Elena’s father had one rule that he said had served him well both before and after the collapse: trust your instincts. He said it had saved his life when he was with the KGB, and it had saved his fortune when he was done.
The beverage cart was well behind her now, but another flight attendant appeared out of nowhere and offered to refill her glass. He was a handsome guy with a mane of tapered, coal-colored dreadlocks held back in an immaculate ponytail.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Absolutely,” he said, smiling. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
She raised her glass to him in gratitude, but already her mind was elsewhere. Nothing really was wrong, and nothing really was different, she told herself. But there it was, a beacon from deep inside her, a warning light now flashing red.
20
News spreads like an airborne virus in the digital age, and though Cassie knew not a soul in the crew on the overnight flight to Rome, they knew her. They had all read the story on their phones on the way to the airport or as they waited to pass through security or then as they waited to board. They had been directed to the story by friends and family and coworkers who had seen it on Facebook or Twitter. After all, she worked for their airline.
And while she wasn’t wearing a scarlet A—the uniform regulations would have prohibited that sort of accessorizing, Cassie thought darkly to herself—everyone watched her warily and she felt like Hester Prynne. No, the vibe of this madness was Russian. Anna Karenina, she corrected herself. But, of course, Anna hadn’t killed anyone. It was only her own life that she’d taken. The cabin service director, a fortysomething fellow named Brendon who was lean and stern and led spin classes in Buffalo when he wasn’t flying, asked her if she would be capable of working. She said yes. Of course. She said she knew this was coming. She added—and she said this so many times in the half hour before they walked down the jet bridge to prepare the plane for takeoff that she had begun to believe it herself—that Alex Sokolov had been alive when she had left his hotel room. She had no idea who had murdered him, which she also said with conviction, though mostly she was sure that she did know: it was either Miranda or someone Miranda knew. But somehow Miranda was involved.
Perhaps Miranda was even behind the dude in the black ball cap.
Unfortunately, there were also still those occasional moments when she wondered if, just maybe, she was blaming Miranda needlessly—because she herself had killed Alex Sokolov. Usually she was able to walk herself in from the ledge when her mind would go there. It was just that over the years there had been so many other revelatory and appalling morning-after discoveries of what she had done when she was on the far side of the blackout zone.
Cassie, you really don’t remember when you were kicking the jukebox? You were weirdly pissed off because they had nothing by Taylor Swift. Have you looked at your foot this morning?
You were screaming like a porn star, girl. The people in the apartment next to mine were banging on the wall.
You were about to give this homeless guy your credit cards, Cassie—all of them. You were, like, emptying your wallet. It was sweet, but insane.
Houdini Bikini. That’s what you called it. You took off your top and were trying to step out of your bottom.
Once when Paula was sober she’d ruminated that one of them was destined to die via “death by misadventure.” Apparently that was what coroners wrote on death certificates when people died doing something monumentally stupid, usually while drunk. They drowned or they fell off buildings or they tumbled down long flights of stairs. Paula had joked that it wasn’t the worst way to go.
The small talk among the crew grew awkward fast. Usually they all would have chatted casually and gotten to know each other a bit, but how do you make small talk with a person of interest in a murder investigation in Dubai? Cassie got it. She understood. She was by no means a pariah, but no one could quite figure out how to transition from a discussion of the murder of some hedge fund manager to asking if you had any hobbies.
Yes, she would have answered, had they asked. I drink. Want the secret to a dirty martini? Plop an ice cube and a little water in the glass and place it in the freezer for a couple of minutes before mixing together the gin, the vermouth, and the olive juice.
And yet somehow she had done her job for three hours now. She was working the business-class cabin with a kind woman her age named Makayla, and it probably helped that the other flight attendant was almost heroically competent. She was always a step ahead of Cassie on the hot towels and warmed nuts, opening the different wines and gently—very gently—helping her remain on task as they warmed the trays with the steaks or the salmon or the risotto. When Cassie introduced herself to the passengers, she used her middle name, Elizabeth, and asked them to call her Ellie. (She had taken off the badge with her name, which was technically a uniform violation, but she didn’t care this evening. She just didn’t care.) She was pretty sure that the paunchy guy in the ugly, short-sleeve jacquard shirt knew who she really was, but he was traveling alone and hadn’t bothered to share his reconnaissance with anyone else on the plane. He just eyed her knowingly, as if he got it, he was in on the joke.
Now for the first time, in the dark over the Atlantic when most of the passengers were starting to sleep, she was able to sit down in her jump seat and stare at her phone. To read and reread the story. To see her “no comment,” which seemed profoundly incriminating in the context of this nightmare, but also the deft way that Ani Mouradian managed to defend her and deflect the allegations. She couldn’t help but scan the comments from readers that followed the story, most of them fatuous and some accusatory, but all of them hurtful and cruel. She examined the way that the saga was being discussed on the social networks. Finally she returned to her own e-mails, including the ones from Ani and Megan and her sister. Rosemary chastised her, writing that she couldn’t understand why Cassie hadn’t told her what was going on, either on the phone immediately after she returned to the United States from the Emirates or at some point on Saturday. After all, we spent all Saturday together, she reiterated. Her sister was angry and sad and worried about her. The e-mail was as judgmental as ever, and Cassie knew that she had earned every word.
And then there was the e-mail from her friend Gillian: it was a well-meaning but appalling joke about just how bad this guy must have been in bed for her to cut his throat.
Brendon and Makayla and the rest of the crew left her alone, undoubtedly aware of what she was facing.