Chapter 2 - The Audit Begins
The first-class cabin emptied within ten minutes, though not a single passenger from rows one through four actually left the plane. At my direct instruction, Officer Miller and his partner were stationed at the main boarding door with strict orders to let no one on or off the aircraft—no caterers, no cleaners, and certainly no replacement crew members.
Marcus Harrison, the CEO of Apex Air whom I had personally handpicked three years ago to turn the airline's toxic corporate culture around, walked down the jet bridge looking like a man who had just swallowed a live grenade. Behind him trotted Robert Chen, our head of legal affairs, carrying a sleek leather briefcase that looked like an executioner's ledger.
"Karen," Marcus said, stopping short in the aisle. He looked at my gray sweatpants, then at Victoria, who was now sitting rigidly in the jumpseat near the galley, her face drained of all color. "When you said you were doing a spot check on regional compliance, I didn't think you meant playing decoy in the front row of a commercial redeye."
"Luxury gives you comfort, Marcus, but anonymity gives you the truth," I replied, sliding back into Seat 1A and crossing my legs. "If I had walked on here in a tailored St. John suit with three vice presidents trailing behind me, Victoria would have treated me like royalty. She would have hidden every broken safety protocol, every falsified logbook, and every passenger complaint under the rug before I even stowed my bag."
Robert Chen opened his briefcase, pulling out a tablet and tapping the screen twice. "We pulled the historical logs for Flight 412 for the last six months. Interestingly enough, Victoria Ashford has been the lead purser on this exact route eighty-two times. And on forty-one of those flights, passengers booked in premium seats were mysteriously downgraded to economy due to 'weight and balance issues' or 'seat malfunctions.'"
Victoria stood up from the jumpseat, her professional composure fracturing into panic. "That's standard operational procedure! When regional equipment has discrepancies—"
"Stop talking, Victoria," Robert said without even looking up from his screen. His voice was flat, devoid of emotion, which made it ten times more terrifying. "Apex Air uses modern wide-body aircraft on this route. Weight and balance discrepancies on a forty-percent capacity flight are statistically impossible unless the fuel load was entered incorrectly—which is a federal violation—or seats are being manually reassigned to accommodate non-manifested guests."
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. "Care to explain who usually sits in Seat 1A when you clear them, Victoria? Is it regional supervisors traveling on buddy passes? Or is it local clients who slide you cash at the gate in exchange for a free upgrade while paying passengers get thrown off?"
Victoria’s jaw tightened. She looked at Marcus, as if expecting the male CEO to rescue her from the aggressive female executive, but Marcus was standing with his arms crossed, watching her with the cold detachment of a surgeon observing a tumor.
"You can't do this," Victoria hissed, her voice dropping an octave. "I have twenty years of service with this company. I know people in the union. I know how the old guard operates."
"The old guard doesn't exist anymore," I said softly. "I bought them out four years ago. Every single manager who covered up the O'Hare theft back in 2014 was either retired or terminated during the restructuring. Everyone except you, Victoria. You slipped through the cracks because you transferred to the West Coast division right before the audit."
The color drained entirely from Victoria's face. Her eyes widened as she stared at me, really looking at me for the first time—not as a nameless woman in sweatpants, but as someone whose face she might have seen on a forgotten HR file from a decade ago.
"Karen... Vance?" she whispered, the name tasting like ash in her mouth.
"Good memory," I said. "Twelve years ago, you were the junior flight attendant who swore to the station manager that you saw me slip Mr. Kensington's diamond watch into my pocket. You didn't see anything, Victoria. You just wanted the senior purser spot that opened up after I was fired."
Robert Chen tapped his tablet again. "Mr. Kensington's watch was found three weeks later in the possession of the first officer, who had pawned it in downtown Chicago. The internal investigation report was quietly shredded by regional vice president Thomas Vance—no relation to you, thankfully—to avoid a PR disaster."
"And now," Marcus added, stepping into the galley to block Victoria's only exit, "we have a formal record of systemic seat fraud, customer harassment, and false police reports filed under your badge number today. Security is already clearing your locker at the LAX base."
Victoria stared at the three of us, her chest heaving. For a second, I thought she might break down and cry. Instead, a bitter, venomous smile crept across her lips.
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"You think you won because you bought the company?" she spat, her eyes locking onto mine with pure hatred. "You think owning the stock makes you a real airline executive? You're just a bitter ex-employee with a billionaire's checkbook playing dress-up. But you didn't check the manifest for the connecting flight to Tokyo, did you? You missed the real reason Flight 412 was targeted today."
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