26. DAY FIVE: UNLUCKY TRUTH
Ava
As I read through the pages, images flash through my mind. I can picture Preston sitting across from me, winking and stifling his amusement when he’s supposed to hold still, and I see Kirk in front of me with his hands on his hips, questioning me about the sketches. And Anna fingers her necklace with one hand while she holds her book with the other.
“Well?” Dax asks.
I nod my head and close my eyes. “It’s working.”
I flip through those images again and focus on bringing other parts into view. The entire memory comes flooding over me like a huge tidal wave. Now I can see Kirk sitting across from Anna as she reads, using his hands to describe things he’s seen in Australia and wants her to see. She’s ignoring him, and then I see her preparing dinner—Kirk taking plates into the cockpit—Kirk sleeping on the couch, and now myself putting my book away in my backpack to pull something else out. An envelope.
I was digging for a piece of gum in my purse and my fingers ran into the envelope from George. I took great pleasure in knowing that the entire paycheck would go towards everything I needed for our trip to Europe. Slipping my finger under the flap, I tore open the envelope to pull out the check to look at the amount. My excitement disintegrated as I unfolded the white paper wrapped neatly around the check, revealing the blatant warning in the center of the paper.
DON’T GET ON THE PLANE
My heart dropped like a cannonball into the pit of my stomach.
I had stared at the note, not wanting to admit what I knew to be true and vividly remember coming to the realization that George had been the one sending the notes. He had my address. His real reason for giving me my check early had been to warn me and stop me from getting on the plane. I thought about all the other warnings. ‘I know your secret’, you’re being watched’, and ‘don’t push your luck’. George must know everything—who’s been following me… who wants the trust money. And he’d acted like he didn’t want me to go to Europe. For a few agonizing minutes, I had wondered if his warnings were about Preston.
The cabin spun and nausea filled my stomach, making me regret eating the entire sandwich for dinner. I shoved the paycheck and note into my purse, then jumped up and ran to the bathroom, threw up once, then slid to the floor in the tiny lav and put my head on my knees.
In the small lav on the plane, I had unwillingly contemplated the fact that maybe Preston really wasn’t as perfect as he appeared to be. The whole idea seemed absurd. He must have had a background check to be a pilot. So if he wasn’t a criminal, then what reason would George have for not wanting me to go with him? He wouldn’t go to all the trouble to warn me unless he thought I was in danger. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t fathom the idea and couldn’t imagine Preston wanting to do me any harm. A ridiculous notion, I thought, one I tried desperately to shove to the back of my mind.
The tap on the lav door had startled me, and I lifted my head.
“Ava, are you okay?” Preston said from the other side of the door.
“Uhm, just a minute.”
Anna must have noticed me bolting for the lav like a maniac. I stood up and turned on the water to splash some on my face. When I finally opened the door, he greeted me with a look of shock.
“Are you sick?”
His face melted into my favorite smile but part of me resented him for looking so incredible when I wasn’t sure if I’d have to force myself to hate him in the near future.
“I’m fine now,” I lied, and he escorted me to the sofa.
He made the couch into a bed. Kirk must have returned to the cockpit, probably a little early so Preston could check on me. I felt a pang of guilt and a little embarrassment. Preston sat down next to me, and Anna appeared with some ginger ale and a damp cloth, which she handed to him. He lifted my hair to place the cool cloth around my neck and then brushed my hair behind my ears.
“You better add buy something for motion sickness to your list of things to do.” He chuckled. “I’m a little worried now about dragging you across the ocean.”
“It was probably a combo of looking out the window and too much reading.”
I had hoped he wouldn’t know I was lying. I knew my nerves were the real culprits.
Anna placed a blanket next to me before returning to her seat. I slipped off my tennis shoes and lay down. Preston covered me with the blanket and lay down next to me, then pulled me close. I rested my head on his shoulder, inhaled the sweet scent of his cologne, and wondered if I would have to distance myself and even reconsider sailing across the ocean with him. Deep down, I knew that would be an improbability. I snuggled closer, taking pleasure in the comfort of his warm arms, and my nausea subsided. I was no different from a lobster in a pot, so content and comfortable, oblivious to any threat of eminent danger the warmness might inflict upon me.
The whole idea of him being a threat sent me into a confused panic, and I was mentally exhausted. I wanted nothing more than to ignore the note and the warnings. I knew I should tell Preston, but I didn’t because I wanted to treasure every moment with him, and ignore the fact that those moments might be too good to be true.
I had drifted off in Preston’s arms and when I awoke, he was gone so I knew I’d slept longer than five hours. I folded up the blanket, put my shoes on, and walked back to my seat. Anna stood at the entrance to the cockpit, right behind Preston and Kirk.
I picked my purse up off the floor that fell in my haste to run to the bathroom and put it back in my backpack. My empty stomach growled in protest, and I pulled out my phone to check the time. I’d only been asleep for four hours. We would be arriving in Australia in about three and a half hours, and I took pleasure in knowing I would sleep peacefully in the comfort of a hotel bed.
No one noticed that I’d returned to my seat, so I grabbed a magazine and started flipping through the pages, but suddenly Anna’s voice got louder. She sounded irritated and was immediately shushed by Preston and Kirk. I glanced toward the cockpit and saw them talking in hushed voices. I couldn’t make out what they were arguing about, but I could tell something was wrong. Anna’s back was to me, making it impossible to read her lips, and she blocked my entire view of Kirk and Preston.
I returned my attention to my magazine, hoping Preston would fill me in after we landed, but then Anna rushed back into the cabin to sit in her seat. She held the large cross pendant from her necklace in one hand and made the sign of the cross over her chest. I stared at her, confused by the blank expression on her face, but she avoided looking at me.
I leaned over to look in the cockpit and saw Preston and Kirk still absorbed in quiet conversation that appeared to be very intense. Preston got up and walked into the cabin. He gave me the same weak smile that Anna gave me only moments ago.
“Promise me you won’t panic.” Preston took my hands in his, and my brows furrowed as he leaned closer. I sat motionless, waiting for him to continue. “It seems there’s something wrong with the plane, well numerous things actually. There must be a fuel leak because we’re dangerously low on fuel. And for some reason, the radios aren’t working either.”
His next words came out with a sense of urgency, as if he were speaking to a child, trying to make me understand something important.
“We don’t have enough fuel to make it to Australia. We aren’t even going to make it to New Guinea like I’d hoped. We have no choice but to do an emergency landing.”
He paused, and the reality of what he said sunk in. Geography had been my least favorite subject in school, but I knew enough to know that with the exception of a few scattered islands, there wasn’t anywhere to land between Hawaii and New Guinea except in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Don’t get on the plane.
George knew. Panic overtook me and my breath came faster. “Are we going to crash?” My voice sounded foreign to me, higher pitched and bordering on hysterical.
“Yes.”
I could tell he tried to
keep his voice as calm as possible. I wanted to tell him about the note, but it didn’t matter—it was too late, and before I could say anything else, he let go of my hands and placed his on either side of my face.
“Listen to me. We only have a couple of minutes; this is extremely important. Anna will give you a life vest. Put it on but whatever you do, do not inflate it until you’re out of the plane. Do you understand?”
I nodded. Tears streamed down my cheeks between his hands.
Anna dragged a large case marked LIFE RAFT from the rear of the plane and was fastening it securely to the seat next to hers. Next, she grabbed the life vests from a cabinet, handed three of them to Preston, and then slipped one over her head before returning to her seat.
“I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure you survive,” Preston assured me. “When I tell you to, put your chest on your thighs, your head between your knees, and wrap your arms around your legs. Tuck your legs under the seat as much as possible. After we cra—land in the water, unfasten the seatbelt and get out of the plane however you can.” I followed his eyes to the door. “When you get out—”
“What about you?” I interrupted, terrified of being separated from him.
“When we get out of the plane,” he corrected, “I want you to swim as far away from it as possible. I will find you.” He leaned in quickly, pressing his lips firmly to mine.
“Ava, you can do this.” He let go of my face and slipped the life vest over my head, then fastened my seatbelt and pulled it snug. “Remember—undo your seatbelt, pull this cord when you’re outside of the plane, and swim!”
“Preston!” Kirk yelled from the cockpit over a series of beeps and alarms.
Preston jumped up and ran toward the cockpit.
My heart beat triple time. Anna sat in her seat with her seat belt fastened. Her eyes were closed, and she held the large cross from the chain around her neck. Her other hand gripped the armrest.
We descended rapidly, and the plane bounced around through turbulent air. Raindrops clawed at the window, and I pushed the button to lower the shade. My panic turned to alarm. Not only were we going to crash land into the water, but into a storm as well. I closed my eyes.
The turbulence got worse, and I heard the strain of the engines as Preston and Kirk struggled to slow the plane down before it touched the water. My fingers squeezed the armrests. I longed to be with Preston, for him to be next to me holding my hand, talking to me in his calm, velvet voice. I was terrified. But more than I feared dying, I feared the possibility of surviving without him.
And then, before I was ready, I heard him scream with urgency from the cockpit.
“AVA, NOW!”
I leaned over and put my head between my knees. My pulse pounded loudly in my head. I flung my arms around my legs and squeezed tight. Anna had cried and mumbled a prayer over and over between sobs. Kirk screamed a string of profanities that caused my heart to pound faster and louder, barely audible over my rapid, uneven breaths. I squeezed my eyes shut, held my breath, and braced for the impact.
For what seemed like a very long second, it fell completely silent, and then the silence exploded into the deafening sound of metal ripping apart, and my screams muffled Anna’s. The force of impact jerked and jolted my body around, and I struggled to keep my grip around my legs. The plane bounced off the water and hit a second time, then rose again only to hit harder the third time and stop abruptly. My body lunged forward against the restraint of the seatbelt. The smell of smoke filled the air and faster than I could think, stillness engulfed the cabin and cool water crept around my ankles.
“Ava!” Preston yelled.
I sat up and saw nothing but darkness around me. My hands shook violently and I fumbled to release the belt, but Preston slid into the seat next to me and released my seatbelt for me as the water rushed in around my legs. The plane must have torn into separate pieces judging from the alarming rate the cabin was filling with water. In a matter of seconds, the water was above my waist. Preston grabbed my hand and jerked me out of my seat, pulling me along behind him. The water rose to my stomach and made it harder to move.
“The life raft is stuck!” Anna screamed.
I could barely see her from the dim lights illuminating the walkway underneath the water. Preston stopped to help her, but Kirk appeared at her side. I remember a trickle of blood ran down his face from a large cut above his right eye.
“I’ve got it, Preston!” Kirk yelled. “Take care of Ava!”
Anna stood on the seat with her hands braced against the ceiling of the plane to escape the swiftly rising water. Terror consumed her face as Kirk took a big breath and then dove under the water in an attempt to free the life raft.
Preston hesitated for only a second before pulling me towards the exit. The water was up to my chest, and I struggled to stay right behind him. He opened the door and a blast of wind and rain hit my face.
“Take a big breath and jump—then swim away from the plane! I’ll be right behind you,” he yelled.
The water rose and dropped in front of me in large swells, but I held my breath and jumped. When my lungs started to burn, I knew I was running out of air. I kicked as hard as I could and reached with my free arm to grasp for the air I hoped was waiting close above me. When my face pierced through the surface, I gasped for air, but the choppy water pounded me from every direction.
I choked on some water and turned around to search for Preston in the darkness. I expected him to be right next to me, but I spun around in every direction and he was nowhere to be found. I struggled to tread water and screamed his name, but I could barely hear the sound of my own voice over the pounding rain.
The wind was unforgiving. It created white caps on the swells and blew the salty mist into my face. I blinked, trying to make sense of my surroundings. With my hands still shaking, I felt for the cord under the water and pulled, causing the vest to instantly inflate around my neck. I could barely make out the shape of what was left of the plane, the white paint standing out in contrast to the blackness around it. I swam towards the plane, but then stopped when I became disoriented in the black of the night. He told me to swim away from the wreckage, and I had gone closer.
I screamed for him, but he didn’t answer. The rear section of the plane vanished from view, so I turned away from the wreckage and tried to swim back to where I’d been, but it was impossible. I had no bearings. I screamed his name again and again until my voice was hoarse. I stopped swimming and tried to listen for any response, but the rain and wind were so loud that it was all I could hear. The plane was getting farther away at an alarming rate. But I’d stopped swimming. The only explanation for me drifting away so swiftly was that I must have gotten caught in a strong current. I couldn’t see the door to the plane with all the water pounding my face, but I knew I had to get closer or Preston would never find me, but the more I tried to swim against the pull, the more tired I got.
My teeth were chattering from the rain, which was colder than the ocean water that engulfed me. I felt a strange movement in the water just below my feet, like a bunch of bubbles forcing their way to the surface of the water, and panic set in. I struggled to lean forward and squinted in the darkness to search the water in front of me.
Before I could react, something shot out of the water like a rocket and collided with my forehead, grazing me just above my left eye. Frightened and stunned, I blinked through the rain and saw a dark shape floating in the water in front of me, then felt something brush past my foot and wrap around my ankle. I screamed, moving my arms and legs in the water, but felt no escape from the object that entrapped my entire leg like long tentacles. I reached for my leg but the strain caused my head to pound at the source of impact. The force of the blow was severe enough that I reached with my other hand to touch my head, expecting to find a large gash. For a split second, I was worried about attracting sharks, so I put my hand an inch in front of my face to look for any signs of blood. Trembli
ng and terrified, I tried to see my fingers, but they were blurry, fuzzy, and then I was unable to find them at all because everything went completely black.
My eyes open to meet Dax’s worried stare.
“I remember everything,” I tell him, and for the first time since I’ve known him, he’s completely speechless. “I discovered the last note on the plane but said nothing about it to anyone.” I shake my head. “I even wondered if George had been warning me about Preston—I actually suspected him—but then talked myself out of it.”
Dax scoots closer. “So what happened to the plane? Did it crash?”
“Yeah. Preston and Kirk made an emergency landing in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We ran out of fuel.”
“How did you run out of fuel? I mean, don’t take this the wrong way, but shouldn’t a good pilot know how much fuel you need to get to Australia?”
Normally, his comment would irritate me, but he has a valid point. Unless running out of fuel was the plan all along.
“I don’t know.” I say. “Preston said we should have had enough, but then it was gone all of a sudden, and too late to turn back. And the radios weren’t working either.”
“So they couldn’t even call for help.”
“Or they didn’t want to.”
Dax’s eyebrows knit together. “So where are they?”
“Probably at the bottom of the ocean. Preston told me to jump out and said he would follow me, but he didn’t. He just let me float away.”
“Ava, I’m so sorry. I know you—loved him.”
There’s such tenderness and genuine sorrow in his voice that I almost feel bad when I tell him, “Don’t be. He left me to die.” I blink back tears and then laugh bitterly at the irony. “The life raft was stuck in the seat belt. Since it washed up on shore, they must have gotten it free but not in time. Guess their entire plan turned out to be a major fail. Especially since I’m still alive.”
Dax takes my hand and gives it a reassuring squeeze. “Let’s go back to the tree house and get some food in you, then I’ll find something fun for us to do, I promise.”
I know he’s doing his best to console me, to take my mind off the devastation that has ripped my heart completely apart. I appreciate his efforts, but I know this kind of damage will take a long time to undo. In fact, I’m almost sure it might be permanent.
Dax doesn’t pull out the quarter—he must know I won’t even watch him flip it, let alone call it in the air. I sit silently as he rows us back to the other side, and then I wait for him to stash the canoe. My feet seem heavier than usual as he pulls me along behind him, and I try to think of nothing other than placing one foot in front of the other.