Chicago O’Hare was not where my day began. It began at Terminal 2 of our home airport, at 6:31 a.m., in a gray corridor behind the security checkpoint, where two airport police officers and Detective Ortega were waiting for me with coffee.
“Right on time,” Ortega said. “Your husband’s call came in at 6:02. Dispatch flagged it, and we’ve been tracking it since. Nobody is going to search you, Harper. We already know there’s nothing in your bag.”
“And the Mercedes?”
“Parked in short-term. Both of them just walked into the terminal.” He glanced at the officer beside him. “They’re heading for the checkpoint. They want to watch.”
I nodded. My hands were steady. I’d spent eleven years walking into boardrooms where everyone wanted me to be wrong, and the feeling was familiar.
“Then let’s let them watch.”
I stood in the security line like any other traveler, my bag on the belt, my boarding pass in my hand. Fifty feet behind the rope, near a coffee kiosk, Preston and Lorraine pretended to study a departure board.
