The Long Way Home (24 page)

At the rest stop, Marnie decided to let Troy stretch and sleep in the backseat, so she moved to the front passenger seat for the duration of the trip. She was dozing when the car finally stopped; the sound of the GPS saying “Arriving at destination” jarred her awake. She’d been under the impression that they were going to return to Beth and Mike’s, so she was startled to see they were in the parking lot of a hotel.

“Are we there?” Troy asked from his nest in the back.

“We’re here,” Laverne said brightly, reaching over Marnie’s lap to put the GPS unit in the glove compartment.

“Where are we?” Marnie said, looking around. “Why are you stopping here?” She twisted her head from side to side while rubbing at a spot on the back of her neck.

“Change of plan,” Laverne said. “We’re staying in a hotel. Jazzy is meeting us here.”

Despite Marnie’s questions, Laverne wouldn’t say any more on the subject, instead telling her Jazzy would explain it all. “She’s in the lobby waiting for us,” she said.

Even though Laverne had done most of the driving, Marnie was exhausted. Walking felt like moving through a whirlpool, and she was sure she looked like hell. A hot shower and a hotel bed might be just the thing.

Troy perked up considerably, especially since less than twenty-four hours before he’d been languishing on a camp cot. He ran to the hotel entryway to get a luggage cart and helped Laverne empty the trunk. Marnie, meanwhile, stood idly by, wanting to help but feeling like the walking dead.

The feeling stayed with her even when they met Jazzy and Carson in the lobby and as they made their way up to their adjoining rooms. Jazzy said, “I thought Laverne and I would share one room, and you and Troy would have the other one.”

When the elevator stopped on their floor, Marnie came out of her mental fog long enough to realize someone was missing. “Where’s Rita?” she asked Jazzy as they pulled their suitcases down the hall with Troy following happily behind. With his large backpack slung over one shoulder and a duffel bag dangling off one arm, he looked like an escapee from a Boy Scout overnight.

“Yeah, about Rita,” Jazzy said, hedging for just a moment. “She went home.”

“She went home!” Marnie said. “What do you mean, she went home? With her car?”

“No need to panic,” Jazzy said, handing her a key card. They’d arrived at their rooms. “Her husband flew here and they did drive the Crown Vic home, but I told them to. I said that we’d figure out another way home.”

Marnie held the card but made no effort to open the door. “Well, isn’t that wonderful. I can’t believe she left us without a way to get home.”

“Oh, we’ll get home all right,” Laverne piped up. “Jazzy has a plan, and it’s a doozy.” She spoke to Troy. “I know this isn’t a big deal for you kids today, but this old lady has never been on a plane before and I’m pretty excited about it.”

“Oh no.” Marnie’s heart was racing just thinking about it. “I don’t fly. I hate flying. I did it one time and it was terrible.”

Down the hall, a doorway opened and a man stuck his head out. “Could you people keep it down? Some of us are trying to sleep.”

“Sorry.” Jazzy gave an apologetic wave, then said to Marnie, “Let’s continue this conversation inside.”

Marnie knew she wasn’t going to feel any less panicky inside the room, but once she was on the other side of the door, she realized there was something comforting about being in a hotel room. After so many hours in the car, the beds and bathroom looked inviting. Laverne made a beeline for the bathroom on her side, while Troy grabbed the remote, claimed a bed, and immediately began flipping through channels. Jazzy took this opportunity to give Marnie the lowdown. Rita was gone, she said, and so was her car. They now had two options: they could rent a car or fly home. “I know you’re afraid,” she said, “but it’s a very short flight and we’re all tired of driving.”

“I’m tired of driving too. I say we fly,” Troy chimed in, although no one had asked him.

Jazzy said, “I just checked and there are still openings on flights tomorrow morning. We can be home in no time.”

“It’s not that I’m afraid,” Marnie said, trying to think of how to explain the enormity of the problem. “If it was just that, I could do it, no problem. It’s that my body goes crazy. Even thinking about it makes me nuts. I know if I get on a flight, I won’t be able to breathe, my heart will start beating out of control, and I’ll get sick to my stomach.” She remembered the one and only time she’d flown. She was a teenager, excited to go on a class trip to Orlando. On the flight there she was fine, but on the way back they’d encountered horrible turbulence, the plane lurching so severely that several of the girls screamed. The pilot came on the speaker to reassure them that everything was fine, and the class chaperone, Mrs. Garneau, had shouted out that this was just like a bus ride going over bumps. The difference being, Marnie had thought at the time, that buses don’t fall out of the sky. The turbulence had gone on for at least half an hour. Despite her best efforts, she’d thrown up into the little bag the airplane provided for that purpose. She was glad to have made it into the bag (and actually proud of herself for having remembered it was in the pocket in the seat in front of her), but it was still horrifying. Worst of all, she had to sit with her bag of vomit until the flight attendant came by fifteen minutes later and took it from her, holding it away from her body like it was a dead rodent. Her classmates talked about the incident for years. As recently as six months ago, a former friend had mentioned it when they bumped into each other at the mall. (
Hey, remember when you got sick on the plane ride home from Orlando? That turbulence was killer!
) She had vowed she’d never fly again.

“None of those things will happen this time around,” Jazzy said. “I promise you with complete certainty that you’ll be fine.”

Marnie said, “I know you’re psychic and you know things, but I also know myself. There’s no way I’m going to be fine.” She cast a longing glance at the empty bed. All she wanted to do was sleep. “Look, I don’t want to debate this with you, Jazzy. If you and Laverne want to fly home, feel free. I’ll figure something out.”

But Jazzy wasn’t about to let it drop. “Just hear me out, Marnie, just for one more minute, and then I’ll leave you be. We don’t have to decide anything until tomorrow, but would you at least consider it?” Before Marnie could answer she plowed ahead. “You’re making a decision based on how you used to be, but that’s not you anymore!” She was becoming impassioned. “Two weeks ago your index card was blank. You didn’t want to share a day brightener with a bunch of women at the rec center. And now, you’ve driven across the country with three complete strangers, confronted Kimberly, and taken charge of Troy. You’re not the woman I met not that long ago.”

Marnie sighed. “Your point being?”

“Look,” Jazzy said. “No one can force you to do something you don’t want to do, but would you at least think about the
possibility
of flying home?”

She’d promise anything to finish this conversation so she could wash up, brush her teeth, and crawl between the sheets. “Okay, I’ll think about it,” she said. Jazzy looked triumphant, but Marnie knew they were only words.

The next morning after a stay in a hotel and a nice breakfast, Glenn and Rita were driving through Iowa when her purse blasted with the sound of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. She pulled the phone out and put it up to her ear. “Hello?”

It was Judy Dietz on the line. She said, “Rita, I’m afraid I’ve got bad news.”

Rita listened intently, then answered, “Oh my.” Glenn glanced over as he changed lanes, and she held up one finger to indicate he’d know soon enough.

When Judy was done giving her the news, Rita thanked her for calling and added, “Please let us know if you hear anything else.” After saying good-bye, she rested the phone on her lap for a moment and stared out the window, processing the news. The sight of the Iowa cornfields was soothing in their predictability and sameness.

“What was that all about?” Glenn finally asked.

Rita sighed and put the phone back in her purse before answering. “That was Judy Dietz. You remember me telling you about Officer Dietz, the one who’s daughter, Sophie, was living with Davis?”

“What happened?”

Rita couldn’t get the words out to tell him the whole story—how Davis had been smooth and confident in his denial of having anything to do with Melinda’s death. How Sophie Dietz had confronted Davis with a copy of the poster once he’d returned to their apartment, and how things had escalated into a big screaming match. And the aftermath—how he had fled, like the coward he was, leaving Sophie heartbroken. Rita would tell Glenn the details later, but for now she simply said, “Davis never admitted to anything, but he took off and they’re not sure where he is right now. He’s just gone.”

“Really.” Glenn’s voice was even.

“I guess it’s good that Judy’s daughter is out of danger,” she said, trying to look on the bright side.

“That’s something, anyway.” But they both knew it wasn’t enough.

“I’m glad I’m with you,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “Because no one else could understand what I’m feeling right now.”

“I love you, Rita. We’ll get through this,” he said, which was exactly what she wanted to hear.

Marnie was at the airport, her boarding pass in hand, still not entirely sure how it happened that she’d been talked into going on this flight. The night before she’d slept soundly enough, waking in the morning to see Troy in front of the window, one hand holding the curtain aside, the other pressed against the glass. She fumbled for her glasses on the nightstand and put them on, blinking from the light. When her eyes adjusted, she saw he was staring at something down below. “What are you looking at?” she asked, half wondering if he was admiring the mountains.

Troy answered, “There’s a guy down there with a dog on a leash and he’s letting the dog crap right in the parking lot. Geez.”

She smiled, so glad to have him back. It put her in a good mood. Between that and the solid night’s sleep she found it easy to swing into action, getting herself and her suitcase ready to go in record time. Troy watched TV while she bustled around. Laverne and Jazzy were doing the same in the adjoining room, and they planned to go downstairs to eat breakfast and have a talk. At that point, Marnie was entirely sure that there was nothing that could convince her to board a plane. She’d have bet every dollar she had in savings, which was a considerable amount, since she’d banked most of her paycheck for a decade.

All through breakfast, she was firm in her decision, even to the point of thinking she and Troy would take the airport shuttle with Jazzy and Laverne, to rent a car there. Somehow, though, before she even finished her coffee, they tag-teamed her. Jazzy started up again about how Marnie had evolved as a person. “It’s like you were here,” she said, pointing to one edge of the table, “and now you’re over here.” She slid her finger all the way to the other side.

While Marnie was trying to figure out what that meant, Laverne started yammering about how she’d never flown before and how she couldn’t wait. “I can’t believe we’ll get there in only two hours. Imagine that. Two hours!”

Both of them asked her to reconsider, and she felt herself getting angrier and angrier that they wouldn’t drop it. She was just about to snap when Troy said, “Marnie, couldn’t you just give it a try? It’s really not such a big deal.”

Poor boy did not realize that there was no such thing as giving it a try. Once the plane was in the air, she’d be stuck. “It’s not that I don’t want to, Troy,” she said, starting to explain, but then stopped when she saw the sweet, serious expression on his face.

Troy looked at her intently. “I’ll be right next to you the whole time.” And then he said the thing that made her falter. “You can hug me if you get scared. I’m going to be there. You know I won’t let you down.”

She was losing her resolve and everyone at the table knew it. When Laverne pulled the Ziploc out of her purse and said, “I got just the thing to help you relax. You take one of these and you won’t even care where you are,” Marnie knew it was all over. Against her will, she’d been swept along in a current of persuasion.

Now she sat in a plastic molded seat in the airport, nervously fanning herself with her boarding pass. Oh why had she agreed to do this? And why had Jazzy been so insistent she fly? Laverne and Jazzy could have flown without her. It wasn’t like her presence was necessary. She felt her nervousness ratcheting up a notch; she swallowed a lump of worry. Just when she was afraid of launching into a full-blown panic attack, Troy appeared at her side, back from buying a Snickers bar at the newsstand. “I checked the board and our flight is right on time,” he said joyfully, oblivious to her pain. And just when she’d been thinking how self-absorbed teenagers were, he ripped open the wrapper and offered her some. When she shook her head, he proceeded to polish it off in four bites.

They’d checked all their luggage, including her cooler, another reason she couldn’t back out of the flight. In retrospect, she wondered if Jazzy had encouraged that decision on purpose. “Let’s just check it all,” she’d said. “Then we don’t have to fuss with getting it into the overhead bins.” Everyone sitting around Marnie seemed to have carry-on suitcases, duffel bags, and laptops. Her purse somehow seemed like not enough.

Across the aisle, Laverne and Jazzy sat side by side, leafing through entertainment magazines. If Marnie didn’t know better, she’d have thought Laverne was Jazzy’s grandmother. They sat apart because they hadn’t been able to find four seats together, a problem that would follow them on the plane where they would all be separated. Troy and Marnie would sit closest. They were at least in the same three-person row. Unfortunately, there was someone else in the middle. “I’m sure that person will let you switch,” Jazzy said. “No one wants to sit in the middle anyhow.” Marnie hoped so. She’d just taken the anti-anxiety medication Laverne had foisted on her, and was hoping it would help. She was counting on Troy to bring her comfort in the event she had a meltdown. She knew it was a lot to expect from a teenage boy, but she thought he was up to the job. Besides, he’d offered.

When they announced that the plane was boarding, Marnie quelled her doubts by concentrating on Troy. She shifted into stepmom mode, shepherding him into line and telling him to get out his boarding pass. “Can I see Matt as soon as we get home?” he asked while they were still in line.

She couldn’t see past the next ten minutes, but to make him happy, she answered, “Yes, of course.”

Down the ramp and into the plane, she repeated a sentence in her mind:
It’s just for two hours. It’s just for two hours. It’s just for two hours.
To distract herself even further she did mental arithmetic, calculating what percentage two hours was in the course of a day, a week, a month, a lifetime (assuming her lifetime was seventy-five years). Ahead of her, Jazzy and Laverne made their way into seats in the back of the plane. Jazzy’s laughter floated forward in the cabin. Marnie found their assigned spots in a row of three seats, midway in the plane. Troy scooted into place next to the window; she was supposed to be on the aisle, but she took the middle one instead, telling Troy, “When that person comes I’ll explain that we’re together.”

As the other passengers settled into their seats, Marnie felt a wave of mellowness wash over her, dulling the edges of her anxiety. Laverne’s drug was kicking in. She imagined it working its way from her stomach into her bloodstream and traveling through her body, relaxing every muscle and soothing her ragged nerves. It made her feel a little numb, but that was preferable to raw, bone-grinding fear. She looked at the ceiling of the plane and said a prayer of thanks for the invention of whatever it was making her feel better. She closed her eyes and muttered, “Thank you, God.”

A male flight attendant walked through, closing the flaps of the overhead bins, checking to see that seat belts were fastened. Troy kept his eye on the window, watching the luggage handlers as they unloaded another plane. He’d flown many times with his dad, but the novelty hadn’t worn off.

Just when Marnie thought her adjacent seat would remain empty, a young man wearing a tan baseball cap came down the aisle and stopped in front of her row. He reached up and shoved a carry-on bag into the overhead bin; all the while Marnie only had a view of his trim midsection. She looked discreetly away. Now she heard the solid sound of the passenger door shutting in the front of the plane. Without Laverne’s medication she’d be in complete panic mode right about now. Thank God for modern chemistry.

The young man slammed the bin shut and slid into the aisle seat. Marnie turned to explain about the seat change. “I’m in your seat,” she started, and then, recognizing him, stopped talking, shocked.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I like the aisle.” He stretched his legs forward and put his head back, lowering his baseball cap over his eyes. His arm rested on what should have been her armrest. She pulled away, not wanting to touch him.

In disbelief Marnie stared, and blinked, and stared some more. There could be no mistake, it was Davis Diamontopoulos. And he hadn’t recognized her from the encounter in the restaurant parking lot. Her fear of takeoff was momentarily forgotten, replaced by the knowledge and horror that she was sitting next to a murderer. She looked around, unsure what to do with this information. Over the loudspeaker, a woman’s voice asked them to read along with the pamphlet in the pocket in the seat in front of them. Troy nudged her, and she glanced over to see him holding an instruction sheet. He said, “Dad always made me pay attention to this, just in case.”

Marnie nodded. The words
just in case
applied to emergency landings, but no one had ever prepared her for what to do if she was stuck sitting next to a killer on a plane. She had only a vague awareness of what was going on in the rest of the plane in the next fifteen minutes: the announcements, the takeoff, Troy putting in his earbuds when given the okay to start up electronic devices. She felt the skin on her left arm crawl, even though she wasn’t actually touching Davis. The rest of the passengers proceeded with their business, unaware there was a killer in their midst.
What to do? What to do?
It wasn’t like she could inform the authorities. He wasn’t wanted by the law. But she couldn’t stop looking at his hands resting loosely on the armrests. Those same hands had strangled Rita’s daughter.
Someone should cut those hands off
, she thought, and was immediately horrified that something so vile had even entered her head.

She had to tell someone he was here. When the light for the seat belts went off, signifying passengers could move around the cabin, she got Troy’s attention and told him she was going to the bathroom. “Excuse me,” she said, bending her body in an awkward way to get past Davis. He didn’t even try to get up to let her pass, but brought his legs in.

Marnie made her way down the aisle toward the back of the plane and stopped when she saw Jazzy, in the middle of a row on the left. “Jazzy,” she hissed. “I need to talk to you.”

Jazzy looked up from her magazine. “Now?”

“Now.” Marnie motioned to the back and then kept walking until she reached the line for the bathroom.

“How are you doing?” Jazzy asked, coming up behind her.

Marnie spoke through gritted teeth. “I am sitting next to Davis Diamontopoulos.” She waited a moment for it to sink in, but Jazzy didn’t look shocked. “The man who killed Rita’s daughter,” she said. Oddly enough, Jazzy only nodded in response. Somehow Marnie had expected a bigger reaction. “I think we need to tell someone.”

“Well, okay, sure, if you think so.” Jazzy looked around. “Who did you want to tell?”

“I don’t know,” Marnie said, exasperated. “You’re the one who knows things. I’m asking you what we should do.”

“I can call Rita or Judy as soon as we land,” Jazzy said calmly. “There’s not too much we can do when the plane is in the air.”

True enough, but that wasn’t what Marnie wanted to hear. The line inched forward and an elderly gray-haired woman came out of the bathroom and pushed past them, the scent of floral perfume trailing in her wake. Marnie said, “I’m just creeped out sitting next to him.” An involuntary shudder came over her.

Jazzy gave her arm a reassuring squeeze. “Do you want me to switch seats with you?” she asked. “Because I will.”

“No, that’s not the answer,” Marnie said, and then remembering she’d left Troy alone with Davis, she turned around and headed back without even wrapping up the conversation. She maneuvered past a young woman carrying a toddler and waited to let a heavyset man with a cane get by. The plane had been in the air for only a short time, yet everyone, it seemed, needed to visit the restroom. When she got back to her seat, she was alarmed to see Davis had moved. He was now sitting in her seat talking to Troy.

“Ahem,” she said. When the two looked up, she saw that Davis was showing Troy something on some electrical device.

“Hey, Marnie,” Troy said, gesturing enthusiastically. “He’s got the thing I was telling you about. The—”

“Could you move, please,” Marnie said, pointing. “I’d like to sit down next to my son.” She knew she sounded rude, but she didn’t care. Laverne’s medication made her fearless.

“Hey!” Troy said, protesting Marnie’s bad manners, but Davis didn’t flinch, just got up and moved out of the row, allowing Marnie to get back to the center seat.

“You didn’t have to be that way,” Troy said, when she’d settled back in, clicking her seat belt and reclining her seat.

“I’ll explain later,” she said.

Troy gave her a grumpy look and then put his earbuds back in and turned his gaze toward the window. Someday he’d understand that she was only trying to protect him. Right now he wasn’t seeing the big picture.

Marnie managed to keep her face tilted away from Davis for the next half hour, but when the drink cart came through, she had to turn in that direction to place their orders: a Coke for Troy, and a diet Sprite for herself. She looked past Davis as the attendant poured the soft drinks out of cans into wide-mouthed plastic cups. Marnie took Troy’s drink and set it on his tray; when she turned back, Davis had her drink in hand and was offering it to her. “Special delivery,” he said. She took it without saying a word.

After they’d finished their drinks and the flight attendant collected their empty cups, Davis turned to her and said, “You have a problem with me, don’t you?”

She didn’t respond.

“I wasn’t doing anything to the boy,” he said. “Honest, I’m a good guy.”

Marnie couldn’t help herself. “That’s not the way I hear it.” She said it between clenched teeth, but she knew he heard.

“What did you say?” He tilted his head toward her, getting way too close for comfort.

“Nothing.”

“No, you said something. What was it?”

His mouth was so close she got a whiff of breath mint. “Never mind,” she said.

Davis sat back in satisfaction. “If you’ve got something to say to me, best to say it to my face. Or not at all.”

Marnie was going to let it go until she saw the smug look on his face. She sat up straight and spoke loudly. “You said you were a good guy, and I said, ‘That’s not the way I hear it.’”

“Oh yeah, what do you hear?”