even care where you are,” Marnie knew it was all over. Against her will, she’d been swept along in a current of persuasion.

  Now she sat in a plastic molded seat in the airport, nervously fanning herself with her boarding pass. Oh why had she agreed to do this? And why had Jazzy been so insistent she fly? Laverne and Jazzy could have flown without her. It wasn’t like her presence was necessary. She felt her nervousness ratcheting up a notch; she swallowed a lump of worry. Just when she was afraid of launching into a full-blown panic attack, Troy appeared at her side, back from buying a Snickers bar at the newsstand. “I checked the board and our flight is right on time,” he said joyfully, oblivious to her pain. And just when she’d been thinking how self-absorbed teenagers were, he ripped open the wrapper and offered her some. When she shook her head, he proceeded to polish it off in four bites.

  They’d checked all their luggage, including her cooler, another reason she couldn’t back out of the flight. In retrospect, she wondered if Jazzy had encouraged that decision on purpose. “Let’s just check it all,” she’d said. “Then we don’t have to fuss with getting it into the overhead bins.” Everyone sitting around Marnie seemed to have carry-on suitcases, duffel bags, and laptops. Her purse somehow seemed like not enough.

  Across the aisle, Laverne and Jazzy sat side by side, leafing through entertainment magazines. If Marnie didn’t know better, she’d have thought Laverne was Jazzy’s grandmother. They sat apart because they hadn’t been able to find four seats together, a problem that would follow them on the plane where they would all be separated. Troy and Marnie would sit closest. They were at least in the same three-person row. Unfortunately, there was someone else in the middle. “I’m sure that person will let you switch,” Jazzy said. “No one wants to sit in the middle anyhow.” Marnie hoped so. She’d just taken the anti-anxiety medication Laverne had foisted on her, and was hoping it would help. She was counting on Troy to bring her comfort in the event she had a meltdown. She knew it was a lot to expect from a teenage boy, but she thought he was up to the job. Besides, he’d offered.

  When they announced that the plane was boarding, Marnie quelled her doubts by concentrating on Troy. She shifted into stepmom mode, shepherding him into line and telling him to get out his boarding pass. “Can I see Matt as soon as we get home?” he asked while they were still in line.

  She couldn’t see past the next ten minutes, but to make him happy, she answered, “Yes, of course.”

  Down the ramp and into the plane, she repeated a sentence in her mind: It’s just for two hours. It’s just for two hours. It’s just for two hours. To distract herself even further she did mental arithmetic, calculating what percentage two hours was in the course of a day, a week, a month, a lifetime (assuming her lifetime was seventy-five years). Ahead of her, Jazzy and Laverne made their way into seats in the back of the plane. Jazzy’s laughter floated forward in the cabin. Marnie found their assigned spots in a row of three seats, midway in the plane. Troy scooted into place next to the window; she was supposed to be on the aisle, but she took the middle one instead, telling Troy, “When that person comes I’ll explain that we’re together.”

  As the other passengers settled into their seats, Marnie felt a wave of mellowness wash over her, dulling the edges of her anxiety. Laverne’s drug was kicking in. She imagined it working its way from her stomach into her bloodstream and traveling through her body, relaxing every muscle and soothing her ragged nerves. It made her feel a little numb, but that was preferable to raw, bone-grinding fear. She looked at the ceiling of the plane and said a prayer of thanks for the invention of whatever it was making her feel better. She closed her eyes and muttered, “Thank you, God.”

  A male flight attendant walked through, closing the flaps of the overhead bins, checking to see that seat belts were fastened. Troy kept his eye on the window, watching the luggage handlers as they unloaded another plane. He’d flown many times with his dad, but the novelty hadn’t worn off.

  Just when Marnie thought her adjacent seat would remain empty, a young man wearing a tan baseball cap came down the aisle and stopped in front of her row. He reached up and shoved a carry-on bag into the overhead bin; all the while Marnie only had a view of his trim midsection. She looked discreetly away. Now she heard the solid sound of the passenger door shutting in the front of the plane. Without Laverne’s medication she’d be in complete panic mode right about now. Thank God for modern chemistry.

  The young man slammed the bin shut and slid into the aisle seat. Marnie turned to explain about the seat change. “I’m in your seat,” she started, and then, recognizing him, stopped talking, shocked.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I like the aisle.” He stretched his legs forward and put his head back, lowering his baseball cap over his eyes. His arm rested on what should have been her armrest. She pulled away, not wanting to touch him.

  In disbelief Marnie stared, and blinked, and stared some more. There could be no mistake, it was Davis Diamontopoulos. And he hadn’t recognized her from the encounter in the restaurant parking lot. Her fear of takeoff was momentarily forgotten, replaced by the knowledge and horror that she was sitting next to a murderer. She looked around, unsure what to do with this information. Over the loudspeaker, a woman’s voice asked them to read along with the pamphlet in the pocket in the seat in front of them. Troy nudged her, and she glanced over to see him holding an instruction sheet. He said, “Dad always made me pay attention to this, just in case.”

  Marnie nodded. The words just in case applied to emergency landings, but no one had ever prepared her for what to do if she was stuck sitting next to a killer on a plane. She had only a vague awareness of what was going on in the rest of the plane in the next
fifteen minutes: the announcements, the takeoff, Troy putting in his earbuds when given the okay to start up electronic devices. She felt the skin on her left arm crawl, even though she wasn’t actually touching Davis. The rest of the passengers proceeded with their business, unaware there was a killer in their midst. What to do? What to do? It wasn’t like she could inform the authorities. He wasn’t wanted by the law. But she couldn’t stop looking at his hands resting loosely on the armrests. Those same hands had strangled Rita’s daughter. Someone should cut those hands off, she thought, and was immediately horrified that something so vile had even entered her head.

  She had to tell someone he was here. When the light for the seat belts went off, signifying passengers could move around the cabin, she got Troy’s attention and told him she was going to the bathroom. “Excuse me,” she said, bending her body in an awkward way to get past Davis. He didn’t even try to get up to let her pass, but brought his legs in.

  Marnie made her way down the aisle toward the back of the plane and stopped when she saw Jazzy, in the middle of a row on the left. “Jazzy,” she hissed. “I need to talk to you.”

  Jazzy looked up from her magazine. “Now?”

  “Now.” Marnie motioned to the back and then kept walking until she reached the line for the bathroom.

  “How are you doing?” Jazzy asked, coming up behind her.

  Marnie spoke through gritted teeth. “I am sitting next to Davis Diamontopoulos.” She waited a moment for it to sink in, but Jazzy didn’t look shocked. “The man who killed Rita’s daughter,” she said. Oddly enough, Jazzy only nodded in response. Somehow Marnie had expected a bigger reaction. “I think we need to tell someone.”

  “Well, okay, sure, if you think so.” Jazzy looked around. “Who did you want to tell?”

  “I don’t know,” Marnie said, exasperated. “You’re the one who knows things. I’m asking you what we should do.”

  “I can call Rita or Judy as soon as we land,” Jazzy said calmly. “There’s not too much we can do when the plane is in the air.”

  True enough, but that wasn’t what Marnie wanted to hear. The line inched forward and an elderly gray-haired woman came out of the bathroom and pushed past them, the scent of floral perfume trailing in her wake. Marnie said, “I’m just creeped out sitting next to him.” An involuntary shudder came over her.

  Jazzy gave her arm a reassuring squeeze. “Do you want me to switch seats with you?” she asked. “Because I will.”

  “No, that’s not the answer,” Marnie said, and then remembering she’d left Troy alone with Davis, she turned around and headed back without even wrapping up the conversation. She maneuvered past a young woman carrying a toddler and waited to let a heavyset man with a cane get by. The plane had been in the air for only a short time, yet everyone, it seemed, needed to visit the restroom. When she got back to her seat, she was alarmed to see Davis had moved. He was now sitting in her seat talking to Troy.

  “Ahem,” she said. When the two looked up, she saw that Davis was showing Troy something on some electrical device.

  “Hey, Marnie,” Troy said, gesturing enthusiastically. “He’s got the thing I was telling you about. The—”

  “Could you move, please,” Marnie said, pointing. “I’d like to sit down next to my son.” She knew she sounded rude, but she didn’t care. Laverne’s medication made her fearless.

  “Hey!” Troy said, protesting Marnie’s bad manners, but Davis didn’t flinch, just got up and moved out of the row, allowing Marnie to get back to the center seat.

  “You didn’t have to be that way,” Troy said, when she’d settled back in, clicking her seat belt and reclining her seat.

  “I’ll explain later,” she said.

  Troy gave her a grumpy look and then put his earbuds back in and turned his gaze toward the window. Someday he’d understand that she was only trying to protect him. Right now he wasn’t seeing the big picture.

  Marnie managed to keep her face tilted away from Davis for the next half hour, but when the drink cart came through, she had to turn in that direction to place their orders: a Coke for Troy, and a diet Sprite for herself. She looked past Davis as the attendant poured the soft drinks out of cans into wide-mouthed plastic cups. Marnie took Troy’s drink and set it on his tray; when she turned back, Davis had her drink in hand and was offering it to her. “Special delivery,” he said. She took it without saying a word.

  After they’d finished their drinks and the flight attendant collected their empty cups, Davis turned to her and said, “You have a problem with me, don’t you?”

  She didn’t respond.

  “I wasn’t doing anything to the boy,” he said. “Honest, I’m a good guy.”

  Marnie couldn’t help herself. “That’s not the way I hear it.” She said it between clenched teeth, but she knew he heard.

  “What did you say?” He tilted his head toward her, getting way too close for comfort.

  “Nothing.”

  “No, you said something. What was it?”

  His mouth was so close she got a whiff of breath mint. “Never mind,” she said.

  Davis sat back in satisfaction. “If you’ve got something to say to me, best to say it to my face. Or not at all.”

  Marnie was going to let it go until she saw the smug look on his face. She sat up straight and spoke loudly. “You said you were a good guy, and I said, ‘That’s not the way I hear it.’”

  “Oh yeah, what do you hear?”

  “I hear that you’re a murderer.” The words came out as rapidly as machine-gun fire.

  “What?”

  “A murderer. That’s what you are.”

  He tipped his baseball cap back and gave her a wide-eyed look. “Lady, I don’t know what you’ve been smoking, but I think you’ve got me confused with someone else.”

  “You killed Rita’s daughter, Melinda.” She struggled to keep her voice steady. “You strangled her with her own scarf and then left her in the car like a coward.”

  “Not true,” he said, but she could tell a nerve had been struck. Both of his hands curled up in fists, like he was trying to hold back.

  She should have let it go, but she didn’t. “Murderer.”

  “Stop it. That’s enough!” he yelled, startling Troy, who took out his earbuds and clutched at her arm. Around them, people stopped talking. “Who put you up to this?” Davis’s face flushed red. “Who’s saying these things?”

  “Marnie, what is it?” Troy asked, clearly afraid.

  “It’s okay, hon, don’t worry about it,” she said, shielding him with her body.

  “You have a lot of nerve,” Davis said loudly. “You don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

  Troy wouldn’t let go of Marnie’s shirt. “What’s going on?” he said.

  Marnie turned away from Davis and said, “There’s nothing to worry about. This man killed a friend’s daughter, and I—”

  “Bitch!” Davis screamed, jumping out of his seat. He stood over her, slapping her across her head and shoulders, blows raining down from above.

  She ducked down, crying out in pain and trying to get away but trapped by the narrowness of the row and her seat belt. He landed a blow against her head that was so hard, she felt her brain snap against her skull; entire constellations glistened behind her eyes. Before she could recover, his hands went around her neck and she felt the unbearable pain of her windpipe being compressed. Marnie couldn’t breathe.

  Troy got to his feet and yelled, “Stop it! Leave her alone!” while frantically trying to wrest Davis’s hands off Marnie’s neck.

  The young male flight attendant came running and two young guys dressed in Wisconsin Badger T-shirts bolted from the back of the plane to help. It took, Marnie found out later, three men to pull Davis off her.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  They were at the hospital in Milwaukee for a few hours getting Marnie checked out and answering questions for the police. Davis had been arrested as soon as the plane land
ed, and several of the passengers gave their account of what had happened. Marnie felt a bit foolish to have so many people—Troy, Jazzy, Laverne—hover around her bedside in the ER, while Jazzy’s brother, Dylan, their ride home, sat in the waiting room. She offered to let them go, but like true friends, they’d have none of it. They stayed.

  When the ER doctor, a young guy with a narrow face and wire-rimmed glasses, asked about the stitches in Marnie’s side, for a moment she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten them. The rest stop encounter with Max, once so traumatic, seemed like a lifetime ago. Luckily, Laverne was there to fill in the gaps. “I was there and saw the whole thing,” she said, and launched into a colorful version of the story, with her role as hero the most important part of the tale.

  Dark-colored finger marks were now evident on Marnie’s neck and would, according to Laverne, get even worse because, she declared, “That’s how bruises work. You wait and see. Tomorrow your neck will be a lot of different colors.”

  It was easier to let other people talk, so Marnie didn’t say much. This is what it must feel like to be in shock, she thought. She put her hands up to her throat and probed the tender areas, the place where Davis’s thumbs had pressed into her windpipe. The attack had happened very quickly and was over just as fast, but that didn’t lessen the emotional trauma. She was completely shaken and jittery.

  But looking over at Troy sitting on the edge of the bed, Marnie knew she had to pull it together and soon. She wouldn’t be able to go home and crawl into bed for a week. When you were responsible for someone else, you couldn’t be completely self-absorbed. Besides, she’d discovered there was more to her than she’d previously thought. It would take time, but Marnie knew she’d get through this.