Her brow furrows and she interrupts the caller. “I-I’m sorry, could you repeat that, please?”
Instantly, I’m on alert. I think it’s from the way her light brown eyes widen, the way she sucks in a sharp breath. I set my legal pad and pen in the vacant chair next to me and I’m already standing to round her desk as her lips part.
“No,” she whispers to the caller, not me.
She’s shaking her head at the unseen caller as I make it to her side. That she’s already reaching for me, for my hand, tells me this isn’t just bad, it’s catastrophic.
I’m almost afraid to hear what it is. She squeezes my hand tightly, desperately, while her mask completely shatters. She chokes back tears as she listens to the caller and only releases me to grab a pen. She starts scribbling phone numbers right onto her calendar desk blotter, something she never does.
She reads the numbers back, barely able to get them out. That’s when both our work cells go off at nearly the exact same time…and something tells me not only are those calls related to this odd happenstance, but that it’s a horrific omen of what our lives are about to devolve into.
I thumb mine off, into voice mail, and reach for hers where it’s laying on the desk and do the same.
“Thank you,” she finally says. “Yes, we…I’ll have someone…” She chokes back another sob. “Myself, or someone from my office will be there. Thank you.”
Her hand is literally shaking as she reaches over to hang up the handset, and she misses the base on the first try.
I’m fucking terrified now. “Ma’am?”
She looks up at me. “Ellen and George.” She sucks in a shaky-sounding breath. “And…” Tears roll down her cheeks. “Governor and Mrs. Willis. John and Ceely Stinson. The plane went down on the way to Manila. In a storm. They haven’t located it yet.”
“Oh,shit,” I whisper.
Because not only are Ellen and George on that plane, and our state’s governor and tourism commissioner and their wives. Oh, no. That would be bad enough.
They are accompanied by dozens of other governors and top state executives from all around the southeastern United States.
Both our phones go off again, almost at the same time, and I once again silence them.
“What do we do first?” I ask. Obviously, the news is breaking. Life is about to get insane in a really horrible way.
She sits there, frozen, crying, staring at the numbers she wrote down as if she can’t believe this is happening. “I…I need to get hold of Chase and the kids. And Tyson.” those are George’s brothers. Chase and the kids are on a trip to Alaska right now.
“Okay. What else?” It terrifies me she seems frozen. I’ve seen her handle all sorts of stressful events literally without breaking a sweat.
That she’s reacting like this is—
Oh, fuck.
It’s starting to hitmenow.
This is really,reallybad.
She stands but doesn’t move, still looking at those phone numbers, just the tips of her fingers touching her desk blotter, lightly tapping it.
Sniffling back tears, she looks at me. “They’re sending a charter flight from Atlanta to LAX. We’ll be flown to the Philippines from there. Go to my house and pack for me. For at least a week. Jeans, shorts, sneakers, practical blouses. Two pairs of khakis and a lightweight blazer for being in front of cameras. They’re flying us out to Manila. I’ll arrange a charter to Atlanta for myself.”
I pull out my phone, call up my notes, and start adding tasks as she talks. The small, exclusive enclave where they live is near Belle Meade, southwest of the city, and the airport is all the way over here, near the law offices, on the opposite side of Nashville.
“My passport is in the safe in my bedroom closet,” she continues. “When you get there, call me for the combination.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
She reaches out, her fingers curling around my left arm, as if holding on to maintain her balance. “Pack my personal laptop and my tablet in my carryon. I have a thing of charger converters in a drawer in my desk in the upstairs office.”
I note it, not interrupting as she lists a few other items for me to do and pack for her. I have keys and the alarm code for her house, obviously. For George and Ellen’s, too, since I was his body man for his last state senate campaign and frequently had to get stuff for him.
As if reading my mind, Casey hesitates. “In my safe, there’s also a…” She chokes up. “There’s a large manila envelope with George and Ellen’s name on it. Bring me that, too, please.”
