The Color of a Promise (The Color of Heaven Series Book 11) (20 page)

“Let’s have dinner before you leave,” I said. “I’ll find a way to take a few hours off.”

“My flight leaves Sunday morning,” he told me. “How about Saturday night?”

“Yes.”

It was 1:00 in the morning, and I couldn’t stifle a yawn.

“Meg,” Jack said, “you should get some sleep. I’ll call you on Saturday and we’ll talk more then.” He paused. “There’s actually…something else I want to discuss with you.”

“What is it?” I asked, sitting up on the bed because I could tell by the tone of his voice that it was important. More information about the crash, perhaps?

“I don’t want to get into it now,” he said. “You’re tired.”

I couldn’t help probing. “You’re not secretly married, are you?”

“No, it’s nothing like that,” he said with a laugh. “I’m very single, and have been for a while. I probably shouldn’t have said anything. Now you’ll be curious.”

“I am, a little. Does it have something to do with the crash?”

There was a long pause.

“Sort of. But not Flight 555. The other one. The Arizona crash. The one where my friend died. But listen, it can wait. It has nothing to do with your investigation. It’s more of a personal matter.”

“Okay,” I finally said. “In that case, I’ll wait until Saturday.”

“Good. I’ll see you then.”

We hung up, and I shut off the light to go to sleep. I couldn’t drift off, however, because I was completely wired, unable to keep from imagining what it might be that Jack wanted to discuss with me.

Maybe he was seeking a clearer understanding about what happened to his friend. I understood that. I’d seen it a lot—the need for answers, the belief that some piece of information would somehow lessen the grief and provide closure.

But when it came to airline disasters, closure for the loved ones was often a pipe dream. It wasn’t something you could just “get over” when someone explained the mechanics of why the plane had gone down. Most family members were left behind to continue asking
why
for the rest of their lives. But only God had the answer to that question.

After tossing and turning for almost an hour, and still thinking about what Jack wanted to talk about, I finally rose from bed and opened up my laptop. I logged into the NTSB website and searched for the accident report from the Arizona crash in 1984.

It was a 250-page document, and because it was so late and I needed my sleep, I debated about whether or not I should start reading it. My eyes were burning, yet my brain was firing on all cylinders.

In the end, I decided to take a closer look at the report, and see if anything jumped out at me.

Chapter Thirty-three

Jack

“Are you crazy?” Katelyn said to me the following morning when we bumped into each other at another press briefing in the hotel. “You only just met her and you don’t have any proof. She’ll think you’re insane. Besides, you shouldn’t jump to conclusions like that. Just because you’re attracted to her doesn’t mean you knew her in a previous life.”

“In this life, actually,” I clarified, as I sipped my coffee. “But you’re probably right. She
will
think I’m insane.”

Just then, the local police and medical examiner, along with a few members of the FBI, entered the room to deliver the latest information about the crash. Meg wasn’t there. I knew she wouldn’t be. She was at the airport hangar that morning, supervising the arrival of the cockpit and front half of the plane, which had just been removed from the field near my parents’ house.

As far as the press briefing was concerned, there was some new information to convey, including the latest death toll and the continued search for human remains, wreckage, and the black box in the water.

We were told that hundreds of pathologists, dentists, and other medical technicians were arriving by the hour to assist in the identification process of the passengers’ remains. You could have heard a pin drop in the room in that moment.

The FBI also revealed that they had not yet found any evidence of an explosive device on board the plane, and still, no terrorist groups had come forward to take credit for the disaster. The authorities assured everyone that they were still investigating all possible causes, but at this point, they were not ruling out some sort of mechanical failure.

There was no mention of improperly stored oxygen tanks, so I wondered if it had been a long shot on my part—making connections when there were none to be had—because of a personal bias. It could very well be the case, but I hoped that Meg would let me know if the information I’d shared with her turned out to be useful in some way.

When asked about the black boxes, the FBI explained that they were still searching the ocean floor, and hoped to have more information for us soon.

With that, the press briefing came to an end.

I walked out with Katelyn, and while we filtered through the door with the other reporters, she said, “When will we get to meet her?”

“Who, Meg?” I asked.

“Yes, Meg. Who else?”

I considered it for a moment. “I don’t know. It depends on how things go on Saturday. Maybe I
am
just imagining things. Maybe she’s just a normal woman. Someone I’ve never known before.”

“If you ask me,” Katelyn said, “that’s how you should approach this, because you’ve always tried to maneuver your life based on memories from the past, trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, when what you really need to do is live this life for the first time, and stop imagining that the past has any significance when it comes to your future. Think about it, Jack. Most people have no knowledge of their past lives, and they get along just fine. They’re happy. So forget about all of that and get to know this woman like normal people do on a first date.”

I gave her a look. “We both know I’m not normal.”

She smiled. “You’re right about that. But normal is boring. We like you just the way you are.”

We walked out of the hotel together and went back to work.

Chapter Thirty-four

Meg

I should have known better than to stay up half the night reading that accident report, because I was a complete mess that morning. And it was an important day. Not only was the front half of the aircraft being delivered to the hangar, but we were starting to make sense of the wreckage we had so far. I was chomping at the bit to start putting pieces together and see what sort of damage the explosion had caused, and get a better sense of where it had originated.

But I could barely think straight, and it was my own fault.

After I turned off the lights in my hotel room at 3:00 a.m. and finally fell asleep, I woke up from a terrible nightmare ninety minutes later.

In the dream, I was a passenger on the Arizona flight as it was going down, and I was watching the fire burn through the floor and fill the cabin with smoke. People were screaming, and a flight attendant pounded on the cockpit door, shouting at the pilots: “
We’re on fire!”

All of this, I had read in the accident report that was published online. The sound of the flight attendant’s voice had been captured by the cockpit voice recorder, along with the pilots’ distress calls to report the situation and request permission to make an emergency landing.

In the dream, however, I was a passenger, and I never knew such terror. The oxygen masks dropped from the overhead compartments and my mother fastened mine to my face.

“We’ll be okay!” she said to me. I stared at her with wide eyes, trusting her, believing her totally and completely.

But then the plane took a sudden nose dive and rolled to the side.

In the dream, I don’t remember the explosion. I only remember floating out of my body, flying upwards through the hull of the burning aircraft. I flew beside my mother, who left the aircraft at the same time, holding my hand, along with all the other passengers. It was quite a crowd floating out of there, all at the same time, together.

I saw blue sky and white clouds, and felt a wonderful sense of peace and community. I was so happy and relieved to be out of there.
Thank you, God…

When I woke in my hotel room, however, I felt no peace, for I couldn’t forget the fear and blinding panic as the plane went into a death spiral and everyone began screaming. I woke in a cold sweat, fighting to suck air into my lungs.

It was a familiar fear. I’d felt it every time I stepped onto a plane in my youth and sat down to buckle in.

That was before I forced myself to take hold of my fear and wrestle it into submission. When I learned how to fly on my own, it was the feeling of holding the yoke—managing the speed and the lift—that had cured me, because when I could do that I finally felt as if I were in control.

Now, here I stood in a hangar in Portland, Maine, many years later, staring at thousands of pieces of metal and an enormous front section of a 747, including the cockpit, while everyone was looking to me for answers. I wanted them more desperately than ever before.

Had there been a fire in the cargo hold? Was that what cut off all the power and caused the pilots to lose control? If so, what had caused the fire?

And where was that darn black box?

Chapter Thirty-five

Jack

When I answered my phone, it was Katelyn.

“Drop everything,” she said. “I just got a call from Aaron’s foreman, Vince. They were out on the water helping with the recovery. He told me they just found the black box, but that Aaron’s hurt.”

“What do you mean, he’s hurt?”

“I’m not sure,” she replied with panic in her voice. “They’re bringing him in now by helicopter. All I know is what Vince told me—that a speedboat with a photographer on board rammed into their boat. He was probably looking for the money-shot of the black box and wasn’t looking where he was going. Vince said Aaron was distracted by something—he wouldn’t tell me what—and that he hit his head and flew over the side, and they had to fish him out of the water. Vince said he was unconscious.” She sounded frantic. “They’re on the way to the hospital now. Oh, God, Jack… What if it’s bad?”

“Where are you now?” I asked.

“I’m at the TV station, just heading out.”

“I’m heading out, too. I’ll be at the hospital in ten minutes,” I told her.

“Keep your phone on.”

“I will. See you in a bit.”

I slid my phone into my pocket and hurried out the door.

o0o

They were just wheeling the gurney into the ER when I ran into the hospital. I stopped in my tracks, unnerved by the sight of my unconscious brother lying flat with a brace fastened around his neck. His head was bandaged. There was a lot of blood.

“I’m his brother,” I said, following alongside as they rushed Aaron toward a trauma room. They ignored me as they pushed through the doors. A nurse took hold of my arm.

“You’ll have to wait out here,” she said. “They’re going to do everything they can.”

I watched through a glass window, staring in disbelief as a team of doctors lifted Aaron off the gurney and onto an examination table. They immediately began hooking him up to monitors, while one doctor leaned over him and spoke firmly. “Can you hear me Mr. Peterson? Do you know where you are?”

Aaron gave no response. The doctor shook his head at one of the others. “Nothing.”

I felt a sick knot twist in my gut as the nurse led me away to the waiting area.

Just then, Katelyn ran through the doors. Our eyes met. “Is he here?” she asked.

“Yes. They just took him into a trauma room.”

“Is he awake?”

“No.”

Her brow furrowed with concern. “Is he going to be okay?”

I stared at her for a few nerve-wracking seconds. “I don’t know.”

She covered her face with her hands, and walked straight into my arms.

Chapter Thirty-six

Meg

The front section of the aircraft was just rolling into the hangar on the back of a giant flatbed truck when Gary called to me from the office. He was talking to someone on the phone, covering the mouthpiece with one hand.

“They found it!”

I turned away from the truck and started walking toward him. “You mean the black box?”

Still taking more information from the caller, he could only nod his head. He waved me over and I quickened my pace.

As soon as I entered the office, he closed the door behind me. I sat down on a chair. “Did they find the tail as well?” I asked in a whisper, trying not to interrupt. “And the rest of the plane?”

Gary held up a finger, signaling me to be quiet and patient until he finished. Then he said to the person on the other end of the line, “Okay, I got it. Yep, we’ll be there soon.”

He hung up and turned to me. “Good news. Both data recorders are on their way to Washington for analysis. And yes, they found what they believe is the rest of the aircraft, including the tail and what’s left of the rear section of the fuselage, which they say is in small pieces, spread out over a very large area on the ocean floor.”

“Shoot,” I replied. “What about the port wing? Did they find that as well?”