Summary

Untitled Chapter – A nine-seat, private 2001 OSPRY 700SL plane is awaiting takeoff at Martha’s Vineyard. Pilot James Melody is British; copilot Charlie Busch is from Odessa, Texas; and flight attendant Emma Lightner is from San Diego. A Dutch holding company in the Cayman Islands has the record of ownership, while the plane reads Gullwing Air. The narrator explains that everyone has a path, has made choices, but to try to predict anything would be pointless. The plane is well-decorated. The late August night is balmy, foggy, and eighty-six degrees. The Bateman family–millionaire newsman David, his younger wife of ten years, Maggie, and their two small children, Rachel, and four year-old JJ, arrive to board the plane. David carries the sleeping JJ aboard. David works hard, and wishes he were home more. They have been at the Vineyard on vacation and are constantly watched...