The Call That Got Cut Off

Captain Reyes didn't answer me. He looked at Fiona instead, and Fiona looked at the floor, and nobody moved for three full seconds that felt considerably longer.

"I need thirty seconds," I said, "and then you can do whatever you want with the door."

I stepped past Malik toward the galley corner, phone already out, and dialed my supervisor at Meridian Assurance. She picked up on the second ring.

"Simone, it's Ada. I'm on the ground still, and it's about to get complicated."

"You're supposed to be in the air," Simone said. "The underwriting committee moves at 12:30 sharp, Ada, they will not wait on you."

"I know. I'm handling it." I kept my voice low, my back to the cabin, though I could feel every eye in the first four rows on the back of my cardigan. "I might need you to confirm something for the airline's safety office, live, if it comes to that."

"Confirm what?"

Behind me, Cordelia's voice rose again, sharp and carrying. "Is she calling her mother? Unbelievable."

I didn't turn around. "Simone, if I hand a radio to a gate agent in the next few minutes, I need you ready to talk to whoever answers."

"Ada, what is actually happening on that plane?"

"I'll explain after," I said. "Just be near your desk."

"I'm not going anywhere, but you have exactly one shot at this before I have to reschedule the whole committee." Simone kept talking, faster now.

The line went dead mid-sentence. Not from her end. The boarding announcement chimed over the intercom, and when I looked at the screen it read CALL ENDED, no explanation, no dropped signal bar, just gone.

I stood there for a second with the phone against my ear, listening to nothing, and I understood exactly how this looked to everyone watching. A woman on the phone, pretending at importance, stalling for time she didn't have.

Fiona had drifted closer during the call, close enough to have heard every word of it, and when I turned around her face had changed again, calculating now instead of frightened.

"Whoever that was," she said, her voice pitched low enough for just the two of us, "it's not going to matter once you're off this plane."

I put the phone back in my pocket and picked my folder back up off the drink cart.

"Try me," I said.