Claire checked her tablet.
“First Class is full.”
The woman frowned.
“Well, surely someone can—”
Ethan cut her off.
“No one else is being displaced.”
Silence.
Claire looked toward Business Class.
“There is an available seat in row eight.”
The woman stared.
“You’re moving me out of First Class?”
“You said you were willing to move.”
“I meant another premium seat.”
Ethan folded his arms.
“You deliberately caused a disturbance involving a child.”
“I did not deliberately spill—”
Three passengers spoke almost together.
“Yes, you did.”
“I saw it.”
“You pushed the table.”
The woman looked around.
Phones were still recording.
Her face hardened.
Ethan said:
“Row eight.”
For a moment, pride nearly made her refuse.
Then two uniformed airline security officers appeared at the aircraft door.
She picked up her bag.
No more argument.
As she passed Naomi, she stopped.
Perhaps she intended to apologize.
Perhaps she intended to defend herself.
Whatever words she had disappeared when Naomi turned the photograph inward against her chest.
The woman kept walking.
Claire returned with a navy airline blanket and a white crew polo far too large for Naomi.
Naomi accepted both.
“Thank you.”
“Do you want to change?”
Naomi nodded.
Claire escorted her into the forward lavatory.
Ethan remained outside.
Security boarded.
Then Corporate Safety.
Then someone Ethan recognized immediately.
Daniel Warren.
Vice president of Flight Operations.
Daniel normally did not board held aircraft himself.
That was bad.
“What happened?”
Ethan asked.
Daniel looked toward the lavatory.
“Naomi in there?”
“Yes.”
“Her mother?”
“Phone.”
Daniel lowered his voice.
“We found the CVR backup.”
Ethan stared.
“What?”
The original cockpit voice recorder had been badly damaged in the fire.
Investigators recovered fragments.
Enough for partial audio.
Not enough for the final minutes.
That had always bothered Ethan.
Marcus’s last actions had been reconstructed mostly from flight data, tower recordings, crew statements, and physical evidence.
Daniel continued.
“A maintenance contractor kept an independent diagnostic recorder connected during the accident aircraft’s final service cycle.”
“That’s not cockpit voice.”
“No.”
“But it carried maintenance intercom and system-channel audio.”
Ethan frowned.
“Why are we hearing about it now?”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“Because it wasn’t disclosed.”
The words landed hard.
“By who?”
“We’re still establishing that.”
“Two years?”