Author's Chapter Notes:
Back again! Thank goodness. Moving along quite nicely now and on the way to Japan. Many thanks to my lovely helper, Marniewings, for helping me figure out where to begin with this chapter! :-)
"I can't believe we're actually about to do this," Juliet said as she followed Lassiter, Shawn, and Gus onto the jet that would take them from Santa Barbara, California to Tokyo, Japan. "I know," said Lassiter. "I'm so close to justice that I can almost taste its sweet aroma." "You don't taste aromas, Carlton," Juliet replied. "Well, smell is a big part of taste," said Gus. Shawn nodded. "Gus should know. The Supersniffer has never failed him yet."
Lassiter scoffed and shoved past them to get to his seat. "Forget about you two nitwits. You're only here because I was forced to bring you two along." "That's no way to talk to your backup, Lassie," Shawn said, curling his lip in a pout. "Carlton," Juliet said, "are you sure you want to do this? I mean, once this plane takes off the ground, there won't be any going back." Lassiter glared at her as she sat down beside him. "No, O'Hara. There wasn't any going back from the minute she set foot in this town." "I don't know, Carlton. You've always told me to trust my instincts as a cop, and I have a really bad feeling about this."
Lassiter waited until Shawn was occupied with pestering a flight attendant before responding. He looked at her right in the eyes and said, "So do I."
Juliet and her partner weren't the only ones developing last-minute reservations about their venture. A few rows behind them, the killer stared at her prey.
"They're on the plane. They're on the plane. They're on the plane," Aurora thought, the words repeating over and over in her mind. She could feel her composure deteriorating like a busted eight-track tape, her thoughts and emotions coming all undone, spooling out, torn out. A killer out of control is no longer a hunter, but a wretch fit only to be tossed to the side of the road like so much litter.
She counted the rows between them and her. "One two three four five six. Six?" She counted them again to make sure. "Six rows..."
"I beg your pardon?" said the gentleman beside her. Aurora stared at him with eyes that must have resembled the huge, fractured eyes of a fly. "Oh," she said. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize I'd spoken out loud. I was, um...trying to count the rows between me and the exit." She even added in a smile in hopes of making herself more convincing. The man nodded, suspecting nothing, and returned to his magazine while Aurora forced her composure back over herself like an iron mask.
She put on headphones and cranked the music up, then stared at the pages of a book without reading a single sentence, all the time catching illicit glimpses of her prey and thinking, "Composure is safety composure is safety composure is safety don't feel don't feel don't feel penny in the air..."
And at last, just hours later, they came to the skies over Japan.
That's when the penny dropped and everything broke loose.
Chapter End Notes:
Just realized that the formatting of this one was wrong. It took out all my new paragraphs for some reason. It should be fixed now. I apologize for any errors.
***Edit Number Two****
I have tried SO HARD to get the formatting on this darn chapter fixed! It keeps smashing all my lines of dialogue into the same paragraph when they're supposed to be separated! I have tried three or four times to fix it and I'm not sure where I'm going wrong, so I'm giving up and hoping that the next chapter comes out right. I'm sure you all can figure this out. If you have any questions, please feel free to let me know. The least I can do is send you an error-free copy!
Thanks for your tolerance. :-D
...Not to sound rude or needy, but does anybody even still read this?
***Edit Number Two****
I have tried SO HARD to get the formatting on this darn chapter fixed! It keeps smashing all my lines of dialogue into the same paragraph when they're supposed to be separated! I have tried three or four times to fix it and I'm not sure where I'm going wrong, so I'm giving up and hoping that the next chapter comes out right. I'm sure you all can figure this out. If you have any questions, please feel free to let me know. The least I can do is send you an error-free copy!
Thanks for your tolerance. :-D
...Not to sound rude or needy, but does anybody even still read this?
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