"A custody order for what?" I demanded, leaning over the empty aisle seat. "Arthur Vance died in a state hospital. His estate was closed four years ago."
"His personal estate was closed, Mr. Vance," Mercer replied, looking directly at me for the first time. "His grandfather's agricultural trust was not. A title dispute was filed three days ago in Wheaton regarding the parcel in Kankakee. Under Illinois probate code, all original instruments of title are subject to immediate judicial impoundment to prevent fraudulent conveyance."
"That deed belongs to my family," I said. "It was in my mother's possession until the hour she died. You have no right to touch Toby's backpack on an airplane."
"The order grants me authority to secure the physical instrument wherever located," Mercer said, tapping the leather portfolio on his lap. "Your mother's estate owes forty-two thousand dollars in accumulated county medical liens. The title to that rail-corridor parcel is the only collateral available to satisfy that debt. If you remove that folder from this aircraft, you are committing felony interference with a court-ordered attachment."
Flora stepped up behind Wayne, her posture regaining its stiff arrogance. "You heard him, Wayne. This is a legal transfer. The passenger in fourteen Bravo is interfering with court officers and airline personnel. When we touch down at O'Hare, Port Authority police are already scheduled to meet the jet bridge."
Wayne looked at the legal document in Mercer’s hand, then at Flora, and finally at me. "Mr. Mercer, regardless of county court orders, commercial cabin crew are not sworn bailiffs. Our manual strictly prohibits crew members from executing civil attachments on board an active flight."
"Then let the authorities sort it out at terminal three," Flora said sharply. "Until then, the bag stays under the seat where it was secured."
Wayne hesitated. I could see the institutional caution paralyzing him. A pilot might divert for a violent threat, but flight crews avoided getting caught between conflicting civil claims like poison. If I waited until the wheels hit the runway in Chicago, Mercer would walk off the jet bridge flanked by county deputies already holding the warrant Flora had coordinated from the gate. They would take the backpack into police custody, log the original deed into county evidence, and seal the land into receivership before Toby and I could even clear the concourse.
Toby’s future—the five acres that our grandfather had cleared with his own hands, the only asset standing between my brother and a mountain of inherited debt—would be signed away at an auction block to a private rail developer for pennies on the dollar.
I didn't argue. I didn't yell.
I reached down between the seats, gripped the woven shoulder strap of Toby's canvas bag, and yanked it out from behind Mercer's leather portfolio.
"Sir, do not touch that property!" Mercer snapped, lunging forward with both hands to grab the canvas fabric.
I twisted my shoulder, using my frame to block him, and ripped the bag free of his grip. The metal buckle clattered against the plastic wall.
"Call the police," I told Flora, pulling the bag tight against my chest. "Tell them to bring every warrant they have to gate K-12. But my brother gets his medicine, and this bag doesn't leave my hands until I see a federal judge."
Flora reached for the overhead call button, her eyes blazing. "You just guaranteed yourself a prison cell, Vance."
I turned my back on her and walked straight down the aisle toward row twenty-eight.
CHAPTER 3: The Trap At Terminal Three
Toby’s hands were shaking so violently he dropped the plastic cap between his knees when I handed him the amber dropper bottle. I caught it against the gray carpet, unscrewed the seal, and tilted his chin toward the dim overhead reading bulb of row twenty-eight.
The canal of his left ear was swollen nearly shut, inflamed red from the sudden pressure drop during our initial climb. Two drops of the antipyrine solution rolled inside, and my brother squeezed his eyes shut with a sharp, shuddering hiss as the local anesthetic hit the tympanic tissue.
"Keep your head tilted to the right," I told him, keeping my voice low and steady. "Let it soak down. Five minutes, Toby. That’s all it takes."
He leaned his temple against the plastic cabin wall, his shoulders sinking two inches as the throbbing began to dull. With my left arm braced against the edge of seat 28B to steady myself against the vibration of the aft engines, I unzipped the canvas backpack's interior nylon pocket and pulled out our mother’s cardboard probate folder.
The blue-ribboned deed from 1974 was still inside, its thick rag paper creased along the original surveyor's folds, signed by our grandfather before the county clerk in Kankakee. But when I turned the legal packet over, my thumb caught a staple I hadn't noticed while packing Toby’s school bag at five o'clock that morning.