Missing in Flight

CHAPTER SIX ANNA

CHAPTER SIX

A NNA

“You said you’ve flown for Pacific for seven years?” Miguel asks.

“That’s right.” Anna sits tall to take in the snowcapped mountain range below, which is visible through a gap in the clouds.

“Funny we’ve never flown together before, since we’re both based out of LaGuardia.”

“Yeah, it is. I’m scheduled to start captain upgrade training the day after tomorrow, so if all goes well, this will be our only time flying together.” She tilts her head toward the empty, fold-down seat behind Miguel’s. “Unless one of us is in the jump seat.”

“That’s great. I’m sure this will be the last time we fly together, then.” Miguel reaches into his flight bag on the other side of his seat and withdraws a worn, leather-bound book.

He opens it to a bookmarked yellow page.

“ Too Busy to Die ?” she asks after reading the faded title on the spine.

His mouth forms a smile. “That’s right. It’s by H. W. Roden. Ever heard of him?”

She shakes her head. “Nope.”

“I’m a sucker for a 1940s detective novel. Read this one several times already, but I’m struck by something new each time I read it.” He lifts his gaze. “You a reader?”

“Not really.”

“Oh, man. You’re missing out.”

Anna offers Miguel a slight smile before stifling a yawn and leaning against her seat. Aside from talking, there won’t be much to do to keep herself awake for the five-plus hours remaining, but Miguel is already immersed in his novel. She thinks about her plans for after they land. Feeling the weight of her phone in her blazer pocket, she wonders if she’s gotten a reply to her text.

The flight attendant call buzzer sounds, jarring her from her thoughts.

Miguel pushes the flight attendant button on his interphone panel. “This is Miguel.”

As Miguel listens to the other end of the call, Anna thinks of the night earlier this summer when she found herself capable of something she never thought possible.

“For how long?” Miguel asks into his headset, his expression elsewhere.

Since that night, she’s hardly seen Carter, aside from each climbing into bed on occasion when the other was already asleep. Their schedules never seem to align. They were supposed to go out to dinner last week, on her birthday, but Carter never showed. She ate dinner alone, calling the hospital on her way home from the restaurant to be told by one of the nurses that Carter was in the middle of surgery. By the time he got home, she was asleep. The next morning, she left for the airport before he woke and had a single text message from him: Sorry .

He couldn’t help it, she knows. But she still wanted more.

Anna wrestles with the guilt of going through with her plan as her gaze travels across the controls. While she knows it’s wrong, to back out now would come at the cost of her own happiness.

“Are you sure you’ve checked everywhere?” Miguel says. “Lavatories? Crew compartment?”

Anna turns to Miguel, registering the look of concern on his face. She turns up the volume control under the flight attendant call light on her interphone panel.

“Yes.” A female voice comes through her headphones. “Everywhere.”

Miguel frowns, staring out the windshield. “I’ll let them know. In the meantime, keep looking. And call me back if you find him.”

“What is it?” Anna asks after he hangs up.

He presses his lips together before meeting her eyes. “A three-month-old infant has gone missing in the back.”

Anna feels her brows knit together. “Missing?”

“The mother left him in the bulkhead bassinet while she got up and used the lavatory. When she got back to her seat, he was gone. He’s been missing for half an hour.” He seems to key on something in her expression. “The crew says they’ve looked everywhere,” he adds before Anna can ask.

“So, they think someone’s taken him?”

“They don’t know what to think.”

Anna stares back at Miguel. “If someone has taken him, there’s only so many places to hide a baby on board. We’re bound to find him.”

Miguel doesn’t respond.

“Right?” She’s not even sure what the protocol is for an in-flight child abduction.

“We need to call dispatch.” Miguel manipulates the radio panel and tries several times to contact dispatch without success.

“We must be outside of radio contact range,” Anna says, looking at their nav screen.

“Yeah, you’re right.” Miguel starts typing on his keypad. “I’ll have to send them a message.”

Anna stares out the windscreen at the waning daylight, thinking of the poor mother who’s lost her baby. It would be a sickening feeling. She could hardly imagine anything worse.