Prodigal Son
Seven Days until Now
One week has passed since the last issue…
An airliner zoomed through the night time sky, on its way to the United States. The evening dinner service, an unrecognizable chicken dish, had just been served and now the more anticipated service, a round of free alcoholic drinks, were being served.
Sitting together in the first class section were Robert Scorpio and Anna Devane. And while Anna was in deep thought, Robert was licking his chops, anxiously awaiting his glass of bourbon.
"Calm down," Anna said to Robert, as she saw him ogling the attractive flight attendant making her way down the aisle with drink tray. "You and Luke Spencer still act like teenage boys. The world is all bourbon and women," Anna said with a dismissive humorous tone in her voice.
Robert smiled at Anna, and nodded his head.
"True," Robert admitted, "but hey," he added with his crisp Australian accent, "I won't touch; how's that?"
Anna smiled back at her roughish ex-husband. But she had to give him credit for accompanying her to Scotland to lay a reef at Duke Lavery's grave.
It had been one year since Duke had been murdered by Carlos Rivera, and when Anna told Robert she wanted to visit Duke's grave, Robert, who had been on a WSB assignment, dropped what he was doing and met her in Scotland to lay the reef, and was now flying back with her to America.
"I want to thank you," Anna said to Robert. "You could have bombarded me with I told you so this entire time, and I wouldn't have blamed you."
Robert Scorpio had always predicted that Duke's end would come via the mob, be it by nefarious or, in Duke's case, a legitimate attempt to shine the light on the underworld. But in any event, his demise came after Julian Jerome put a hit out on Duke, and it came to be.
Robert nodded his head, and as he began to talk to Anna about Duke, something strange began to happen; she couldn't hear Robert's words, or for that matter, anything else. The sounds of the airliner were quieted, the movie that was showing on the screen at the head of the cabin was muted, everything; it was as if she had lost her hearing.
It had only been a week since she had the strange dream while sleeping in her own bed. It was a dream that she had spent the last seven days analyzing.
Anna watched Robert's lips move, as he spoke, and then everything went, visually, went faded into darkness. And if her soul were a barometer to sense evil, she began to feel its presence.
Continued…next time…Evil arrives at 37000 feet!