“Fourteen dollars, and we only take cash.”

“Make it a black coffee and a glass of water. No ice.”

Derek retrieved his moleskin notebook from his backpack and began reviewing his notes. It had only been a few hours since his first meeting with Thomas O’Connell and after accepting the case, yet he had heard and seen so much. He felt, as he studied his notes, that he was missing something. Something that he needed not to miss. Something that shouldn’t be missed.

Whether it was the fact that he was charged with the protection of a family from their own child, born without a heart, or the succumbing nature that Mark Rinaldo adopted as his punishment for his actions over twenty years ago, something was not adding up.

And why was Thomas not concerned about meeting him in a place as public as a park? Sure, the reason he gave was valid, but still someone truly in fear for his or her life would at least seem nervous or uncomfortable sitting out in the open.

“The killer could be anywhere,” he thought, trying to dispel his suspicions. “The fact is that someone killed three or four people exactly where Thomas said three people were killed. Fact. And the doctor who started this whole mess and who received a message from the assumed killer confirmed his story about his brother. Fact. And since the police are obviously looking for the killer, it wouldn’t make sense for the killer to walk around, looking for his next victim in a public park. Opinion.”

The flight attendant returned with two bottles of Dewar’s White Label in one hand and a plastic cup filled halfway with ice in the other.

“I don’t think anyone will miss two little bottles,” she smiled. “These are on me.”

“And if the pilot doesn’t get us out of these turbulence, they may be on me, soon. Thank you.”

She laughed a forced laugh and held eye contact with Derek a bit longer than what the joke deserved. “If you need anything else, you know where I’ll be.”

“Thanks again,” Derek said.

After the flight attendant moved on, Derek scribbled some notes in his book.

Find William Straus. Knows more than anyone else.

Contact O’Connells. Why did they leave and not demand that Thomas join them?

Check in on Rinaldo

He closed the moleskin, pushed off the overhead light, leaned back as far as he could, and closed his eyes. He was thankful that his wife’s memorized face was not there to greet him as he closed his eyes.

“Where are you, Alexander Black, and what is your next move?”

The flight from Chicago to Albany, New York took just over one and a half hours. By the time Derek had sucked any remaining scotch from the melting ice cubes, it was time to return his seatback to its upright position. He didn’t have enough time to plan out his next move but knew that he would have time as he made the estimated two-hour drive from Albany to Piseco Lake.

As the plane descended back through the clouds, he looked out of the window and again searched in vain for her face. The clouds were soon above him.

Where they belonged.

 When the plane landed and finished its taxi ride to the gate, the scotch-gifting flight attendant approached Derek.

“I hope you enjoyed the scotch,” she said.

“I don’t admit to this most people,” Derek said as he removed his seatbelt, “but I love free scotch even more than I love cheap scotch.”

“Well, if you’re don’t have to get to anywhere too quickly, I know a few places in Albany that have a whole shelf of cheap scotch.”

Being hit on was nothing new to Derek. Though it made him uncomfortable while the “hitting on” was happening, it always made him feel good about himself. He worked hard at keeping his body in shape and knew that so many men took a more relaxed approached to fitness when they reach their mid-thirties.

But flirting also made Derek feel guilty. Though he no longer wore the wedding band that he and Lucy exchanged on the altar, he still felt married. Connected. Obligated, though he hated to feel obligated to someone or to something that he loved.

Lucy was dead. That he knew. He also knew she wasn’t going to make a triumphant reintroduction. But she was still there. There in his heart, in his thoughts, in his mind’s eye most every time he closed his eyes. He looked for her everywhere at first, not fully believing that something as simple and as abundantly manufactured as a gun could actually steal her away. To rip her out of this life and into whatever comes next.

After a while, he stopped looking for her, knowing that she was truly gone. To where, he didn’t know. He often would wonder about what happens after. He hoped for the heaven he learned about in church and the heaven that he was promised from his priest. As the days that separated him from her grew greater, he began wishing that the decision of whether or not a soul is granted residence in heaven was up to the person to whom an individual caused the most harm to when alive. He imagined the bastard, standing before the pearly gates, knocking and waiting for the gates to swing open wide. He loved to picture the bastard’s face when Lucy walked out and how he would respond upon learning that his fate now rested in her hands.

But he knew her heart. He knew she would let the bastard in through the gates. Even show him around the place, buy him dinner, and introduce him to her parents if he asked. She was too forgiving.

“You can’t let people walk all over you, Lucy,” he would tell her. “They take advantage of you.”

But he knew that he couldn’t change her. And he knew that he didn’t ever want to. She made him want to be a better person. She allowed him into her own heaven, showed him around and showed him that what he was promised was already his.

“I wish I could,” he said to the flight attendant who was now sitting in the empty seat next to him. “I have a long drive ahead of me and ...”

“Okay,” she said and moved down the aisle as if the conversation hadn’t happened. “It’s your loss.”

The flight attendant’s response, sudden and swift as it was, caught Derek off guard. Though relieved, he wondered what he might have missed by rejecting her advances.

As he collected his overnight bag from the overhead compartment and began heading out of the plane, he felt his anger begin to build up. He didn’t understand why his anger was making itself known, or what prompted it. He just felt it rising much too quickly.

Soon after her death, Derek’s anger had a target, a place to call home. But three years after her death, his anger had lost its familiar target. It had no direction at times, no place to land.