The Last Flight (16 page)

Berkeley, California

October

Four Months before the Crash

It didn't take long for Liz to start asking questions. First, it was a comment about a smell in the backyard she couldn't place, which forced Eva to work at night, after she was certain Liz was asleep.

“Are you sick?” Liz asked her another day, after three consecutive all-nighters, dark circles under her eyes. Eva had tried to deflect the questions as best she could, blaming the neighbors across the alley for the smell and a sinus infection for her haggard face.

In the few weeks she'd been on hiatus, the landscape of Eva's life had shifted, and she was struggling to navigate back to normal. She began thinking about her life as two parallel tracks, the one she was living, with her late-night lab work and the demands of Dex and Fish taking up her time, and the life she'd had just a couple weeks ago. Dinners with Liz. An uncomplicated window of time that had felt lighter and brighter than she'd ever imagined.

And now, as she wove her way through the crowds dressed in blue and gold, up the hill that led to Memorial Stadium, her mind was fuzzy, her eyes gritty. She waited in line at the gate, her eyes trained on the security guards asking everyone to open their purses and bags for inspection. She pressed her arm against her side, feeling the outline of the package of pills, safely tucked into an inner pocket of her coat.

Eva hadn't contacted any of her clients to let them know she was back to work. She would make the drugs for Fish, but as far as her clients were concerned, she was still on hiatus and would remain so indefinitely. Her singular goal was to gather as much information about Fish and the way his organization was structured as she could, not make money she didn't really need.

When she reached the front of the line, she opened her purse and watched the guard's eyes scan the contents—a wallet, sunglasses, and small voice recorder—and held her breath as she always did, waiting for someone to finally see through her act, to finally see her for what she really was.

But that wasn't going to happen today.

As she passed through the entrance and into the stadium, the field spread out below her, each end zone painted with a yellow
California
set against a dark blue background, the trademark script
Cal
centered on the fifty-yard line. Eva ignored the people in the seats around her, instead staring across the field as the marching band played and students filled the section next to it, feeling more isolated and alone than she'd felt in years.

As an undergrad, Eva had only been to one game, and the memory of it haunted her every time she returned.
Meet me in the north tunnel afterward
, Wade had said. She'd been shocked to see the number of people lingering there, waiting for players. Hangers-on, followers, sorority girls flipping their hair and checking their lip gloss. She'd hung back, watching as she always did, from the perimeter. When he came out, his eyes scanned the crowd and landed on her. As if she glowed. He passed through the crowd of people and claimed her, putting his arm around her and leading her away, the smell of his soap mixing with the redwood trees that surrounded the stadium. She knew then that she was lost, that Wade Roberts had chosen her, and she was bound to follow whether she wanted to or not.

She'd first met him in the chemistry lab she was TA'ing. At the beginning, she'd assumed he was just another jock, trying to flirt his way to a better grade. But every time Wade had looked at her, she felt an electric zing pass through her.

Early in the semester, she'd been walking them through some basic chemical reactions when Wade had said, “Why are we doing this? When are we ever going to need to know what substances react with calcium chloride?”

She should have redirected him back to the task. But Eva knew she needed to be someone unexpected if she hoped to hold his attention. “Do you like candy?” she'd asked him. And then she'd shown them all how to make strawberry-flavored crystals, a simple procedure that anyone could find on the internet if they wanted to.

That was how it started. A pin in the map that marked the beginning of a journey she never wanted to take. Wade had begun pressuring her to try making drugs shortly after they started dating. At first, she didn't want to. But what he was asking was so simple, she figured she'd do it once and get him off her back. Science had always been where she felt the safest—among the laws of physics and chemistry. Unlike life, which could dump you at a group home at the age of two with no warning or second chances, chemistry was predictable, its actions absolute. Wade was the person everyone wanted to be close to, and he wanted to be close to her. And so, when he asked her to do it again, she did. And then again after that.

The stadium was filling up. Eva checked her watch and reached into her purse to activate the voice recorder. Across the field, the marching band drums pounded a rhythm, the same one from that day so many years ago. The people around her pressed closer, making her feel smothered, and she tried to shrink down inside herself, to just hang on. Wait. To do her job and be ready.

“Been here long?” Dex asked, sliding into the seat next to her.

“Maybe five minutes.” Her eyes traveled up the hill where the cannon that fired after every touchdown poked through the trees on its platform, a white California banner fluttering in the wind. Tightwad Hill, open to anyone willing to hike up there and sit in the dirt. Fucking Berkeley. “God, I hate this place,” she said.

“Then give me what you've got and let's get out of here.” He twisted around, looking into the crowd behind them, and then faced forward again, his knee bouncing a jittery rhythm.

Eva shook her head. “Not a chance. We do this my way.” She knew that just because Dex said Castro was gone, it didn't mean he wasn't still out there, watching her. Waiting for her to make a mistake.

“You really don't need to worry.”

“Your lack of detail does not inspire confidence,” Eva said. She pulled her purse from underneath her seat and inspected the bottom of it, wiping dead leaves and an old gum wrapper off of it before placing it next to her armrest. “You need to give me specifics. Who was following me. Why. And how it is they're gone now.”

Dex slouched down in his seat, his gaze leaping from one thing to another, never landing, never still. “Fine,” he said. “It was a joint task force, DEA and locals, looking to grab Fish. Which they've been trying to do for years. The whole thing got disbanded two weeks ago.”

“How is it possible Fish can call off a joint task force?” she asked.

Dex squinted across the field where the band launched into a version of “Funky Cold Medina.” Finally, he said, “It costs a lot of money to run surveillance, and you weren't giving them anything. They can't keep watching you forever. Higher-ups pulled the money, and with no evidence pointing anywhere, Fish's friends inside the department began rumbling about
better uses of resources
and bitching about the budget. They had no choice but to fold.”

“Listen to yourself,” she said. “Federal agents. Joint task forces. And you're telling me not to worry?”

“I'm telling you this topic is closed. You need to drop it.”

She studied his profile, softer around the contours of his jaw, laugh lines framing his eyes and mouth. She'd known Dex for twelve years. And something was off about him today.

Just then, the cannon fired as the Cal team burst out of the north tunnel, and next to her, Dex nearly leaped out of his seat. He covered it by rising along with the rest of the crowd as the band launched into the fight song, but Eva wasn't fooled. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets as they sat again and the first quarter started. “Just a little rattled.”

“You just finished telling me all was well. What the hell, Dex?”

He shook his head. “It's fine. Just, Fish is looking into that guy I told you about. My friend who referred Brittany.”

“Are you in danger?”

Dex gave a hollow laugh and looked at her, his eyes sad. “When am I not?”

At halftime, they headed back into the mezzanine. As people made their way toward the bathrooms or the concession stands, Eva led Dex toward the doors labeled
Stadium Club
. She handed her badge to the guard at the door, who scanned it and waved them through. The noise of the stadium faded as she led Dex up a set of stairs and into a large room that overlooked the campus, all the way to the San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge in the far distance.

“I'll get drinks,” Dex said, leaving Eva to stare out the window and think about another time, an office with an almost identical view, the ghost of Wade Roberts still following her.

* * *

It had been the nicest office Eva had ever seen in all her years at Berkeley. Set high on the hill at the top of campus, its window offered sweeping views all the way to the Golden Gate and beyond. In a corner, a clock ticked, measuring Eva's fate in seconds. The dean had flipped through her file, and she'd glanced at the door again, wondering when Wade would show up and deliver the pardon he promised.

“I see you're a scholarship student.” The dean looked up, waiting for her to confirm. She stared at his nose, a sharp beak that propped up a pair of bifocals, and said nothing. He resumed his reading. “You came from St. Joe's in the city?”

The first glimmer of sympathy. She could almost time its arrival. When people found out she grew up in a group home, they either took a step back or a step forward. But it almost always changed how they viewed her. She'd shrugged and looked at the door again. “It's all in the file.” Her tone was more abrupt than she'd intended, and she wished she could reel her words back in and start over. Tell him how attached she'd grown to her life as a student, that Berkeley was a place where potential seemed to shine down and touch her shoulders. But Eva had never been able to offer honesty like that. So she said nothing and waited for the rest to happen.

“It seems foolish to throw it all away by making drugs in the chemistry lab,” he'd said.

Eva was saved from responding when the door swung open and the dean's assistant ushered Wade in. The breath Eva had been holding released. Wade had promised her he would tell the dean that making the drugs had been his idea, and would assume all of the blame. As the quarterback of the football team, he'd get a slap on the wrist, maybe a one-game suspension, but nothing that would ruin his career.

But her relief quickly vanished as Wade was followed by Coach Garrison. Eva had only seen his picture in the paper, or once as a tiny, pacing ant on the sidelines of the only football game she'd ever been to, at Wade's behest.
I want my girlfriend to watch me play
. It had been the word
girlfriend
that had done it. Eva had never been anything to anyone—not daughter. Not friend. Certainly never girlfriend. She had felt foolish that the betrayal struck her so deeply, that she'd allowed herself to believe Wade might be different.

* * *

“All they had was white,” Dex said, handing her a small plastic cup of wine. Eva tore her eyes away from the view and refocused on the present. She'd believed she'd risen from the ashes, making a life for herself. But it had all been an illusion. A delusion. Nothing had changed at all. Dex had stepped into the space Wade had vacated, and things continued as they'd begun, only on a much larger scale.

Dex drank from his cup and grimaced. “How much do you pay every year for the privilege of drinking shitty wine?” he asked.

The last thing Eva needed was a recording filled with musings about bad wine. “Sometimes I wonder whether I've ever encountered Fish and not known it. Like, maybe he's one of those high-rolling donors over there.” She pointed to a group of older men, clustered near a trophy case, clad in dark blue and gold. “It makes sense, really. For him to hide in plain sight like that.” Dex stared at her over the top of his plastic cup and she continued. “You know him. What's he like?”

Dex shrugged. “A regular guy, I guess. Nothing special. Scary as fuck if you make him mad.” A shiver passed through him, and he turned to look at Eva, his expression sad. “Don't start asking questions now.”

Eva took a sip of her wine, the sharp tang biting the back of her throat. “Don't worry. I know you can't tell me anything. But I've been thinking about what happens after I give you the pills. I never considered until now whether any of it could somehow be traced back to me. They can do some crazy shit with forensics.”

“It doesn't stay local, if that's what you're worried about.”

“I guess my worry hinges on what you consider local. Sacramento? Los Angeles? Farther?”

Dex took another sip of wine before dumping the rest into a nearby trash can. “Let's finish this and get out of here.”

They walked down a small side hallway toward a restroom with a gender-neutral icon on the door, where they fell in line behind a mother and small child. An older man exited and the mother and child entered, locking the door behind them. A server passed them in the hallway and said, “If you guys want, there are bigger bathrooms around the corner. No wait.”

Dex and Eva smiled and assured her they were fine. After another five minutes and some muffled crying behind the closed door, it was finally her turn. She locked the door and checked the recorder in her purse, frustrated Dex hadn't told her more. She leaned against the wall, the cool tile seeping through her shirtsleeve, trying to figure out what she could ask, what she could do, to get Dex to tell her something more specific. Where they sent the drugs, and who bought them. Details about Fish she could trade. Finally, she flushed the toilet, only pulling out the brightly wrapped package of pills after she'd washed and dried her hands.