But this little girl had approached him without knowing who he was.
She had not asked for money.
She had not requested an autograph.
She had not even seemed impressed by the expensive aircraft.
She had only wanted to make sure he was sitting in the correct seat.
"Thank you," Richard said quietly.
Lily nodded.
"You're welcome, sir."
She turned and started walking toward the rear of the cabin.
Richard watched her disappear between the seats.
Then he noticed something.
The girl was walking toward seat 3A.
The seat he had just vacated.
And beside it sat a woman in her early thirties, wearing a simple navy-blue sweater and holding a small handbag tightly against her lap.
The woman looked tired.
Not the ordinary tiredness of someone who had missed a night's sleep, but the exhaustion of a person who had carried too many worries for too long.
Richard recognized her face.
He had seen it before.
He just couldn't remember where.
The flight attendant approached the woman.
"Ma'am, I'm sorry for the confusion. This is your assigned seat."
The woman nodded.
"Thank you."
Lily climbed into the seat beside her mother.
Richard was about to move toward his own seat when he heard the little girl whisper something.
"Mommy, I told him."
Her mother gently brushed a strand of hair away from Lily's forehead.
"You did the right thing, sweetheart."
Richard stopped.
He looked at the woman again.
Then, suddenly, a memory stirred.
A hospital corridor.
A young woman holding a baby.
A desperate conversation.
A name he had tried not to remember.
He felt a strange tightening in his chest.
No.
That couldn't be possible.
The woman looked up and noticed him staring.
Their eyes met.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then she quickly looked away.
Richard slowly walked to seat 2A, but he no longer cared about the seating mistake.
He sat down and placed his tablet on the table.
His hands were trembling slightly.
"Mr. Whitmore?" the flight attendant asked. "Would you like anything before departure?"
"Water, please."
"Certainly."
He looked across the aisle once more.
The woman was helping Lily fasten her seat belt.
Richard studied her face.
There was something familiar about her eyes.
Something painfully familiar.
He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out his phone.
He opened his contacts and searched for a name he had not called in almost nine years.
Margaret Ellis.
His former personal assistant.
She had worked for him for nearly twenty years before leaving the company unexpectedly.
He had always assumed she had retired.
But there was one thing he remembered about her departure.
She had left a letter on his desk.
A letter he had never bothered to read.
He stared at the screen for a long moment.
Then he put the phone away.
The aircraft doors closed.
The engines began to hum.
And as the private jet slowly moved away from the terminal, Richard Whitmore realized that a simple seating mistake might have brought him face-to-face with a part of his past he had spent years trying to bury.
He looked toward seat 3A again.
The little girl was drawing something on a piece of paper.
Her mother watched her with a faint smile.
Richard noticed the drawing was of three people holding hands.
A little girl.
A woman.
And an older man.
He looked away before either of them could notice him staring.
He had no idea why, but the image stayed in his mind.
A few minutes later, the aircraft lifted into the sky.
The flight attendant began serving drinks.
Richard refused his usual champagne and asked for coffee instead.
He needed to think.
There was a name he could not forget now.
Margaret Ellis.
And there was a face sitting just a few feet away that seemed to belong to a memory he had buried beneath years of business deals, expensive vacations, and carefully maintained silence.
He opened his phone again.
This time, he called his company's chief legal officer.
"Daniel, I need you to look into something for me."
"Of course, sir. Is everything all right?"
"I want the personnel records from 2017. Specifically, everything relating to Margaret Ellis."
There was a brief silence.
"Margaret Ellis? I thought that matter was closed."
Richard sat straighter.
"What matter?"
Daniel hesitated.
"Sir, I don't think this is something we should discuss over the phone."