Chapter 3: Her Name Is Patricia Holt
I looked at my security man — his name was Darnell, and he had been with me for six years — and I held up one hand.
"No," I said.
"She can stay."
Darnell didn't move.
He understood what I meant.
He took one step back and stood where he was, arms at his sides, watching.
The woman — still in the aisle, still gripping the headrest of the seat across from mine — looked at Darnell, then back at me.
Something in her face had shifted from confusion into something harder.
Not quite fear.
Not yet.
"I want to speak to someone in charge," she said.
"You are," I said.
She shook her head slowly, as if correcting a child.
"I mean someone from the airline.
Someone official."
"Mr.
Calloway founded Calloway Air seventeen years ago," the flight attendant said from behind her.
Her voice was quiet and precise.
"He is the chief executive officer and majority shareholder."
The woman turned to look at her.
The flight attendant did not look away.
A man in the window seat across the aisle — fifties, reading glasses, a paperback open in his lap — lowered his book.
He wasn't pretending to read anymore.
Nobody in the surrounding rows was.
The woman turned back to me.
"I didn't know," she said.
"I know you didn't."
"I simply thought—"
"I know what you thought."
She straightened.
The pearls caught the cabin light.
"There's no need to be unpleasant about this.
I made an honest mistake."
I looked at her for a moment.
"You pushed my bag onto the floor."
"I—" She stopped.
"You told a flight attendant I didn't look like I belonged up here."
"I didn't mean—"
"You said it loudly enough for six rows to hear."
Her jaw tightened.
"I think you're being very unfair."
"Sit down," I said.
Not loudly.
Not unkindly.
Just clearly.
She looked at the empty seat beside me — 14B — and then at the seat she'd been moving toward, two rows forward.
"That's not my—"
"Sit down," I said again.
"Or Darnell will walk you to the gate.
Your choice."
She sat down.
Not in 14B.
In the seat she'd originally been heading for, 12C, across the aisle and two rows ahead.
She sat with her back very straight and her hands folded in her lap and she did not look at me again.
Darnell caught my eye.
I shook my head slightly.
He moved back toward the rear of the cabin.
The flight attendant — her name tag said RENEE — crouched beside my seat.
"Mr.
Calloway," she said quietly.
"I owe you an apology."
"You don't."
"I hesitated.
When she first called me over.
I looked at you and I—" She stopped.
"I should have checked your pass first.
Before anything else."
"You did check it."
"Not before I looked at your shoes."
I didn't say anything to that, because there was nothing useful to say.
She was right.
We both knew it.
"What's her name?" I asked.
Renee stood.
Pulled out her tablet.
Scrolled once.
"Patricia Holt," she said.
"Seat 12C.
Flying to Boston."
"Same destination as me."
"Yes, sir."
I leaned back.
Looked at the seat in front of me.
"Pull her file.
I want to know if she has status with us."
Renee's expression didn't change.
"Of course."
She moved away down the aisle.
I closed my eyes for a moment.
Not to sleep.
Just to be still.
Outside the window, the tarmac was bright and flat and the ground crew was finishing up.
We'd be pushing back in ten minutes.
My phone buzzed.
A message from my head of communications, a woman named Grace Chen who had been with the company almost as long as Darnell.
*Heard there was an incident on the Boston flight.
You okay?*
I typed back: *Fine.
Tell you later.*
Three dots appeared.
Then: *Do I need to prepare anything?*
I looked up the aisle at the back of Patricia Holt's head.
Her posture hadn't changed.
Still straight.
Still rigid.
Still performing composure for an audience that had already stopped watching.
I typed: *Not yet.*
The dots appeared again.
Then stopped.
Grace knew when to wait.
The door sealed.
The cabin lights dimmed slightly.
A new flight attendant began the safety demonstration at the front of the cabin.
Patricia Holt did not look back once.
But the man with the paperback across the aisle — the one who had stopped pretending to read — caught my eye as I settled in.
He gave me a small nod.
The kind that doesn't need words.
I nodded back.
Then Renee reappeared at my elbow.
She leaned down.
Her voice was barely above a whisper.
"Mr.
Calloway.
About Patricia Holt's file."
"Go ahead."
"She doesn't have status with us." A pause.
"But her husband does.
Platinum tier.
Thirty-one flights in the last two years."
"Who is her husband?"
Renee hesitated for just half a second.
"Gerald Holt," she said.
"He's on the board of Meridian Capital."
I went still.
Meridian Capital was in the middle of a nine-figure acquisition bid for a regional carrier I was trying to buy first.
I looked up the aisle again at the back of Patricia Holt's head.
"Thank you, Renee," I said.
She moved away.
I picked up my phone and typed one more message to Grace.
May you like
*Actually.
Start preparing.*
