The Last Flight

Now in Eva’s house in Oakland, Claire turns on the television; the news carries live reports from the crash site off Puerto Rico. She sees her own photo in the news coverage. Curious, she uses Eva’s computer to check her husband’s email but finds only a discussion about delaying Rory’s campaign announcement out of respect for Claire’s death. She watches on television as Rory makes his first public announcement since the accident: “I don’t know what to say other than I am devastated” (61). Claire suddenly realizes her ruse cost Eva her life. As for her husband, she reassures herself that there is no way Rory could know where she is.

It is the August before the crash. Eva is working in the drug lab she created in an old laundry room in her basement. She works for hours; Dex gave her a huge order. Even as she pages through her bank account records in her overseas account—more than six figures—she knows she cannot stay much longer in the drug business: Someday, “she’d buy a plane ticket to somewhere far away and simply disappear” (66).

However, after more than 10 years, she feels safe dealing drugs: “People who look like her don’t make or sell drugs” (68).