The Last Flight

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). A jock boyfriend back in her junior year of college had gotten her started. Her chemistry background gave her skills in manufacturing drugs, and she quickly found her niche in the syndicate run by the mysterious Fish after an introduction by Dex—at the time, a friend of her jock boyfriend. In all these years, she has never met Fish, which Dex explains is a way for Fish to maintain plausible deniability should any agent or seller get caught.

The schedule often proves hectic: Eva does double shifts at an upscale seafood restaurant and works for Dex in the evenings, either in the lab or on the streets of the campus. 

It is Claire’s first full day of freedom. Hungry, she heads out to a corner coffeeshop. She is greeted by the warm smile of a barista. The newspapers scattered in the shop blare headlines about the plane crash. Settling down with her coffee on a bench outside, Claire is determined “to reinvent [her]self” (75). She needs money and a place to hide, but first she needs to change her hair since her photo is all over the television. She picks up platinum blonde hair dye at a pharmacy. She reads through accounts of the crash as the dye sets, imagining her “bag, phone, pink sweater torn from Eva’s body floating in the water” (78). In 45 minutes, she looks in the mirror and finds herself transformed. When she reads an article on the CNN website recounting the death of Rory’s first wife, she thinks back to how they met at a theater in New York just two years after Claire graduated college. She immediately fell under the spell of the much older Rory.

Claire feels safe and protected, “like a hibernating bear” (82). Impulsively she looks through Eva’s desk, only to find copious evidence that Eva was not a widow. In fact, she was never married, and the entire story she told Claire at the airport was a lie.

Eva is scheduled to meet the new client, Brittany, just off campus. Over the years Eva has learned her clientele: “students, professors, athletes” (86). She goes to the campus library or to sporting events to meet clients. Everything goes through Dex for her safety and to protect Fish.

Brittany’s Mercedes drives up late. Eva is uneasy from the start. First, the girl asks for double the pills she requested—she claims because she is going on vacation. The story rings false to Eva. She immediately pulls out of the deal and sells the girl nothing. She senses the girl is working for the cops.

Later Eva glimpses Brittany’s Mercedes at a convenience store; Brittany is talking to a man in a sedan with government plates. Now Eva is worried, but before she can get into her apartment, she happens to see a neighbor, an elderly woman named Liz, sitting on the front stoop. Liz had stumbled and missed the top step, so Eva offers to help her. Liz follows Eva to her apartment. She tells Eva she is a visiting professor from Princeton, and the two chat amiably: “Something about Liz’s voice, deep and resonant, calmed Eva” (92). As the two settle down for a vodka cocktail, Eva sees through the window the same government sedan parked in front of the apartment complex.

Claire tries to figure out why Eva told such an elaborate story and was so eager to vanish. The apartment has few signs of anyone living there. Claire finds a car registration for an ancient Honda, but no other papers. She also spies a scrap of paper on a desk that says, “Everything you ever wanted is on the other side of fear” (96). The message, Claire decides, could apply to her as well as Eva. She then finds a letter, dated 13 years earlier, from a Catholic orphanage in San Francisco: It shares with Eva all the information the orphanage had about Eva’s birth family. It isn’t much, but Claire learns about young Eva’s passion for chemistry.

Claire showers and dresses, this time in Eva’s clothes. She studies her reflection in the mirror: “I felt everything seemed to glitter with possibilities” (100). The elation is short-lived; she checks Rory’s email and finds a text in which Rory asks Bruce what he did with the Fed Ex package from the Detroit hotel, wondering, “How the fuck did [Claire] get her hands on a fake passport?” (101). Claire reminds herself she needs to be careful. She clicks over to the CNN webpage and watches a news conference at the airport. When the camera cuts to the crowd, Claire notices a blurred image of a young woman in a bright pink sweater; she wonders if Eva was not on the plane after all.

Over the next several days, Eva sees the government sedan everywhere; the agent, named Castro, makes no effort not to be seen. Eva phones Dex and asks to meet; at a sports bar, she tells him that the new client was a setup and that a federal agent is now tailing her. He tells her she needs to lay low for a while. She returns to her apartment.

Liz stops by later for a chat. Claire admits she studied chemistry at Berkeley but dropped out. Liz reassures her, “Life is long. Lots of things can go wrong and still end up right” (108). That night at the restaurant after her shift, Eva sees the sedan waiting.

Claire is sure the pink sweater is the one she gave Eva. However, the image is blurry and Eva had been scanned onto the flight. Claire fears long years of abuse have made her paranoid and tells herself Eva must have been on the plane.

Unable to sleep, Claire heads over to the coffeeshop; the same barista welcomes her back and gives her a warm smile. Claire takes her coffee and goes for a long walk around the neighborhood, still puzzled by Eva. She finishes her coffee, tosses the cup out, and heads back to Eva’s apartment. She nearly collides with a man wearing sunglasses and a long coat. He apologizes and says it’s a nice night for coffee and a walk before he goes on his way. Realizing this man somehow knew she had a cup of coffee, Claire panics: Maybe Rory sent him. She checks Rory’s emails, but Rory is preoccupied with worries that the publicity from the crash may reopen inquiries about the death of his first wife. One of the comments on a document Rory and Bruce use to communicate mentions “Charlie” by name and warns Bruce he is to take care of that loose end. Claire has no idea who Charlie is or why Charlie is suddenly a threat to Rory’s upcoming bid for the Senate.

It is now September, five months before the crash. Liz has become more of a presence in Eva’s day-to-day life now that Eva is on hiatus from the drug business. The two chat about philosophy, history, politics, and why Eva never finished college. Eva, who dreamed of being a college professor, finds the woman a welcome break from Dex.

Nearly a month after the brush with the federal agent, Eva gets a text from Dex telling her all is clear and she can return to work. Eva is not sure what to do: “Until Liz came along, Eva had been happy. Now there was a hunger rumbling deep inside her” (123).

Liz mentions her daughter, Ellie, who works for a charity foundation in New Jersey. Impulsively, Eva shares a bit of her own childhood, including her troubled years in foster care. Liz does not judge her, saying, “Being unwanted is a heavy burden” (124). Liz asks cautiously whether Eva should try to find her biological family. Eva dismisses the idea; she could never forgive them. Eva understands the hypocrisy: Her mother had a drug addiction, and Eva is now preying on people like her by making and selling the drugs that destroy them and their families. As Eva stares at her reflection in a subway car window—she and Liz are returning from a Giants baseball game—Eva decides to leave the drug trade. Agent Castro will be her way out.