Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN DANIEL RECOGNIZED AFTER LANDING
Paramedics met Flight 101 at the gate in Omaha.
Emily was transported to CHI Health Creighton University Medical Center for observation.
Daniel remained with the aircraft until company procedures allowed another qualified captain to assume responsibility for the onward flight.
Only then did he leave.
At the hospital, he found Rachel already on the phone from Wisconsin, crying and furious.
Emily was awake.
Tired.
Embarrassed.
Mostly angry that her teddy bear had been sealed inside a plastic property bag with Karen’s phone.
“I didn’t do anything,” Emily said.
Daniel sat beside her.
“I know.”
“She kept saying I didn’t belong there.”
“I know.”
Emily looked at him.
“You told me not to tell people you were the captain because you didn’t want them treating me special.”
Daniel felt something tighten in his chest.
He had wanted Emily to feel ordinary.
Instead, his secrecy gave Karen room to invent her own explanation.
That was not Daniel’s fault.
Still, the irony hurt.
An airline security manager arrived with an Omaha police officer.
Karen had been removed from the aircraft after landing.
No dramatic arrest occurred at the gate. Officers interviewed witnesses while the airline preserved evidence and determined whether federal authorities also needed notification because the event occurred in flight.
Then the security manager showed Daniel Karen’s identification.
Daniel recognized the surname.
Whitmore.
Karen’s husband, Charles Whitmore, sat on the board of a regional aviation-services company that had recently bid for a major maintenance contract with Daniel’s airline.
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Daniel had met him twice.
Suddenly Karen’s repeated claim that she “knew people above the captain” sounded less like empty arrogance.
