by Jan Coffey
He leaned forward and touched her arm gently.
She stared at him. “And then my wish came true. One day, you were back. And now I know I’m expected to keep my end of the bargain.”
“We were given a second chance at happiness. That’s what this trip is about. Why should we think of anything but our future together? That’s all that matters.”
She continued to look at him. There was something bothering him. It was in that…something…in his voice. It was in the way he looked at her, or rather, in the way he couldn’t hold her gaze. She was forcing herself to keep her mind open, refusing to let her heart distract her.
And then she felt it and everything changed in an instant. She could see through him.
“Ray, don’t you think I deserve the truth?”
He shook his head, as if perplexed. “What do you mean? Of course you deserve the truth. What is it that you think I’m not telling you?”
“You have to tell me that.” She leaned toward him, forcing him to face her.
“I don’t understand you, Ali.”
“Maybe that’s true. But I’ve had time to think on this trip, and it’s just come to me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You were supposed to keep me swept off my feet until we got there,” she told him.
Ray laughed, scoffing. He put a hand up. “You are scaring me now. You’re letting your imagination get the best of you.”
Alanna let silence be the inquisitor for a few long moments. He visibly shifted in discomfort in his seat.
“Who are you, really?”
“I don’t find any of this funny.” He sat back in his chair, putting his feet up on the table. He reached for a magazine from a compartment in between them.
“Handsome, smart, tall young playboy, suddenly falls head over heels in love with older, short, plain, Mexican-American scientist who’s never had a steady boyfriend in her entire life. You know, I never stopped to question what could be the attraction. I never wanted to know.”
“Ali, stop talking about yourself that way. You’re beautiful…and six years is nothing. You know that.” Ray tried to lighten his tone and pasted on a weak smile. “Okay, you might be considered petite, but I think you’re perfect.”
Alanna’s heart tightened in her chest. She could see it more clearly by the second. The embarrassment was there, the guilt he no longer could hide.
“How far back does this scheming go, Ray?” she asked.
“I’m not talking to you, anymore. Not when you’re being like this.” He opened the magazine.
“It was no accident that we met the same day that you started working at Moffett,” she told him. “Whoever these people are who hired you have some serious connections with NASA security, don’t they?”
She tried to keep her voice level, her eyes dry, but inside her heart wept. She’d been the biggest fool.
“Did you ask for extra money when you saw me in person?”
“Stop!” he shouted at her. “Do you hear me? Stop it!”
He undid his seatbelt and got to his feet. She wondered where he was going to go.
“This hurts me!” he snapped. “I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this.”
She watched him in silence.
“You don’t trust me?” He put one hand against the small screen still hanging in front of her. “You don’t love me? Okay. Fine. If that’s what you think, Alanna, no problem. As soon as this plane lands, you just get back on the next plane home.”
“I will, Ray.”
He raked his fingers through his hair. “You just can’t be happy, can you, Alanna? You just don’t know how.”
CHAPTER 38
“Mom would have liked this place a lot.”
At Leah’s words, David tightened his fingers on the handles of the wheelchair. His daughter’s first view of the island made her think of Nicole.
Funny how their minds worked so similarly.
Finances had been very tight during the last couple of years of his wife’s life. They had taken no vacations at all. He wondered if Leah remembered the last time they’d gone away as a family. Just the three of them. Probably not. She’d been barely four years old.
“You’re right,” he replied. “She would have liked this island.”
Leah’s nurse and an assistant moved around them to strap the wheelchair to a lift that would lower it to the airport tarmac. Leah’s condition had been stable for two weeks now, and as long as she went through dialysis every day, her doctors felt there was no reason to keep her in the hospital.
David’s new employer had made every arrangement possible to smooth the way for this trip and their subsequent stay. David had been told that there was one hospital on Grand Bahama Island, in the heart of downtown Freeport. There were also three private clinics with dialysis equipment. With Florida less than a half hour away by plane, David felt it was much better for Leah to be with him than to have her a thousand miles away in some state-of-the-art hospital in New York City. He hoped he was right.
Two nurses had been hired to work in shifts watching Leah while on the island. The dialysis equipment and medication were supposedly waiting for them where they were staying.
“Do they have any TVs where we’re going?” Leah asked.
“I’m sure they do,” he told her. The main source of entertainment for the eight-year-old this past couple of weeks had been watching movies or TV at the hospital. “But there’s also the beach and books and maybe we’ll get a chance to play some games.”
“It’s not fun to play with only two people,” she told him. “You always win.”
“That’s not true. I let you win every now and then.” He adjusted the baseball hat Leah was wearing. She was extremely pale. The trip had taken a lot out of her. The late afternoon sun wasn’t much of a threat as far as getting burned. Still, David had been told to watch out for a number of things. Leah’s resistance was very low.
“See. I knew it. You let me win.”
“I’m just kidding. When you win, you win on your own.”
“Daddy, you’re fibbing,” Leah reprimanded him.
“Seriously. I’m just trash talking.”
The lift settled onto the runway, and the nurses undid the straps.
“I’ll take her,” he told the two women.
He took his sweater off and draped it on the back of Leah’s chair. The air was balmy, quite a change to the freezing rain they’d left in New York City.
A young Bahaman who was pulling their luggage out of a compartment in the side of the small plane stopped and turned to him. “There’s a van coming to get you, sir, if you’d care to wait over by that hangar. They just called. They should be along in a few minutes.”
David thanked him and looked around. Another small plane was sitting next to theirs. That one, too, appeared to be a newly arrived flight. A worker was taking luggage out of it, as well. The airport was very small and clearly private. David knew that Freeport had an airport that handled the tourist traffic flying in aboard commercial jets, but this airport was not it. A number of smaller planes that looked to be privately owned were parked in a row along a fence. One unmarked jet was parked near a small building that he figured must be the airport office. There wasn’t any sign of life there, but that wasn’t the direction he’d been told to go, anyway.
“He told us to go that way,” Leah said, pointing toward a small hangar fifty yards from their plane.
He started pushing Leah’s chair in that direction. The hangar, with its doors open at both ends, offered shade, at least. Two people, who seemed to be waiting, stood there. From their body language, David decided they were in the middle of an argument. He slowed down a little, but continued toward them.
He knew there would be a team of people working on the same project here on this island. Beyond that, he didn’t know where they would be coming from or what their specialties were.
“I want to learn how to play chess,” Leah announced as
David pushed the wheelchair toward the hangar.
“I haven’t played chess in years. I don’t know if I remember how to play anymore,” he told her. He stopped in the shade, just inside the hangar door. The hangar was empty, except for a few workbenches along the walls, some hoses and parts, and a partially dismantled World War II vintage fighter in a far corner.
“Good. We can learn together.” She smiled up at him. “That way, if I win, I know it’s fair and square.”
He reached down and pulled her ear and smiled back. These days, David did a lot of smiling. He was taking control of his own chessboard, square by square and piece by piece. Leah’s DNA samples had been sent to the clinic in Germany, and the cloning was apparently progressing as it should. In addition, his daughter was with him. He was already receiving a salary and benefits, even though he still didn’t know what his job was. But that part didn’t matter. If they asked him to embezzle funds from the Dalai Lama, he would clean him out and send a thank you note later. Whoever his employer was, David was indebted to him for what he was doing for Leah. He was keeping her alive, and David owed him.
“Do you know how to play chess?”
David realized Leah was speaking to the couple standing in the hangar.
“Yes, I do,” the woman told her.
“Sweet,” Leah said. “Are you staying on the island?”
David noticed the uncomfortable look that passed between the two people. The guy walked off and stood outside the open doors, hands in his pockets, his back to them, looking out at the small airport runway.
“More than likely, I’ll be leaving on the next flight out,” she told Leah.
“That’s too bad,” Leah said. She then tried to push her own wheelchair forward. David helped her. “I’m Leah. He’s my dad.”
The woman’s face softened into a smile. David figured she was about the same age as him. Not much more than five feet tall, dark hair, dark eyes, delicate features. Most likely Hispanic. She wore no makeup and was dressed in black business dress pants, a white collared shirt, and a black cardigan sweater that she had to be warm in.
“I’m Alanna.” She shook Leah’s hand. “Alanna Mendes.”
“Dr. Mendes,” someone called from the set of doors.
She turned that way. A young man in a royal blue polo shirt approached, clipboard in hand.
“We checked on your request. The earliest flight we can get you on leaving the island is tomorrow morning,” he told her. “Is it okay if we move your belongings to the resort for the night and drive you to Freeport for the flight tomorrow?”
“So nothing is leaving from this airport?”
“No, ma’am.”
“What about the plane I flew in on?”
“Both of those planes are taking off in about an hour, but one’s going to Bermuda and the other is going to…” He glanced at his clipboard. “Oh, yeah. Curaçao.”
She had a very expressive face. David could see the struggle reflected in her features. She looked over her shoulder at the man who was standing by the other set of open doors to the hangar. He hadn’t moved.
“I guess it’s okay,” she said quietly.
“Thank you.” The man pulled out his cell phone as he left the hangar.
“Does this mean you’ll have time to teach me how to play chess tonight?” Leah asked.
“Leah,” David scolded his daughter gently. He turned to the woman. “I’m sorry. My daughter and I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. I’m David Collier.”
Her handshake was firm. The touch of a smile was back. She looked at Leah.
“Do you know if we’re staying at the same place?” she asked.
The eight-year-old shrugged and looked up at David.
“I really couldn’t say,” he replied.
“What’s the name of the resort you’re staying at?” she asked.
He and Leah exchanged a look. “I believe it’s a private resort. I don’t remember hearing a name to it.”
“I’m glad I’m not the only one who seems to be short on answers,” she told them.
“So that’s good, isn’t it?” Leah asked. “We must be staying at the same nameless place.”
The smile reached her dark eyes. She seemed totally entertained by Leah.
“If nothing, my daughter is persistent,” David told Dr. Mendes. He noticed that she glanced again in the direction of her friend. He no longer was there.
“So what kind of doctor are you?” Leah asked her.
“You don’t have to answer that,” David cut in immediately. “A lot of times my daughter forgets that not everyone is interested in being interrogated by her.”
“I don’t mind,” she said to Leah. “I’m a scientist. I have a Ph.D. not an MD.”
“That’s good. I’m not crazy about doctors,” Leah told her. “Medical doctors, I mean.”
David noticed that Dr. Mendes’s gaze involuntarily flickered toward the wheelchair and Leah’s legs.
“Why don’t you like medical doctors?” she asked.
“Plenty of reasons,” the little girl said. “They didn’t save my mom, for one. She had cancer. She’s dead now.”
“I’m so sorry,” Alanna said quietly, looking up at David.
He was surprised and alarmed to hear his daughter express her opinions like this to a stranger. In many ways, Leah was an eight-year-old beyond her years. Still, he’d never known her to open up to someone that she didn’t know. He also didn’t know how much of Leah’s opinion was reflective of what she might have heard David say about doctors.
“And I don’t like what they’re doing for me, either,” Leah announced.
David reached for Leah’s hand and took it gently in his. “I’m not sure Dr. Mendes wants to hear about our disappointments with the medical profession, honey.”
“Oh, no. I’m really very interested. But please call me Alanna.”
Leah squeezed his hand. He had a sudden sense that she was telling him that this woman was okay.
“I have kidney disease. I’ve already had one transplant. But it didn’t work.”
“I’m sorry,” Alanna whispered. She crouched down until she was at eye level with Leah. “You’re very young to have gone through so much disappointment.”
“It’s okay. I have the best dad in the world. A lot of kids don’t have that.”
David stared down at Leah. He was suddenly speechless. Emotions welled up in him. There was so much of her childhood she’d missed because of health problems and Nicole’s death and David’s loss of job and legal difficulties. He realized now that he never thought there was anything Leah could feel positive about. Least of all, him.
“He gives me five bucks to say that,” Leah said next.
There was a moment of silence then a burst of laughter escaped the scientist.
The sound of a plane landing drew their attention. Dr. Mendes was frowning as it taxied toward the hangar.
“For a place that has so many planes coming in, I don’t understand why I can’t get one going back to Miami.”
“Maybe they just don’t want you to leave right away,” David suggested.
“That’s okay with me,” Leah chirped in.
Alanna smiled at the little girl and then peered out at the incoming plane. It was slightly larger than the one David flew in on.
“Dad, I wonder if these are more people who’ll be staying where we are,” she said. “We should go and check on them.”
She motioned to David to take her toward the open doors.
“Sorry, more victims,” he said to Alanna.
The scientist smiled, and David had a feeling she was in a far better mood than she’d been when they first came into the hangar.
CHAPTER 39
A van and an ancient Suburban pulled up to the hangar just as the passengers on the last flight began to disembark.
Alanna was not happy about being unable to fly out until morning, but there appeared to be nothing she could do about it. If she made enough noise, she cou
ld probably get them to take her to a hotel in Freeport. Still, in spite of Ray, there was something curiously unthreatening about this situation. The latest arrivals confirmed her opinion.
A very young couple with an infant came across the concrete to the hangar. They were apparently the only passengers on this flight.
Alanna knew her argument with Ray had wounded him deeply. He was the last one in the van and took the front seat next to the driver. He didn’t say a thing or even glance in her direction. The van had three benches behind the driver, and Alanna took a seat on the back row. The young couple and the baby sat in front of her. Leah and her father were behind the driver, with the little girl’s wheelchair folded and placed inside the door once everyone was in and seated.
The old Suburban, loaded with their luggage and the employees who’d greeted them at the airport, followed behind the van.
There was a difference in the way Alanna was seeing things now. She knew it had to do with the way a sick but feisty little girl looked at life and the people she met. Alanna looked out the window, admired the landscape flashing by. Amid the green growth, the trunks of countless fallen trees lay on the ground, all lined up side by side, as if they’d been placed that way on purpose. When she asked, the driver told the visitors that the fallen trees had been knocked down by a couple of hurricanes a few years back. The storms had leveled much of the vegetation on the island, but everything was coming back now.
Both rows of seats in front of her carried people who appeared to be risking a lot more than Alanna in coming here. Clearly, they all were here for the same project, but David Collier was here with a daughter who was so weak that she needed a wheelchair to get around. The couple in front had introduced themselves to her as Jay and Padma Alexei, and they were here with their newborn son. The infant couldn’t have been even a month old. The couple looked young enough to be in high school. In a way, she thought, life is a matter of perspective. Alanna felt much more confident now, looking at what was going on. She seemed to have the least at stake.
Even so, she would be out of here in the morning.
