“You’re going to make it. Tell me more about Rose,” I order.
Ava bites her lips but nods. So strong. So brave. “Rose wanted to be a model and I had no one at home so when she moved to New York City, I went with her. She took me to the modeling agency but I wasn’t the right look. Too . . . big.” She looks down at her magnificent rack. Stupid modeling agency. “But Rose kept bringing me along until one day I went to the bathroom while Rose was at a job and as I was washing my hands, a woman next to me couldn’t stop looking at them. When I went to place them under the dryer she stopped me and pulled out a handkerchief and began to dry my hands off. It was the strangest thing. I thought she might have a fetish and want me to give her a hand job in the bathroom but she told me I had the most lovely hands and wondered if I had done modeling in the past.
“Of course I hadn’t. I signed with the agency and with Rose’s help, I ended up doing jobs all over the world using my hands.” She lifts them up and we all look at them. They are elegant. She is long fingered and her palms are slender. Where most people have wrinkly knuckles, hers are smooth and perfect but her once-unmarred hands have scratches on their backs. There are several scabs from open wounds, and her nail beds are torn. Her right hand is purple and green.
“What will I do now?” she asks, and this time her pain is from longing and despair instead of from her shoulder. “I’m all alone.”
“No,” I answer more harshly than I intend. “You aren’t alone, and you will never be alone again.”
Each step toward the lounge is more painful and as she begins to sob, I know I can’t make her walk another inch. I sweep her into my arms and stride into the lounge.
“Sir, is there a problem?”
“No, my friend is deathly afraid of flying. She had a little too much to drink in order to survive the flight. We just need to get up in the air and get going.”
“Very well.” He looks at us questioningly but does not stop us. Norse signs in and then moves off to alert the pilot.
We are not dressed like anyone else in the lounge. There are at least five groups—three of which are businessmen and two who appear to be travelers. The businessmen look at us suspiciously, and I wonder if any of these men are buyers for Duval.
I tuck Ava into a corner chair and Bennito runs off to get Ava some water. Rodrigo stands and appears to stare out the window, but I know he’s watching the occupants in the reflection.
Before any trouble starts, Norse appears. “We’re ready.”
I can tell by Ava’s pale face that the prospect of rising from her seat and walking across the tarmac is daunting. I scoop her up into my arms and walk out, uncaring what the other occupants might think. Our plane is leaving no matter what. We exit the lounge and walk into the humid afternoon air and then up the stairs into the plane.
“So rich you have your own plane,” she jokes as I settle her into a seat. Fuck the federal regulations regarding air traffic. I reach beside her and press the buttons that recline the seat to a flat bed, and then cover her up with as many blankets as we can find.
“Nah, just rent it.” I turn to Norse. “Any IVs?”
“Got it right here.” He strings two up and hangs them next to the seat. “One’s a morphine drip and the other’s an antibiotic.”
Within a couple of minutes we have the IVs pumping liquids into her and leads attached to her heart and a finger to monitor her vital signs.
“We spent all our cash to buy an island. Now we have to go out and make some more,” I tell her.
“Is that what this is all about?”
“In part. They have one of ours. Kind of like they held Rose for you.”
“Do you know if he’s still alive?”
“Yeah, the people we’re working for wouldn’t kill him. He’s too valuable an asset. They spent a lot of money to make him into what he is today.” Her eyes droop as the morphine takes hold. “Get some sleep. Your body needs it. We’ll talk when you’re feeling better.”
She barely nods. Beneath me, I can feel the rumble of the engines as the plane starts to move. “Norse, you monitor the feeds and, Bennito, I want you to start cracking the USB stack. We need to know what’s on there.”
I settle into my seat across from Ava and place my hand on her arm. I need the contact even if she doesn’t.
“What are we going to do with her after she’s better?” Norse asks.
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.” A girl who lives the high-flying life of a model, even that of a hand model, wouldn’t be interested in hiding herself away in my small island, no matter how idyllic it is. And we don’t have the money to rent the plane to fly into Miami every time she has the yen for some social life. But there’s a lot of time to think about the future. For now, I need to sleep. Forcing myself to rest, I don’t even realize we are in Miami until the plane touches down.