Missing in Flight

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE TINA

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

T INA

After hanging up with Ruiz, Tina returns to her cubicle, leaving Castillo alone in his office to try and contact the flight again. Tina had the call on speaker as Ruiz recounted to her and Castillo what went down at Jack Rossi’s condo, and Makayla’s suspicion that her son is hidden in a pet carrier on board.

Pratt could’ve died. Her thoughts shift to Lionel Rothman’s daughter, who wasn’t so lucky. What was she doing at Jack Rossi’s condo?

Tina imagines the look on the wealthy financier’s face when he receives the news about his daughter’s death. All that money wouldn’t do anything to ease his heartbreak.

Tina zooms in on the security footage from Anchorage TSA, forcing herself to focus on the task at hand. She leans closer to her screen. Even with the enlarged image, she still can’t make out the face of the woman who boarded as Jemma Neilson. So far, both she and her male counterpart have done an expert job of keeping their heads down and away from the camera.

She double-checks the time on her laptop screen. The flight is due to land in less than an hour. They likely won’t know who those two passengers are until they arrest them.

She lifts her coffee mug to her lips before realizing it’s empty.

“Find anything?”

She turns to Castillo standing behind her.

“No.” She sets down her mug. “Nothing we can use for facial recognition anyway. Both passengers in row fifteen managed to keep their faces away from the camera.” She glances at her paused screen. “But I’m still looking.”

“Long Island PD just called. Jemma Neilson was at home asleep when the officer went to her home. He said it looked like the same woman from her driver’s license photo. She was able to produce her license, but the officer thinks it’s a fake. She agreed to be fingerprinted to confirm her identity, so the officer’s taking her to the nearest precinct. I’m dispatching an agent to meet them there, but the patrol officer said that Jemma Neilson has no idea how her ID was stolen and replaced with a fake. She works at Saint Anthony’s Hospital and keeps her purse in a locker during her shifts. Her ID could’ve been stolen there and replaced with a fake without her knowing. And she doesn’t know Chad Wickham, which makes sense since their IDs were likely stolen based on their appearances.”

“Have you heard back from the flight?” Tina feels sick at the thought of the baby inside the pet carrier, not making a single sound since he was taken.

“Not yet.” He checks his watch. “But hopefully soon. I’ll let you keep looking through that footage. Let me know if you find something.”

Tina turns back to her desk as Castillo strides toward his office. She restarts the video and watches the woman posing as Jemma Neilson make it all the way through security without giving the camera a glimpse of her face. Tina grabs her empty coffee mug off her desk, rubbing her eyes after the woman disappears from the camera’s view.

She checks her phone before standing to make sure she hasn’t missed any messages. Felicity hasn’t called again or texted, which she takes as a good sign. A lump forms in her throat as she heads for the break room, thinking about Makayla Rossi restrained on that flight—treated like a criminal—after her baby was taken.

Bringing up Lydia Banks’s memory disorder just slowed them down, and a pulse of regret moves through her. Would they have found Liam sooner if she hadn’t suspected his mother? She swallows the thought. Right now, she needs to stay focused on finding Liam and bringing his kidnappers to justice. There will be time to reflect on her decisions later.

She imagines Makayla, restrained in her seat, not knowing where her baby is. After Felicity called tonight about Isabel’s nightmare, Tina felt sick to her stomach, knowing she couldn’t comfort her daughter like she wanted to. It was nothing compared to what Makayla Rossi is going through on that flight. To not know where her baby is. Whether he’s safe.

She reaches the break room and goes straight for the half-filled pot of coffee. She fills her mug, recalling the news from Pratt about Lionel Rothman’s daughter. She thinks of the renowned investor she met earlier tonight and his seeming concern over Liam’s kidnapping, not knowing that he would be getting the worst news of his life—his only child’s death—later today.

She replaces the pot and heads for the door, taking a careful sip of coffee as she walks. She nearly collides with Castillo, who seems to appear from nowhere when she reaches the doorway. She extends her mug to the side as brown liquid sloshes over the top.

“Oh!”

Castillo throws up his hand, his phone gripped in his palm. “Sorry. I just spoke with Flight 7038’s dispatch.” His face has gone as white as his hair. “While they were making their descent over the Finger Lakes, the couple from row fifteen sawed a hole in the lavatory wall—and jumped. They might’ve parachuted, but we don’t know for sure.”

Tina gapes at him. “ What? How did they get a power tool like that on board?”

Castillo shrugs, and Tina knows at this point, his guess is as good as hers. And what matters right now is finding Liam.

“The flight had to make an emergency descent due to the loss in pressure, and they’ve also reported a mechanical failure. A jammed elevator, the dispatcher said.”

“What does that mean?”

“They said it’s the control on the tail that makes the plane go up and down. So it’s no longer flying like a normal aircraft, making it much harder for the pilots to control. The flight has been cleared for an emergency landing at LaGuardia, and they’re making a rapid descent.” He glances out the window behind her. “The thunderstorm that was supposed to hit north of Chicago is hitting us instead, along with flash flood warnings, but the flight doesn’t have enough fuel to divert anywhere else.”

Tina follows his gaze. Rain beats against the window from the force of the wind, and she thinks of the passengers still on board the plane. She crosses the room to peer twenty stories down. A few inches of water have already puddled onto the street, sloshing onto the sidewalk with each car speeding past.

A few years ago, a flight coming into Boston lost all hydraulic power and, upon landing, flipped upside down, killing over half of the souls on board. This is different, she tells herself. That flight clipped its wing on the runway after losing all hydraulic power, which caused the plane to flip. From the sound of it, Makayla’s flight shouldn’t have that issue if it’s only the up and down they’re fighting to control. Thunder roars above their building. Although that Boston flight wasn’t flying through a storm. Surrounded by water on three sides, they wouldn’t have to miss the runway by much to end up in the East River.

“Call Pratt and let him know. I’m going to have Ruiz meet the flight at LaGuardia with a team to search the aircraft and see if we can lift any fingerprints to ID the two abductors on the flight. Then I’ve got to organize a search of the entire Finger Lakes area. I’m not very familiar with that part of the state.” Castillo glances out the window behind Tina. “At least it’s getting light out.”

“My parents have a cabin up there, on Seneca Lake. They were both teachers, and we spent every summer there growing up.” She spins around. “What about the baby? Was he in the pet carrier?”

Castillo shakes his head, and Tina realizes this is why he looks so grim.

“No. They never found him.”