Jenna pressed the interphone button. "Sloan, it's Jenna. I need to confirm the Bell twins' seat change. The paperwork still shows two A and two B, and their father has an adjoining reservation. Has the captain approved this?"
"I've taken care of it," Sloan replied. There was movement and laughter behind her voice, the polite sound of first-class service continuing uninterrupted. "They're fine where they are. I've already told the gate. Don't turn a simple accommodation into a crisis."
"But the father is supposed to board."
"Every connecting passenger is supposed to board. He hasn't shown up. Give the girls some juice and keep them happy."
The line went dead. Jenna remained beside the phone, looking at the receiver until the next boarding announcement jolted her back into motion. She understood, now, that her supervisor had not answered the question. Whether she had enough courage to ask the captain herself was something she still needed to find out.
At the other end of Atlanta's sprawling airport, Daniel Bell was running harder than he had run since college. His laptop bag slammed against his hip with every stride, the strap repeatedly slipping off his shoulder. His tie hung loose, and his white shirt was darkening with sweat down the center of his back. He passed a coffee shop, an elderly couple navigating a wheeled suitcase, and a cleaning cart parked near the moving walkway.
He had planned to be in Atlanta at 1:40. His Denver flight landed at 2:18 instead, delayed by a thunderstorm and then trapped behind another aircraft waiting for a gate. Daniel had spent the last half hour watching the time change on his phone, calculating routes between terminals in his head, and trying not to imagine his daughters looking for him at the aircraft door. He knew the airline had an escort arrangement, but knowing they were supervised did not erase the fact that it was their birthday and he had promised to be there.
At the train platform, he found the doors starting to close. "Hold it!" he called, although no one could have heard him over the chime. He squeezed through the gap a moment before the doors met, caught the vertical rail, and bent forward to pull air into his lungs. A small boy across from him looked impressed; his mother gave Daniel an anxious smile.
"Tight connection?" she asked.
"My daughters," he managed. "It's their birthday."
"Then I hope you make it."
The train moved. His phone buzzed in his hand, and Daniel saw a notification from Ruby's watch. He smiled for half a second, expecting another report about the first-class seats or some discovery Pearl had made about airplane windows. He placed one earbud in and pressed play.
"Daddy, a lady gave our seats to a man and a lady with champagne. We're in row twenty-six now, by the bathroom. She said no adult, no argument. Please hurry."