Chapter 453

For the first time, I felt exasperated with Juliet. I didn’t think she was lying, but if in her mind the only real solution in a situation that had made her feel so emotional and helpless was to get another private jet, it put a reality check on the type of privilege I was dealing with. But this was Juliet, I reminded myself. She lived inside a bubble. She needed help. In her life, everything was taken care of. Unexpected events and bumps in the road were taken care of by someone else. And the only reason she was here was to see me. Or so she said. So it was up to me to figure it out.

"I’ve got a plan," I said. "Come to our villa. I’ll have a departure time confirmed by the time you get here, okay?"

She agreed with a mixture of skepticism and reluctance. I dug back through my memories of trips to LA and the private jets Kelly used. I located the numbers for a half dozen charter jet services near LA. I struck out with the first four but caught a break