Chapter 17 - The People Nobody Called Back
Rachel's team read each complaint as a separate life, not a number in a spreadsheet. They found boarding passes scanned with no consent to change seats, customer-service notes closed without callbacks, and one apology drafted but never sent. The files were not spectacular. That was what made them troubling. They showed the ordinary repetition of decisions nobody had bothered to question.
They found seventeen passenger complaints that should have been reviewed and never were. A father had been separated from his daughter after a last-minute seat change. An elderly woman had lost her mobility accommodation. A nurse had missed a connection after refusing to surrender a confirmed place.
Not every case involved malicious intent, and the investigators treated them individually. Still, the pattern was enough for Patricia to order an outside review of seating exceptions, complaint handling, and accessibility procedures.
David listened to the findings in silence.
“Are you going to sue?” Marissa asked later.
“I may. But I won't use a lawsuit to silence other families with an easy private deal.”
They agreed that Malik's privacy and welfare would guide every decision. David had the resources to obtain answers. That didn't make his family the center of everyone else's story.
Ben Mercer called with a message from the passenger in 3B, an exhausted teacher named Denise Holloway. She had watched Catherine throw the backpack and stayed seated, afraid she would be removed too.
“I want Malik to know I'm sorry,” Denise said.
David offered to pass on her words without requiring contact. Malik listened and nodded.
“I don't need everyone to apologize,” he said. “I wish one person had just said, ‘Show us the ticket.’”
That evening, news broke that Richard Vance had stepped aside from the airline's finance committee while the board investigated conflicts. Elliot issued a short statement denying wrongdoing, followed by a longer one through counsel acknowledging he had acted disrespectfully at the gate.
Malik read neither statement. He was helping Evelyn make pancakes that looked like small, uneven planets.
Then David's phone rang. Patricia was calling, and her voice sounded strained.
May you like
“We found a letter sent to the board six months ago,” she said. “It warned about these overrides. Someone buried it.”
The signature at the bottom was Catherine Ward's.
