Chapter 9 - The Part Nora Hid
Maya turned from Vale before she could give him the answer he wanted. Leo was still gripping his paper airplane, his face pale in the blue cabin light.
“Tessa, can you keep him beside you for a minute?” Maya asked. “Somewhere I can still see him.”
Tessa nodded and guided Leo toward the galley’s open edge, not letting him out of Maya’s sight. He went without protest, but his eyes stayed on his mother.
Maya faced Nora. The old woman’s canvas bag rested against her shoes; one hand clutched its strap, the other lay open on her knee. Maya could still feel the card’s small weight in her palm, though Tessa had it now.
“You said the recording was about the mission,” Maya said. “You didn’t say you came here looking for me.”
Nora’s mouth pressed into a thin line.
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
“Before he could get to you.”
“That’s not an answer.”
A passenger shifted in the row behind them. Tessa glanced over, alert to every movement, then settled Leo near the galley partition. He kept the airplane folded tightly in both hands.
Nora lowered her voice. “I learned you and Leo were traveling to Madrid. Someone from the old unit still knew how to reach me. I bought a seat on this flight because I thought I could give you the recording before Vale found you.”
Maya stared at her. “You chose a plane full of people for this?”
“I thought he wouldn’t know I was here.”
“But he did.”
“I didn’t know he’d be on board.” Nora’s fingers twisted the bag strap. “When I saw him at the gate, I nearly turned around.”
“Nearly.”
“I was afraid. And ashamed. Neither one is an excuse.”
For an instant, Maya saw the woman Nora might have been before years of keeping quiet had bent her inward: careful, capable, used to watching events unfold from a distance and trying to calculate what each choice would cost. The sight softened something in Maya—and made the anger beneath it hurt more.
“You knew what that report did to me,” Maya said. “You knew I carried it.”
“I did.”
“And you let me believe there was nothing else.”
Nora looked down. “Yes.”
The word didn’t defend itself. It left Maya with no clean place to set her anger.
“Why now?” she asked. “Why after all these years?”
“Because Vale began asking questions again. Because I heard he’d been looking for the people who reviewed the mission data. And because Jonah left more than the sections you’ve heard.”
Maya’s breath caught, but she kept her voice even.
“What more?”
“The final segment.” Nora looked toward Tessa, where the card remained out of Vale’s reach. “The file is damaged. I couldn’t get it to play cleanly when I first found it. But Jonah says the coordinates were falsified. He believed he knew who changed them.”
“Believed?”
“I never heard the whole thing intact.”
“You kept something you couldn’t verify and stayed silent anyway.”
Nora flinched. “I told myself that a broken recording would only make things worse. I told myself the report had already settled it. Then I told myself I was protecting you from another disappointment.” Her eyes lifted to Maya’s. “Mostly, I was protecting myself.”
Maya wanted Nora to say she had been trapped, or threatened, or powerless. Anything that could make the years feel less chosen. But Nora offered no such shelter.
Across the narrow space, Leo had begun creasing one wing of his airplane back into shape. His small fingers moved with concentration, as if the fold might come out right if he pressed hard enough.
Maya forced her gaze away before her son could read too much in her face.
“Did you know Vale was on this flight when you bought your ticket?” she asked.
“No. I recognized him at the gate.” Nora’s voice cracked. “I could have walked away then.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I thought the chance to give you the card mattered more than my fear.”
“And now he’s threatened my son.”
Nora’s eyes shone. “I know.”
“No. You know the words. You don’t know what it was like to hear them with Leo standing three feet away.”
Nora had no answer. For a few seconds there was only the low rush of the aircraft and the muffled rustle of passengers trying not to look directly at them.
Tessa approached, keeping one shoulder angled toward Leo.
“Captain Rusk wants to know what Nora told you,” she said. Her expression was tight. “And he has something from the cabin log.”
Maya looked toward the cockpit. “What?”
“A device connected to the message was registered near Vale’s assigned seat.”
The floor seemed to tilt, though the aircraft was steady. Maya glanced toward Vale. The attendant had moved him back toward his row, where he sat with his hands visible and his face composed. He was watching them.
“Does that prove he sent it?” Maya asked.
“No,” Tessa said. “It puts the device close to him. That’s all we know.”
“Where is it now?”
“I don’t know. Captain Rusk is checking.”
A soft chirp came from Tessa’s tablet. She read the screen, then looked up sharply.
“Someone just reported that the device isn’t where it was found.”
Maya’s attention snapped to Vale. He had stopped watching them. His gaze was fixed on the aisle beyond Tessa, as if measuring how quickly he could move through it.
Leo stepped closer to the galley partition, still holding the airplane.
“Mom?”
Maya reached for his hand. Not to pull him behind her. To let him feel her there.
“I’m right here.”
May you like
From the direction of the cockpit, Captain Rusk appeared, his expression stripped of every reassuring trace. He looked first at Tessa, then Maya.
“The device linked to the message was found near Vale’s seat,” he said. “It’s vanished.”
