The Ghost Pattern Read Online Free

signs, she had to behave at her best, or risk being put on report by the flight’s commander, Captain Gene Gibson.
    Captain Gibson is a real gentleman , she thought. Too bad they don’t make them like that anymore. Gibson had tried to warn her, discreetly of course, but she didn’t listen. She dismissed the advice for caution expressed by Gibson, who had encouraged her to give the relationship some thought, and she’d fallen hard, head over heels, for the moronic first officer Andrew Klapov. Andy, as she had once loved to call him, had been her very own Prince Charming for about two weeks, which happened to coincide with the exact time it took him to get her in bed.
    She thought they had something real, and had never been so happy in her life. That lasted until their next flight together, when she’d assumed she had an open invite for Andy’s hotel room, and stumbled onto naked Andy performing cunnilingus on her colleague, Corinne. From between Corinne’s legs, Andy had looked her in the eye and smiled, licking his lips and winking at her. Heartbroken and disillusioned, she’d run out of there in tears, without being able to say a single word.
    Corinne never learned of Lila’s personal tragedy; she’d been carried away on the wings of mindless bliss at that dramatic moment, and hadn’t even noticed her coming into the room.
    From the scene of that crime, Lila ran all the way to the hotel’s business center, where she submitted a request for crew transfer, filled with typos and making little sense. Probably having seen such correspondence before, and understanding implicitly what had caused the request, the airline management had approved it, but it was to go into effect at the first of the following month. One more trip, that’s all she had left to endure. One more trip with Mr. Flying Fuck.
    On top of it all, their typical route, which was San Fran to London and back, had changed at the last minute, and that last trip had to be to Tokyo and back. Four days instead of three. Great…just great.
    She brushed her chestnut hair back and tied it neatly in a ponytail, then applied fresh lipstick and touched up her nose with the powder puff. She gently tapped, without smudging her makeup, the corners of her eyes with a tissue, to absorb the tears that had been welling there. No way was she going to look heartbroken over that prick.
    “Fucking bastard…” she muttered. “I so deserve better than this.”
    Then she grabbed her wheelie and walked out of the restroom, watching her reflection in the mirror, noticing in passing how strong, professional, and beautiful she looked. Not bad for a girl from Fayetteville, Arkansas. Not bad at all.
    Before stepping onto the jetway, she stopped for a moment to grab the flight’s manifest from the gate attendant, and gave it a quick look, hoping for a miracle. Nope, none to be found. Flight XA233, nonstop service from Tokyo to San Francisco, had 423 passengers checked in and ready to board.
    Well, it could have been worse, she thought, considering the plane’s capacity was 496. But an almost full cabin might be a blessing in disguise, keeping her busy, and making the fourteen hours go by faster.
    She trotted with confidence on the jetway, boarded the plane, and tucked her wheelie in the staff closet. She popped her head briefly into the cockpit, greeting Captain Gibson and completely ignoring the dick in the first-officer seat.
    Then she signaled the gate crew to start boarding, and took her spot in the first-class cabin, ready to greet the passengers.
    They started boarding quickly, first class followed closely by the rest of the passengers, some chatting excitedly about a conference or something like that. The conference travelers were scattered throughout the plane, but they seemed to know one another fairly well.
    As soon as a third or so of the passengers had made their way on board, she picked up the microphone and made her announcement.
    “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome