"What the hell am I thinking?" she asked herself, certain she was blushing.
She did her best to put the pictures back in order and then return them to their place inside the wallet. Her eyes passed over the case on the floor and she began to reach for it.
She bolted upright in her seat, looking down at her hands as if they were completely foreign to her. What had come over her? What had she been about to do? What was she still contemplating doing?
"What I have to," she murmured to herself. A slip of a smile crossed her face, which felt both reassuring and totally disconcerting at the same time. When had she started talking to herself?
Paige once again checked the aisle behind her, still no sign of Nathan. Maybe he had locked himself in the bathroom and was having an emotional breakdown of his own. He had certainly seemed at least as upset as she had felt. She looked down at the case and then back down the aisle again. She did not see that she really had any choice. She plucked the case from beneath the seat and placed it on her tray table, sticking the wallet in her jeans.
It was just a black computer case, like hundreds she had seen before. There were three sets of zippers. She unzipped the one across the face of the case. It wasn't a very deep pocket and was empty except for two pens and a pencil with a broken tip. Hardly the treasure trove of information she had been hoping for.
Before moving on with her search, Paige once more looked back down the aisle. The mother of the little boy with the action figure had finally wrangled him back into his seat. Paige couldn't actually see the boy anymore, but she could see his tiny hand holding the figure, making it walk across the top of the headrest of a chair two rows back. The bald businessman asleep in the chair had no clue his shiny head was being investigated by the little boy's action figure.
She returned her focus to the case. She tapped her finger from one zipper to the next, as she recited a childhood rhyme in her mind.
"And you are not it," she whispered.
She unzipped and opened the main compartment of the case. The computer was shiny silver with the Apple logo marking the cover of the laptop. To the side of the computer were a number of USB zip drives. She ran her hand over the computer, silently debating for a minute before zipping the compartment closed again
Once more a quick, guilty, glance back before undoing the last set of zippers and revealing a series of deep pockets. From one of the pockets she pulled an iPod. She turned it on and flipped through the covers of the albums. She gave herself a silent pat on the back for not freaking out when she saw that most of them were her favorites.
While not freaking out, she could not stifle the gasp at the site of what was in the next pocket. Her hands once again trembling, she picked up the dog-eared paperback. She recognized the book at once. She had a copy of the book in her own carry-on. She had no doubt what she would see if she were to flip open the cover. She decided against doing just that and set aside the copy of Tom Sawyer and examined the remaining contents of the case. The only other occupants were four hard-back journals, each a different color. One was sea-foam green, another royal blue, another blood red and the final one was black. She ran a hand over the covers, closed her eyes and smiled. Suede, she'd always loved the feel of it.
She picked up the green one, placed her hands against the cover and rubbed it softly. Paige pursed her lips for a moment before nodding to herself. She ran a thumb along the edge of the pages, fanning them a bit. The pages in the back were blank, but she saw there was writing in the first third or so of the book. She let the cover close.
Paige licked her lips, but they still felt dry. She began to open the cover and then stopped, started again and then stopped once more when she felt his presence. She turned her head just a fraction and saw Nathan watching her from the aisle. A startled shiver raced through her and Paige dropped the book.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
"No," Nathan said quickly. "It's okay."
Paige picked up the book and looked up at him hesitantly, not quite meeting his eyes.
Nathan slipped into his seat next to her. He reached for the journal and Paige let go before his fingers touched hers. He ran his hand over the cover, just as she had only moments ago. He saw that her hands had again begun to tremble a bit. Once more, she gripped the armrests.
"Really," he began in a soft tone. "I'm not upset at all. I guess...I guess in a way you should see these. I mean, they were written to you."
"Written to me? By who?"
"Me," Nathan answered. "After...after you were gone, I had a really rough time dealing with things. God, that is such an understatement. I was totally screwed up. I didn't know who to turn to. I went to see a shrink to..."