Free Fall

“Would you let me see it?”

Diane considered Kate’s request.

“I’m not sure. It’s private and my family’s coming to get me.”

“I know, but it might help me to really understand what you and the other passengers went through. It would help readers appreciate your ordeal.”

Diane lowered her head to her phone, caught her bottom lip between her teeth and her face crumpled. She fought tears as she stared at her phone for a moment, then her fingers began working.

“You can look at it but I can’t give it to you.”

The screen came to life with Diane’s face, a mask of fear. Through her tears she struggled to smile as her voice quivered in the cabin.

“It doesn’t look good. The plane’s in trouble and I don’t think we’re going to make it. No matter what happens, you know that Mommy absolutely loves you. Brandon, honey, take care of Melissa. Melissa, you help your brother take care of Daddy. Del, sweetheart, you’re the love of my life. Be good to each other and remember how much I love you.”

Kate caught her breath.

For a second the footage exploded in chaos as the jet tilted at a ninety-degree angle, the image froze before the screen went black.

Five

Manhattan, New York

Passengers and crew were tossed “like rag dolls” in the cabin of the EastCloud Airlines flight when it encountered severe turbulence, sources told Newslead.

What the—? That’s not what I wrote and that’s not what happened!

Kate had just returned to the Newslead building from LaGuardia and was in the elevator when her phone alerted her to Newslead’s first full story on Flight 4990. She was incredulous as she read. Ninety percent of the item was her work but the story was topped with a single byline:

Sloane F. Parkman.

She was credited at the bottom in smaller font.

With files from Kate Page.

She cursed. And as the elevator rose, she seethed.

Calm down and think this through.

Biting back her anger she checked her phone for responses to the repeated calls she’d put in to the official agencies. Not much had come back to her, except a text from LaGuardia Operations, with a short general timeline from when Flight 4990 first reported a problem to its emergency landing.

The doors opened to Newslead’s fortieth-floor offices.

Kate swiped her ID at the security lock and swept through reception, with its wall of enlarged Newslead photos of pivotal points in history—immigrants gazing at the Statue of Liberty in 1901, a child in Africa comforted by an aid worker, a soldier weeping in Vietnam, and Martin Luther King at the Lincoln Memorial.

In the newsroom she saw no sign of Penny, the news assistant. But when Kate passed by the glass walls of the editors’ offices, she noticed Reeka Beck’s jacket and bag on her desk.

Reeka was not in her office as Kate went by.

But Sloane F. Parkman was in the scanner room, on the phone, working at the computer with the door closed. He was hanging up as Kate pulled it open to the onslaught of the radios.

“Hi, Kate. I’ve just confirmed that they took the injured passengers to hospitals in the area—Sinai, NYP/Queens and Forest Hills. We’re pretty sure they’re all minor injuries, one little boy with a concussion and broken arm, so no big deal on this incident. By the way, thank you for your help on my story. It wasn’t necessary but nice work, much appreciated.”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Sloane?”

“Excuse me?”

“You know what I’m talking about. What’s your name doing on my story, and why did you cite turbulence? It wasn’t turbulence!”

“Sorry, but I’m on duty today, you’re not. Didn’t Reeka talk to you? She’s come in. I think she’s getting a coffee.”

“Sloane, you weren’t here when this story broke.”

“I was.”

“You weren’t. You’d left the scanner room unattended to get scones. Where’s the news assistant, where’s Penny?”

“Her shift ended.”

“Penny and I were both in this room when I caught the dispatches from Forty-nine Ninety. You weren’t here.”

“I was here, Kate, when I heard the dispatches—”

“What you heard—when you came back—was the aftermath!”

“I was here! Look, I’m trying to be diplomatic but the truth is you were trying to hijack my story.”

“Bullsh—”

“What’s going on?” Reeka stood behind Kate.

“I told you, Reeka, Sloane was not at the scanners when the story broke and he’s inserted incorrect information into the story I filed.”

“What’s incorrect?”

“His unnamed sources said turbulence was the problem. It was not turbulence. It was a malfunction.”

“What kind of malfunction?”

“I don’t know.”

Reeka looked at Sloane then at Kate.

“He has impeccable sources in the airline industry. Who’s your source that contradicts his?”

“The pilot.”

“You interviewed the pilot?” Reeka asked.