Make the Call
Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Red Eye!
Epilogue
It was pouring the morning they buried her father in a local cemetery. Only a few close friends and former co-workers of Joe Reisert had attended. Cynthia had come as well, to be moral support for Lisa in her time of need.
Eventually, Lisa was only person left behind in the dark cemetery. She was soaked to the bone, having refused to bring an umbrella and refused to use one even after various people offered to loan her one. Her once-curly hair was plastered to her face, looking ragged and ignored. All of her make-up had washed away and her clothes clung to her thin frame. She had stopped eating days ago.
She wore the same black skirt as she had on that fateful night, but it was now paired with a black blouse and blazer. Black high heels kept her aching feet out of puddles of water and mud.
Lisa had stopped crying long ago. She was no longer capable of producing tears. Not that tears mattered in the rain. They would have mixed in with the rain anyways.
"Then you'll bury your dad in a closed casket," Jackson warned her on the plane, once the phones stopped working.
If only he could have known then how true his words would be. But none of it mattered. Joe was dead and there was nothing that could be done that would change that terrible outcome. She was all alone now. Her mother had refused to come from Texas—the semi-bitter divorce caused ill feelings between her parents. Lisa was not going back to Texas. She refused to fly and she was not about to drive out there.
For the time being, she would remain in Miami, in the house where she had grown up. She had already cancelled the lease on her apartment and moved back into her father's house. It would always be her father's house, no matter how many years she spent there.
Lisa numbly slipped into her car and drove automatically to a place that she had not visited recently—at least since the day of the red eye flight. She felt driven, drawn inexplicably to it. A gut feeling told her to go there.
She stepped into the lobby of the Lux Atlantic and strode confidently past the front desk and stepped into the elevator. She pressed the button for the tenth floor and found herself running down the hall to the room marked 1019. Her heart was racing.
Would he be there? Was he still waiting for her after all this time?
Her fists pounded on the door. Scuffling sounds from the other side told her that whoever was in the room was hurriedly undoing the locks on the door.
Could it be? Could it possibly be?
The door flew up and a crystal-clear pair of blue eyes locked on her. Without a thought, Lisa threw herself into Jackson's arms and began crying again. "I'm sorry," she managed to sob. "I never meant to leave."
"It's okay, Leese," he reassured her. "Everything's going to be okay now."
Lisa nodded weakly. She trusted him now. After everything that had happened, she still managed to find trust for him. She had thought long and hard about that day and she knew that it was not his fault. It was no one but his employer's fault. Jackson had tried to help; he had tried to stop fate. He had saved her that day.
One look at Jackson's face told her that she had saved him too. They had saved each other and together they would put their lives back together.
Author's Notes:
It's over! I shall miss this story. There's a chance for a sequel, if anyone thinks that it needs one, and if so, what would they like to see happen in the sequel?