The name printed next to seat 14A, which had been mine, was Alicia Vance in seat 14B.
“I called a contact at the regional division,” Caroline said, taking off her spectacles and breathing onto the lenses.
She began polishing them with her small blue cloth, her movements slow and deliberate.
“Alicia Vance bought that ticket with cash at the gate thirty minutes before departure,” Caroline said.
“Cash,” I said, my finger touching the rough thermal print of the name.
“And she never filed a claim for lost luggage or missing passengers after the plane touched down,” Caroline said.
I twisted my silver wedding ring, feeling the cold metal press against my knuckle.
“We need to find out where she went after she walked off that tarmac,” I said.
“We don’t have to look very far,” Caroline said, putting her glasses back on.
She slid a second slip of paper toward me, this one bearing a local motel logo.
“She registered at the Palms Inn three miles from the runway that same evening,” Caroline said.
I looked at the xeroxed registration card, noting the elegant, sweeping cursive of the signature.
“How long did she stay?” I asked.
“Two days,” Caroline said.
“Then she paid twenty-five dollars for a certified copy of the birth certificates at the county records office.”
I stood up from the leather chair, the heat of the afternoon pressing against the office window.
The sound of dry live oak leaves scraping across the gravel driveway outside sounded like someone whispering.
“I need to talk to the officer who took the report at the airport,” I said.
“He retired five years ago, Margaret,” Caroline said, closing the folder.
“But he still lives over on Southeast Thirteenth Street.”
The Ocala police station parking lot smelled of hot asphalt and sweet pine needles from the trees bordering the gravel.
Officer Thomas, who had retired to a small citrus grove near Belleview, sat on the tailgate of his pickup truck.
He was wearing a faded flannel shirt, his uniform cap resting on his knee.
“I kept my personal notebook from that afternoon,” Thomas said, squinting against the glare of the truck hood.
He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a small, leather-bound pad with frayed corners.
“The airport manager called us because the gate agent found two infants in carriers with nothing but a diaper bag,” he said.
Now, I remembered that afternoon like a photograph kept in a dark drawer, every detail sharp and cold.
“Did anyone see her leave the terminal?” I asked.
“A taxi driver named Lopez remembered her,” Thomas said, flipping a yellowed page.
“He said she did not have any bags, just a leather purse and a look on her face like she was running late for a funeral.”
“Where did he drop her?” I asked.
Thomas closed the notebook with a soft thud that sounded like a dry branch snapping.
“The bus depot on Silver Springs Boulevard,” he said.
“She bought a one-way ticket north to Atlanta before we even got the call to head to the runway.”
I looked down at the gravel, kicking a loose pebble toward his front tire.
“She wanted them found,” I said.
