The younger officer looked up quickly. Daniels did not.
“You called it in?”
“I did. My team also notified airport operations. The aircraft should still be at the gate or on the taxiway.”
Daniels spoke into her radio, calm and crisp. Then she turned back to the children.
“What was the woman’s name?”
Lily looked at Owen.
Owen stared at his bear.
“Claire,” Lily said at last. “Claire Bennett.”
“Is she your mother?”
“No,” Owen said quickly. “She married Daddy.”
“When did your father pass away?” Daniels asked softly.
The children went still.
It was the kind of stillness that made every adult nearby stop pretending they were not listening.
Lily’s bottom lip trembled. “March.”
My jaw tightened.
Four months.
These children had lost their father four months ago, and the woman who had promised to care for them had walked onto a plane without them.
Daniels glanced at me again, and I saw it in her face—the same controlled anger Marco was trying to hide, the same disbelief that had pulled me across the terminal.
But Daniels was trained for this.
She did not curse.
She did not promise things she could not control.
She did not build herself into a storm because children needed shelter, not thunder.
“We’re going to get you something to drink,” she said. “Would juice be okay?”
Lily nodded.
Owen did not answer.
I turned to Marco. “Find something soft. Juice. Crackers. Fruit if they have it.”
He left without hesitation.
“Do you have family nearby?” Daniels asked the twins.
Owen said nothing.
Lily shook her head.
“Grandparents? Aunts? Uncles?”
“Our daddy had a brother,” Lily said slowly. “But Claire said he didn’t want us.”
Something shifted inside me.
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