At eleven, we walked into the airport.
My replacement passport sat safely in my bag. My evidence had been backed up in three different places. My ticket was real. My money was secure.
For the first time in my life, I felt nervous for the right reason.
I was not afraid of my parents anymore.
I was afraid of freedom.
At security, Valerie hugged me once, fast and fierce.
“Don’t look back,” she said.
“I won’t.”
I cleared check-in. I passed the first passport inspection. I was standing near the international departures line when my mother’s voice ripped through the terminal.
“There she is!”
My blood instantly turned cold.
Brenda and Richard came charging toward me with two airport police officers behind them. Harper was absent. Maybe even she had enough sense not to follow me into federal territory.
“She stole from our company!” Richard shouted. “She’s fleeing the country!”
A security officer stepped in front of me.
“Ma’am, please step out of line.”
And suddenly I was standing in the middle of the terminal, with my parents screaming, travelers staring, and my flight to Rome counting down minute by minute.
Then Officer David Rollins walked toward us.
And recognized me.
PART 5
Officer Rollins had met me two years earlier at a Customs and Border Protection memorial banquet in New Orleans.
The original catering company had canceled forty-eight hours before the event. Richard accepted the contract for three hundred guests, promised luxury-level service, then deliberately understaffed the kitchen to increase profits. I ended up cooking almost the entire dinner myself. Braised short ribs. Shrimp and grits. Cornbread madeleines. Three separate sauces. Two desserts. My hands blistered so badly I wrapped them in towels and kept plating anyway.
At the end of the night, Richard tried to stand there and absorb all the praise.
Officer Rollins walked right past him and shook my hand instead.
“Miss Cook,” he had said, “you walked into a disaster and delivered perfection.”
It was the first time a powerful man had ever looked at me and seen my work instead of my usefulness.
