{"id":4811,"date":"2026-01-04T00:48:37","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T00:48:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/before-the-fall-hawley-noah\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T00:48:37","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T00:48:37","slug":"before-the-fall-hawley-noah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/before-the-fall-hawley-noah\/","title":{"rendered":"Before the Fall – Hawley, Noah"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Book Preview<\/h3>\n
\n
\n
\n

Chapter 1<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n

A private plane<\/span> sits on a runway in Martha\u2019s Vineyard, forward stairs deployed. It is a nine-seat OSPRY 700SL, built in 2001 in Wichita, Kansas. Whose plane it is is hard to say with real certainty. The ownership of record is a Dutch holding company with a Cayman Island mailing address, but the logo on the fuselage says GULLWING AIR<\/span>. The pilot, James Melody, is British. Charlie Busch, the first officer, is from Odessa, Texas. The flight attendant, Emma Lightner, was born in Mannheim, Germany, to an American air force lieutenant and his teenage wife. They moved to San Diego when she was nine.<\/p>\n

Everyone has their path. The choices they\u2019ve made. How any two people end up in the same place at the same time is a mystery. You get on an elevator with a dozen strangers. You ride a bus, wait in line for the bathroom. It happens every day. To try to predict the places we\u2019ll go and the people we\u2019ll meet would be pointless.<\/p>\n

A soft halogen glow emanates from the louvered forward hatch. Nothing like the harsh fluorescent glare you find in commercial planes. Two weeks from now, in a New York Magazine<\/i> interview, Scott Burroughs will say that the thing that surprised him most about his first trip on a private jet was not the legroom or the full bar, but how personalized the decor felt, as if, at a certain income level, air travel is just another form of staying home.<\/p>\n

It is a balmy night on the Vineyard, eighty-six degrees with light winds out of the southwest. The scheduled time of departure is ten p.m. For the last three hours, a heavy coastal fog has been building over the sound, tendrils of dense white creeping slowly across the floodlit tarmac.<\/p>\n

The Bateman family, in their island Range Rover, is the first to arrive: father David, mother Maggie, and their two children, Rachel and JJ. It\u2019s late August and Maggie and the kids have been on the Vineyard for the month, with David flying out from New York on the weekends. It\u2019s hard for him to get away any more than that, though he wishes he could. David is in the entertainment business, which is what people in his line of work call television news these days. A Roman circus of information and opinions.<\/p>\n

He is a tall man with an intimidating phone voice. Strangers, upon meeting him, are often struck by the size of his hands. His son, JJ, has fallen asleep in the car, and as the others start toward the plane David leans into the back and gently lifts JJ from the car seat, supporting his weight with one arm. The boy instinctively throws his arms around his father\u2019s neck, his face slack from slumber. The warmth of his breath sends a chill down David\u2019s spine. He can feel the bones of his son\u2019s hips in his palm, the spill of legs against his side. At four, JJ is old enough to know that people die, but still too young to realize that one day he will be one of them. David and Maggie call him their perpetual motion machine, because really it\u2019s just nonstop all day long. At three, JJ\u2019s primary means of communication was to roar like a dinosaur. Now he is the king of the interruption, questioning every word they say with seemingly endless patience until he\u2019s answered or shut down.<\/p>\n

David kicks the car door closed with his foot, his son\u2019s weight pulling him off balance. He is holding his phone to his ear with his free hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cTell him if he says a word about any of this,\u201d he says quietly, so as not to wake the boy, \u201cwe\u2019ll sue him biblically until he thinks lawyers are falling outta the sky like frogs.\u201d<\/p>\n

At fifty-six, David wears a hard layer of fat around his frame like a bulletproof vest. He has a strong chin and a good head of hair. In the 1990s David built a name for himself running political campaigns\u2014governors, senators, and one two-term president\u2014but he retired in 2000 to run a lobbying firm on K Street. Two years later, an aging billionaire approached him with the idea of starting a twenty-four-hour news network. Thirteen years and thirteen billion in corporate revenue later, David has a top-floor office with bomb-resistant glass and access to the corporate jet.<\/p>\n

He doesn\u2019t get to see the kids enough. David and Maggie both agree on this, though they fight about it regularly. Which is to say, she raises the issue and he gets defensive, even though, at heart, he feels the same. But then isn\u2019t that what marriage is, two people fighting for land rights to the same six inches?<\/p>\n

Now, on the tarmac, a gust of wind blows up. David, still on the phone, glances over at Maggie and smiles, and the smile says I\u2019m glad to be here with you<\/i>. It says I love you<\/i>. But it also says, I know I\u2019m in the middle of another work call and I need you to give me a break about it<\/i>. It says, What matters is that I\u2019m here, and that we\u2019re all together.<\/i><\/p>\n

It is a smile of apology, but there is also some steel in it.<\/p>\n

Maggie smiles back, but hers is more perfunctory, sadder. The truth is, she can no longer control whether she forgives him or not.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve been married less than ten years. Maggie is thirty-six, a former preschool teacher, the pretty one boys fantasize about before they even understand what that means\u2014a breast fixation shared by toddler and teen. Miss Maggie, as they called her, was cheerful and loving. She came in early every morning at six thirty to straighten up. She stayed late to write progress reports and work on her lesson plan. Miss Maggie was a twenty-six-year-old girl from Piedmont, California, who loved teaching. Loved it. She was the first adult any of these three-year-olds had met who took them seriously, who listened to what they had to say and made them feel grown.<\/p>\n

Fate, if you would call it that, brought Maggie and David together in a ballroom at the Waldorf Astoria one Thursday night in early spring 2005. The ball was a black-tie fund-raiser for an educational fund. Maggie was there with a friend. David was on the board. She was the humble beauty in a floral dress with blue finger paint smeared on the small curve inside her right knee. He was the heavyweight charm shark in a two-button suit. She wasn\u2019t the youngest woman at the party, or even the prettiest, but she was the only one with chalk in her purse, the only one who could build a papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 volcano and owned a striped Cat in the Hat<\/i> stovepipe hat she would wear to work every year on Dr. Seuss\u2019s birthday. In other words, she was everything David had ever wanted in a wife. He excused himself and made his approach, smiling a cap-toothed smile.<\/p>\n

In retrospect, she never had a chance.<\/p>\n

Ten years later they have two children and a town house on Gracie Square. Rachel, nine years old, goes to Brearley with a hundred other girls. Maggie, retired from teaching now, stays home with JJ, which makes her unusual among women of her station\u2014the carefree housewives of workaholic millionaires. When she strolls her son to the park in the morning, Maggie is the only stay-at-home mother in the playground. All the other kids arrive in European-designed strollers pushed by island ladies on cell phones.<\/p>\n

Now, on the airport runway, Maggie feels a chill run through her and pulls her summer cardigan tighter. The tendrils of fog have become a slow roiling surf, drafting with glacial patience across the tarmac.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you sure it\u2019s okay to fly in this?\u201d she asks her husband\u2019s back. He has reached the top of the stairs, where Emma Lightner, their flight attendant, wearing a trim blue skirt suit, greets him with a smile.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll be fine, Mom,\u201d says Rachel, nine, walking behind her mother. \u201cIt\u2019s not like they need to see to fly a plane.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have instruments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maggie gives her daughter a supportive smile. Rachel is wearing her green backpack\u2014Hunger Games<\/i>, Barbies, and iPad inside\u2014and as she walks, it bumps rhythmically against the small of her back. Such a big girl. Even at nine there are signs of the woman she\u2019ll become. A professor who waits patiently as you figure out your own mistakes. The smartest person in the room, in other words, but not a show-off, never a show-off, with a good heart and musical laughter. The question is, are these qualities she was born with, or qualities seeded inside her by what happened? The true crime of her youth? Somewhere online the entire saga is recorded in words and pictures\u2014archived news footage on YouTube, hundreds of man-hours of beat reporting all stored in the great collective memory of ones and zeros. A New Yorker<\/i> writer wanted to do a book last year, but David quashed it quietly. Rachel is only a child, after all. Sometimes, when Maggie thinks about what could have gone wrong, she worries her heart will crack.<\/p>\n

Instinctively, she glances over at the Range Rover, where Gil is radioing the advance team. Gil is their shadow, a big Israeli who never takes off his jacket. He is what people in their income bracket call domestic security<\/i>. Six foot two, 190 pounds. There is a reason he never takes off his jacket, a reason that doesn\u2019t get discussed in polite circles. This is Gil\u2019s fourth year with the Bateman family. Before Gil there was Misha, and before Misha came the strike team of humorless men in suits, the ones with automatic weapons in the trunk of their car. In her schoolteacher days, Maggie would have scoffed at this kind of military intrusion into family life. She would have called it narcissistic to think that money made you a target for violence. But that was before the events of July 2008, before her daughter\u2019s kidnapping and the agonizing three days it took to get her back.<\/p>\n

On the jet\u2019s stairs, Rachel spins and gives a mock royal wave to the empty runway. She is wearing blue fleece over her dress, her hair in a bowed ponytail. Any evidence that Rachel has been damaged by those three days remains mostly hidden\u2014a fear of small spaces, a certain trepidation around strange men. But then Rachel has always been a happy kid, a bubbly trickster with a sly smile, and though she can\u2019t understand how, Maggie is thankful every day that her kid hasn\u2019t lost that.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood evening, Mrs. Bateman,\u201d says Emma as Maggie reaches the top of the airplane stairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cHi, thanks,\u201d says Maggie reflexively. She feels the usual need to apologize for their wealth, not her husband\u2019s necessarily, but her own, the sheer implausibility of it. She was a preschool teacher not so long ago, living in a six-story walk-up with two mean girls, like Cinderella.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs Scott here yet?\u201d she asks.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, ma\u2019am. You\u2019re the first to arrive. I\u2019ve pulled a bottle of pinot gris. Would you like a glass?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot right now. Thanks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inside, the jet is a statement of subdued luxury, contoured walls ribbed with sleek ash paneling. The seats are gray leather and laid out casually in pairs, as if to suggest you might enjoy the flight more with a partner. The cabin has a moneyed hush, like the inside of a presidential library. Though she\u2019s flown this way many times, Maggie still can\u2019t get over the indulgence of it. An entire airplane just for them.<\/p>\n

David lays their son in his seat, covers him with a blanket. He is on another call already, this one clearly serious. Maggie can tell by the grim set of David\u2019s jaw. Below him the boy stirs in his seat but doesn\u2019t wake.<\/p>\n

Rachel stops by the cockpit to talk to the pilots. It is something she does everywhere she goes, seeks out the local authority and grills them for information. Maggie spots Gil at the cockpit door, keeping the nine-year-old in sight. He carries, in addition to a handgun, a Taser and plastic handcuffs. He is the quietest man Maggie has ever met.<\/p>\n

Phone to his ear, David gives his wife\u2019s shoulder a squeeze.<\/p>\n

\u201cExcited to get back?\u201d he asks, covering the mouthpiece with his other hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cMixed,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s so nice out here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could stay. I mean, we have that thing next weekend, but otherwise, why not?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d she says. \u201cThe kids have school, and I\u2019ve got the museum board thing on Thursday.\u201d<\/p>\n

She smiles at him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t sleep that well,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m just tired.\u201d<\/p>\n

David\u2019s eyes go to something over Maggie\u2019s shoulder. He frowns.<\/p>\n

Maggie turns. Ben and Sarah Kipling stand at the top of the stairs. They\u2019re a wealthy couple, more David\u2019s friends than hers. All the same, Sarah squeals when she sees Maggie.<\/p>\n

\u201cDarling,\u201d she says, throwing open her arms.<\/p>\n

Sarah gives Maggie a hug, the flight attendant standing awkwardly behind them, holding a tray of drinks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love your dress,\u201d says Sarah.<\/p>\n

Ben maneuvers past his wife and charges David, shaking his hand vigorously. He is a partner at one of the big four Wall Street firms, a blue-eyed shark in a tailored blue button-down shirt and a pair of belted white shorts.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you see the fucking game?\u201d he says. \u201cHow does he not catch that ball?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t get me started,\u201d says David.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, I could have caught that fucking ball and I\u2019ve got French toast hands.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two men stand toe-to-toe, mock posturing, two big bucks locking horns for the sheer love of battle.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe lost it in the lights,\u201d David tells him, then feels his phone buzz. He looks at it, frowns, types a reply. Ben glances quickly over his shoulder, his expression sobering. The women are busy chatting. He leans in closer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to talk, buddy.\u201d<\/p>\n

David shakes him off, still typing.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been calling you,\u201d Kipling says. He starts to say more, but Emma is there with drinks.<\/p>\n

\u201cGlenlivet on the rocks, if I\u2019m not mistaken,\u201d she says, handing Ben a glass.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re a doll,\u201d Ben says, and knocks back half the scotch in one gulp.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust water for me,\u201d David says as she lifts a glass of vodka from the tray.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course,\u201d she says, smiling. \u201cI\u2019ll be right back.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few feet away, Sarah Kipling has already run out of small talk. She gives Maggie\u2019s arm a squeeze.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow are you,\u201d she says, earnestly, and for the second time.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I\u2019m good,\u201d says Maggie. \u201cI just\u2014travel days, you know. I\u2019ll be happy when we\u2019re home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know. I mean, I love the beach, but honestly? I get so bored. How many sunsets can you watch and not want to just, I don\u2019t know, go to Barneys?\u201d<\/p>\n

Maggie glances nervously at the open hatch. Sarah catches the look.<\/p>\n

\u201cWaiting for someone?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. I mean, I think we\u2019ll be one more, but\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

Her daughter saves her from having to say more.<\/p>\n

\u201cMom,\u201d says Rachel from her seat. \u201cDon\u2019t forget, tomorrow is Tamara\u2019s party. We still have to get a gift.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay,\u201d says Maggie, distracted. \u201cLet\u2019s go to Dragonfly in the morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking past her daughter, Maggie sees David and Ben huddled together, talking. David doesn\u2019t look happy. She could ask him about it later, but her husband has been so standoffish lately, and the last thing she wants is a fight.<\/p>\n

The flight attendant glides past her and hands David his water.<\/p>\n

\u201cLime?\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

David shakes his head. Ben rubs his bald spot nervously. He glances at the cockpit.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre we waiting for somebody?\u201d he says. \u201cLet\u2019s get this show on the road.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne more person,\u201d says Emma, looking at her list. \u201cScott Burroughs?\u201d<\/p>\n

Ben glances at David. \u201cWho?\u201d<\/p>\n

David shrugs. \u201cMaggie has a friend,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s not a friend,\u201d Maggie says, overhearing. \u201cI mean, the kids know him. We ran into him this morning at the market. He said he had to go to New York, so I invited him to join us. I think he\u2019s a painter.\u201d<\/p>\n

She looks at her husband.<\/p>\n

\u201cI showed you some of his work.\u201d<\/p>\n

David checks his watch.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou told him ten o\u2019clock?\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

She nods.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d he says, sitting, \u201cfive more minutes and he\u2019ll have to catch the ferry like everyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through a round portal window, Maggie sees the captain standing on the tarmac examining the wing. He stares up at the smooth aluminum, then walks slowly toward the plane.<\/p>\n

Behind her, JJ shifts in slumber, his mouth slack. Maggie rearranges the blanket over him, then gives his forehead a kiss. He always looks so worried when he sleeps, she thinks.<\/p>\n

Over the chair back she sees the captain reenter the plane. He comes over to shake hands, a man quarterback-tall with a military build.<\/p>\n

\u201cGentlemen,\u201d he says, \u201cladies. Welcome. Should be a short flight. Some light winds, but otherwise the ride\u2019ll be pretty smooth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw you outside the plane,\u201d says Maggie.<\/p>\n

\u201cRoutine visual inspection,\u201d he tells her. \u201cI do it before every flight. The plane looks good.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat about the fog?\u201d asks Maggie.<\/p>\n

Her daughter rolls her eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cFog isn\u2019t a factor with a sophisticated piece of machinery like this,\u201d the pilot tells them. \u201cA few hundred feet above sea level and we\u2019re past it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m gonna eat some of this cheese then,\u201d says Ben. \u201cShould we put on some music maybe? Or the TV? I think Boston\u2019s playing the White Sox.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emma goes to find the game on the in-flight entertainment system, and there is a long moment of settling in as they take their seats and stow their belongings. Up front, the pilots run through their pre-flight instrument check.<\/p>\n

David\u2019s phone buzzes again. He checks it, frowns.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll right,\u201d says David, getting antsy. \u201cI think that\u2019s all the time we\u2019ve got for the painter.\u201d<\/p>\n

He nods to Emma, who crosses to close the main cabin door. In the cockpit, as if by telepathy, the pilot starts the engines. The front door is almost closed when they hear a man\u2019s voice yell, \u201cWait!<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n

The plane shakes as their final passenger climbs the gangway stairs. Despite herself, Maggie feels herself flush, a thrum of anticipation starting in her belly. And then he is there, Scott Burroughs, mid-forties, looking flushed and out of breath. His hair is shaggy and starting to gray, but his face is smooth. There are worn gouache splotches on his white Keds, faded white and summer blue. He has a dirty green duffel bag over one shoulder. In his bearing there is still the flush of youth, but the lines around his eyes are deep and earned.<\/p>\n

\u201cSorry,\u201d he says. \u201cThe cab took forever. I ended up taking a bus.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, you made it,\u201d says David nodding to the copilot to close the door. \u201cThat\u2019s what matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCan I take your bag, sir?\u201d says Emma.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d says Scott, startled momentarily by the stealthy way she has moved next to him. \u201cNo. I got it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She points him to an empty seat. As he walks to it, he takes in the interior of the plane for the first time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, hell,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBen Kipling,\u201d says Ben, rising to shake Scott\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d says Scott, \u201cScott Burroughs.\u201d<\/p>\n

He sees Maggie.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey,\u201d he says, giving her a wide, warm grin. \u201cThanks again for this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maggie smiles back, flushed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nothing,\u201d she says. \u201cWe had room.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scott falls into a seat next to Sarah. Before he even has his seat belt on, Emma is handing him a glass of wine.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh,\u201d he says. \u201cNo, thank you. I don\u2019t\u2014some water maybe?\u201d<\/p>\n

Emma smiles, withdraws.<\/p>\n

Scott looks over at Sarah.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could get used to this, huh?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTruer words have never been spoken,\u201d says Kipling.<\/p>\n

The engines surge, and Maggie feels the plane start to move. Captain Melody\u2019s voice comes over the speakers.<\/p>\n

\u201cLadies and gentlemen, please prepare for takeoff,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Maggie looks over at her two kids, Rachel sitting with one leg folded under her, scrolling through songs on her phone, and little JJ hunched in slumber, slack-faced with childish oblivion.<\/p>\n

As she does at a thousand random moments out of every day, Maggie feels a swell of motherly love, ballooning and desperate. They are her life, these children. Her identity. She reaches once more to readjust her son\u2019s blanket, and as she does there is that moment of weightlessness as the plane\u2019s wheels leave the ground. This act of impossible hope, this routine suspension of the physical laws that hold men down, inspires and terrifies her. Flying. They are flying. And as they rise up through the foggy white, talking and laughing, serenaded by the songs of 1950s crooners and the white noise of the long at bat, none of them has any idea that sixteen minutes from now their plane will crash into the sea.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Read the full book by downloading it below.<\/p>\n

DOWNLOAD EPUB<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Book Preview Chapter 1 A private plane sits on a runway in Martha\u2019s Vineyard, forward stairs deployed. It is a nine-seat OSPRY 700SL, built in 2001 in Wichita, Kansas. Whose plane it is is hard to say with real certainty. The ownership of record is a Dutch holding company with a Cayman Island mailing address, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[321],"class_list":["post-4811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-noah-hawley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}