particularly stubborn air pocket and his face once again became ashen.
“Do you go to New York often, George?” She tried to hold his eyes with
hers. No mode of transportation had ever bothered her in the past. But
ever since she’d had Amy, little cells of apprehension appeared when she
boarded a plane or train, or even got in her car. She studied Beard’s
face as the old man tensed again while the plane bumped along. “George,
it’s all right. Just a little turbulence.”
He took a deep breath and finally eyed her squarely. “I’m on a couple
of boards of companies headquartered in New York. Have to go up twice a
year.”
Sidney glanced back at her documents, suddenly remembering something.
She frowned. There was a mistake on the fourth page.
That would need to be corrected when she got into town.
George Beard touched her arm. “I guess we’re all right today at least.
I mean, how often do they have two crashes in one day? Tell me that.”
Preoccupied, Sidney did not answer right away. Finally she turned to
him, her eyes narrowing. “Pardon?”
Beard leaned forward in a confidential manner, his voice low.
“Took one of them puddle-jumpers up from Richmond early this morning. I
got to National about eight o’clock. I overheard two pilots talking.
Couldn’t hardly believe it. They were nervous, I can tell you that.
Hell, I would be too.”
Sidney’s face evidenced her confusion. “What are you talking about?”
Beard bent even closer to her. “I don’t know if this is public
knowledge, but my hearing aid works a lot better now with the new
batteries, so those fellows might have thought I couldn’t hear.” He
paused dramatically, his eyes glancing sharply around before settling
once again on Sidney. “There was a plane crash early this morning.
No survivors.” He looked at her, his white, bushy eyebrows twitching
like a cat’s tail.
For an instant, Sidney’s major organs collectively seemed to cease all
functioning. “Where?”
Beard shook his head. “I didn’t hear that part. It was a jet, though,
a pretty big one, I gathered. Fell right out of the sky, apparently.
I guess that’s why those fellows were so nervous. I mean, not knowing
why is just as bad, right?”
“Do you know what airline?”
He shook his head again. “Guess we’ll know soon enough. It’ll be on
the TV when we get to New York, I would bet. I already called my wife
from the airport, told her I was okay. Hell, of course she hadn’t even
heard about it yet, but I didn’t want her to start worrying if she saw
it on the TV or something.”
Sidney looked at his bright red tie. It suddenly took on the image of a
large, fresh wound gaping at his throat. The odds–it couldn’t be
possible. She shook her head and then stared straight ahead. Looking
back at her was a quick resolution to her worry. She inserted her
credit card in the slot in the seat in front of her, grabbed the plane
phone from its niche and a moment later she was dialing Jason’s SkyWord
pager. She didn’t have his new cell phone number; in any event, he
normally turned his phone off during flights. He had been reprimanded
twice by airline personnel for receiving cell calls during flights. She
hoped to God he had remembered to bring the pager. She checked her
watch. He would be above the Midwest right about now, but bouncing its
signals off a satellite, the pager was easily capable of receiving pages
on planes. However, he couldn’t call her back on the plane phone; the
737 she was on was not equipped with that technology yet. So she left
her office number at the prompt. She would wait ten minutes and call in
to her secretary.
Ten minutes passed and she called her office. Her secretary picked up
on the second ring. No, her husband hadn’t called. At Sidney’s urging,
her secretary checked Sidney’s voice mail. Nothing there either.
Her secretary had heard of no plane accident. Sidney began to wonder if
George Beard had misunderstood the pilots’ conversation.
He probably sat around imagining every possible catastrophe, but she had