Missing in Flight

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE MAKAYLA

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

M AKAYLA

Makayla’s eyes are glued to the fake dog in the girl’s hand. Jemma acted like she was helping her, but the whole time she had Liam hidden in a dog carrier. “Unbuckle me!” she repeats.

The girl hesitates. “I’m not sure that I—”

“Just do it!” There’s steel in Makayla’s voice when she shouts. “Where are they?”

“I don’t know; I didn’t see them get up.”

Britt appears beside the lavatories at the back of the cabin. Seeing the empty pet carrier in the girl’s hand, her mouth falls open. An alarmed expression comes over the attendant’s face before her eyes snap toward Makayla.

“They have Liam!” Makayla writhes beneath her restraints, her eyes pleading with Britt. “And now they’re gone!”

Britt glances at Chad and Jemma’s empty row. “We need to find them,” she says. “The captain just called and said they boarded with fake IDs.”

The couple in the middle row stand from their seats, their petrified gazes scouring the cabin.

“Oh, my!” the woman clasps a hand over her mouth before following her husband into the aisle.

Aubrey swings open the curtain to business class, her eyes moving from Makayla to the girl standing in the aisle. “I just heard from the captain. What’s going on?”

Makayla fights against her restraints. “Unbuckle me! My baby was inside that pet carrier! They had a fake dog inside. We need to find that couple from row fifteen!”

“Did you see anyone come into the front cabins?” Britt asks Aubrey.

Aubrey shakes her head. “No, but I’ll double-check.”

“Let me up!” Makayla pleads. “Please.” She extends her wrists toward Aubrey. “Undo these first.”

“It’s okay; let her go,” she hears Derek say.

Makayla twists to see him standing behind the girl, the worry lines on his forehead belying the calm in his voice.

The young woman stands frozen in the aisle, holding the pet carrier and fake dog, as Aubrey reluctantly withdraws a pair of scissors from her blazer pocket and snips one of the zip ties free. Makayla tears off the seat belt around her arms and waist, leaving the other zip tie around her wrist.

“I’ll check the back,” Britt says as Aubrey turns for the front of the plane.

When she gets up, Makayla drops her phone into her diaper bag, then sees Derek follow Britt toward the rear. “I’ll check the crew compartment,” he says.

Makayla pushes past the girl in the aisle, studying the pet carrier in her hand. Liam must’ve been in there, only three rows behind her, this whole time.

The carrier has mesh sides, so at least Liam should’ve been able to breathe normally. He was in such a deep sleep when she went to the bathroom. She prays the reason he hadn’t made any noise was because he hadn’t woken up—not because he couldn’t.

Makayla rushes down the aisle, pausing beside the retirement-aged couple in the center row, both wearing the airline-provided headphones while watching the small screens in front of their seats. “Did you see them get up?”

The woman looks up from her movie, startled at the sight of Makayla up from her seat. She lowers her headphones and turns her head in the direction of Makayla’s pointed finger before warily shaking her head. “No. Sorry.”

“They aren’t up front,” Aubrey announces from the divider to business class.

After reaching the back of the rear cabin, Britt turns to Derek and Makayla. “I don’t see them anywhere.”

Makayla wants to scream, rip her hair out. How can people keep going missing on this plane?

“Check the lavatories!” Makayla yells.

“I’m looking!”

Makayla watches Britt push open the lavatory doors on either side of her. In her seat across the aisle, Rose startles awake from the commotion, her white hair flat on one side as she gapes at Makayla. The lavatories behind their section are unoccupied. Makayla checks them both anyway.

She peers inside the bathroom she used when Liam was taken. Had she told Cori she was in the lavatory when Liam went missing? She didn’t have a chance to look back at all of their texts. She left her phone on her seat, but she’s almost certain now that she didn’t.

Jack’s question from earlier replays in her head. You did meet her, right?

She thought she had, although she doesn’t specifically remember. When Cori first messaged her through the mother’s group’s social media page, saying they’d met the day before at the gathering at Rockefeller Park, Makayla didn’t question her. She’d met so many new faces that day—more than a dozen—and she couldn’t remember all the names. Makayla had hardly slept in those first three weeks after Liam was born.

And Cori’s profile photo, a tall blond holding a baby girl, looked familiar. She could’ve been one of several mothers at the gathering, all wearing sunglasses. Some wore hats too.

Makayla recalls how inferior she felt to all the other Tribeca mothers at the time. When Cori reached out the next day, Makayla felt flattered that someone from the group wanted to befriend her.

She moves into the rear cabin and runs past the empty middle row to the other side of the plane. When Cori shared that her mother was romance novelist Snow Browning, Makayla felt an instant connection. None of her other friends knew what it was like having a famous parent. But Cori did.

After losing her mom, Makayla found it even harder to open up to people. Even though she’d lived in New York for over fifteen years, she still felt like an outsider, especially in Tribeca. She’d often wondered how it could be so hard in a city of eight million people to fit in, but it was.

All the other mothers from her prenatal group seemed too busy for a friendship with her. She always felt understyled and underdressed. But she and Cori clicked and became fast friends. There was an easiness in her friendship with Cori that Makayla hadn’t felt in a long time. Was that because it wasn’t real?

She glances over her shoulder at Jemma’s empty row. Could Cori somehow be involved in this? Had she been in contact with Jemma and Chad this whole time?

The middle lavatory is vacant, but the other is lit up as O CCUPIED .

Makayla bangs on the door. “Come out right now!”

She slams her fist against the flimsy door, making it rattle with each rap. “Open up! I know you have my son!”

Britt rushes toward her from the rear of the plane with Derek on her heels. Makayla throws her shoulder against the door.

“Stop!” Britt puts her palm in the air when she reaches her. “We don’t know it’s them.”

There’s no answer from inside, not even a cry from Liam. When Makayla swallows, it feels like there’s a knife in her throat.

“It has to be them.” Makayla steps back. “Open the door.”

Britt doesn’t move, and Makayla motions to Derek. “Open it!”

The buzz of an electric tool comes from inside the bathroom as Derek moves forward. He lifts the L AVATORY sign and slides the lever to the left, turning the window below it from red to green. Derek pushes against the door, but it doesn’t budge. The electric hum coming from inside morphs into an ear-piercing drone.

Makayla gapes at the door in terror. “Push harder!”

Derek slams his shoulder against the door. This time it cracks open an inch before someone shoves it closed from the other side.

A passenger jumps out of his seat a few rows back. “What’s happening?”

“Hurry! Open it!” Makayla screams.

She throws herself against the door beside Derek.

Another passenger stands up in the rear cabin, alarm written on her face. “ What’s going on? ” she yells. “What’s that noise?”

Britt stares at the door in horrified confusion. “What are they doing?”

A loud whoosh sounds from inside the bathroom as air escapes from the plane, muffling the electric whir. Realization floods the attendant’s face when oxygen masks drop throughout the cabins. Panicked shrieks and wails erupt from the scattered passengers, but none as loud as Makayla’s.

Derek steps back and prepares to throw himself against the door. “They’re sawing through the wall of the plane!”