So I smiled at Trent and told him Mom was stuck in traffic but on her way.
And under the table, out of his sightline, I did three things my mother talked me through in a series of texts that looked, to Trent, like me checking the weather at our hotel.
I called the bank’s 24-hour fraud line and froze every account he’d been draining.
I called my cousin, who is a paralegal, who called a lawyer, who told me the exact words to say and not say.
And I did not get on that plane.
When they called our boarding group, I stood up, and Trent stood with me, reaching for his carry-on, playing the part of a man who’d somehow board without a passport — and I realized he’d never intended to walk down that jet bridge at all.
“I’m not going,” I said.
He blinked. “What?”
“I’m not getting on the plane, Trent.” I kept my voice pleasant, because two gates down, a woman in a white coat had just sat down with a single suitcase and kept looking our way. “But don’t let me keep you. Your other flight’s about to board. Bianca’s already here.”
