Who Are You?: A life in danger. A race against time.. Barbara Taylor Bradford

to perspire.

      Margo couldn’t help but smile as she studied the photo that Billy had taken. Both she and Jack had a look of total joy on their faces. And that is how they’d been from that day until this.

      The sadness in Jack, or whatever it was she had sensed that first night, was still there. But she knew the cause of it now. His childhood friend, Marcus, his ‘brother’, he called him, had died recently. The two had been as close as she and Billy. Margo certainly understood how devastating a loss like that could be. He gave no details and she didn’t ask. She was content to wait until he felt ready to tell her about it.

      Jack had moved back to Chicago with her and opened a non-profit organization that searched the world for untapped water supplies.

      ‘Oil isn’t the real global problem,’ he had explained to her. ‘There’s plenty of oil. What humanity is going to need in the future is water.’

      The PR firm Margo opened was thriving, too. She had a waiting list of people whose reputations needed serious polishing; she worked only for those few she felt were worth salvaging.

      They had settled down next door to Billy in the apartment Margo had inherited from her father. She and Jack were even planning to start a family. Life was good. Until this morning.

      ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we are on final approach for Gustavo Diaz Ordaz International.’ The purser’s announcement startled Margo out of her reverie. ‘We’ll be on the ground in five minutes.’

      Margo got out her passport, tightened her seatbelt and watched as the flight attendant passed out coats, stopping first at the man in 1B. The raincoat was in his lap.

      Five minutes more and Margo would have a conversation with that man about the raincoat and what had happened to her husband.

       SEVEN

      Margo was crouched in her seat like a track star awaiting the starter’s pistol. She had her carry-on in her lap, her handbag on her shoulder, and her winter coat over her arm.

      She hadn’t taken her eyes off the man in 1B since the flight attendant handed him the trench coat. She watched as he stuffed it into his carry-on.

      She made a move to get up before the plane had come to a complete stop, but the ever-watchful flight attendant motioned to her to sit down.

      ‘Only a minute or two more, Mrs McCarthy,’ she said. ‘I do hope everything works out.’

      ‘Thank you,’ Margo answered, still watching 1B.

      Finally the chime sounded to signal the passengers they could move around the cabin. The plane’s door slid open and there was the usual scramble to be first out. Everyone was in the aisle at once, gathering books and newspapers, pulling carry-on luggage from the overhead rack. It was an obstacle course.