Page 6 of Over Her Dead Body

The woman next to me asks if I'm okay.

I tell her I'm fine. Turbulence.

We haven't taken off yet.

CHAPTER 3

ANONYMOUS

Daniel is talking.

Seven minutes now. Five longer than I gave him.

“I just need more time,” he says. “Another thirty days. That’s all I’m asking.”

He folds his hands on the table. A gesture meant to convey reasonableness. Sincerity. He has rehearsed this meeting. I can tell because he keeps returning to the same three points.

I am not listening to any of them.

I am thinking about Emma.

She missed her original flight this morning.

Emma has spent years mistaking the last possible minute for punctuality. This morning, the airline finally disagreed.

She is at the airport by now, somewhere between security and the gate, drinking the bad coffee from a kiosk because she will not skip caffeine even when the alternative is worse than nothing. Black, no sugar, too hurried to taste it.

I have watched her order it thirteen times this year.

“Thirty days,” I repeat.

Daniel nods, relieved that I’m engaging with the number.

He shouldn’t be.

Emma does this thing when she is late. Not rushing, exactly. Emma would hate to be accused of rushing. She tightens. Shoulders back. Mouth set. Every part of her pretending the delay is a logistical inconvenience and not a moral failure.

It is one of the things I like best about her.

“Daniel.” I let his name sit for a moment. “What do you think thirty days will change?”

He opens his mouth. I watch him construct the answer in real time—the contact, the deal, the certainty that is right on the verge of materializing. They always have something right on the verge of materializing.

“Don’t.”

He closes his mouth.

“Thirty days won’t make the records agree,” I say.

Daniel looks down at his hands. “There are originals. If anyone compares them⁠—”

“They won’t.”

“You can’t guarantee that.”

“No,” I say. “You can’t.”

Daniel is sweating now.