The Last Flight by Julie Clark

Author:Julie Clark [Julie Clark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2020-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

Eva

Berkeley, California

September

Five Months before the Crash

Let’s switch it up and meet at Chávez Park.

Eva hoped her text to Dex would give the impression she was feeling jumpy. Scared.

César Chávez Park was a giant stretch of grass that sat directly on the San Francisco Bay with a path that traveled around the perimeter. On weekends it was crowded with families flying kites, joggers, and lots of dogs. But at two o’clock on a Tuesday in late September, it was deserted. Eva found Dex sitting on a bench, his back to the sweeping views of the bay, hands shoved in his pockets. When he saw her, he stood.

“Let’s walk,” she suggested when she reached him.

Eva gripped her purse close to her side and reminded herself that Dex was just a regular person. He couldn’t read minds or peer through the side of her purse and see the voice-activated recorder she’d dropped in there before she exited her car, the red Record button illuminated. All he saw was a scared woman in front of him. That would be her advantage. It always had been.

Eva was preparing, the way others might prepare for a natural disaster, storing food and water, mapping their exit routes, packing their emergency kits. Castro would return, and Eva would cast her own net, trading the information she already knew and the information she would soon find out for a new identity. A new life in a new town. Castro could give her a backstory that didn’t include drug-addict mothers, foster homes, and expulsion. She could wipe the slate clean. But first, she’d have to walk a razor’s edge and hope she didn’t slip up.

Together, they began a lap around the park on the cement path. A tall, grassy hill rose in the center of it, blocking their view of the Berkeley Hills and marina. “So what do you have for me?” he asked.

Eva crossed her arms against the wind that whipped up off the bay and said, “Tell me the truth. Is it really over?”

“I told you, Fish took care of it.”

Eva looked at him, incredulous. “How can you possibly think that would be enough for me? They targeted me. Followed me to my house.” Her voice rose, trembling with emotion. “Don’t fucking tell me Fish took care of it and expect me to roll over.”

Long ago, when she was a girl in the group home, Eva discovered that big feelings made most people uncomfortable, and she learned how to use anger or sadness to turn up the pressure, to maneuver people into a position where their only desire was to make the emotion go away. To stop the tears. To fix the fear. To placate the anger. Dex was no different. And Eva didn’t have to reach too deep to find the fear, to make a compelling case for why she might need details to reassure her.

In the distance, two women walked toward them on the path, deep in conversation, and Eva continued. “Everywhere I go, I wonder if I’m being followed.

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