Amanda found herself silently telling the girl that she would never win over Leandro with such a pathetic performance. Although the older girl was so very pretty, with long, silky black hair and rich brown skin. By comparison, Amanda’s hair was stringy and dirty blond, her face spattered with freckles that she wished she could scrub away. No matter how many balloons she swallowed, she was still jealous of the new girl. Jealous and worried that Leandro might find her more suitable because Lucía was Colombian while Amanda was just poor white American trash. That’s what Zapata called her despite Leandro’s scolding the old woman.
When Amanda had first met her, she thought Zapata was Leandro’s mother. But there was something so cold about the old woman that Amanda didn’t think she was capable of being a mother. Not like Amanda had much to go on. Her own mother had thrown her out of the house, told her never to come back. All because she couldn’t keep her own boyfriend off her daughter. Her mother had caught the asshole slam-dancing Amanda against their kitchen counter.
Instead of asking if Amanda was okay, instead of kicking the asshole out, she made Amanda leave.
It ended up for the better. She needed to get out of that house. And she would never have met Leandro if she hadn’t left home. He treated her so much better. He appreciated her. And maybe after today, Zapata would also realize that Amanda was worthy of her respect.
At least today Zapata was screeching at Lucía. More Spanish, but Amanda didn’t need to understand it to know that the old woman had become impatient with the new girl. Franco had come to tell them he had the van out front, and the others were already grabbing their backpacks, heading for the door.
Except for Lucía. She was crying even harder now, her arms wrapped tight around her stomach. Her face was streaked with sweat, not just tears. She looked as if she were in pain.
Amanda shuffled toward the door, watching and waiting, wanting to sit next to Leandro in the van. But his attention was focused on Lucía.
And then suddenly the girl collapsed, falling to the floor. Her head slammed against the heavy wooden table leg.
Amanda couldn’t believe it. Was she faking it?
Zapata was shaking her head and saying something to Leandro, only the old woman’s voice was eerily calm and quiet. And it was Leandro who was cursing under his breath.
Amanda couldn’t take her eyes off Lucía. She couldn’t look away. She was waiting for the girl to move, but Lucía didn’t flinch when Leandro shoved her. There was nothing gentle about his touch now. When Lucía didn’t respond, it only made him angrier, and Zapata grabbed his arm before he could shove at Lucía again.
“She’s done,” Zapata said. “Get it out.”
Then she noticed Amanda. Her eyes widened, and Amanda thought she saw a flash of panic before the cold black eyes returned to their usual hard stare. Zapata walked toward Amanda, gesturing for her to leave, but Amanda couldn’t stop watching Lucía and Leandro standing over her.
“We must go,” Zapata told her in a calm, steady voice as she took Amanda by the elbow. “We can’t miss our flight.”
The old woman squeezed and pulled at Amanda’s arm to turn her toward the door, but not before Amanda saw Leandro pull a knife from his boot. He was still muttering to himself or cursing Lucía. Amanda didn’t know which. She had never seen him like this. He didn’t seem to notice that she was still in the room. He started cutting Lucía’s clothing with the knife, ripping at it with urgency and anger. Was he helping her? Could he save her? Maybe it wasn’t too late.
“What’s he doing?” Amanda asked.
“It is none of your concern,” Zapata said as her fingernails dug into Amanda’s arm and she dragged her along.
The old woman pushed her out the doorway, but not before Amanda saw Leandro plunge the knife again. This time into Lucía. And now Amanda knew what happened if a balloon ruptured inside her stomach.
2
The Coast Guard helicopter pitched to one side, sending Ryder Creed sliding. He tightened his grip on Grace. His other hand white-knuckled the leather strap that kept him anchored to the inside wall. Grace was tethered to him, one end of the nylon restraint secured to her vest and the other end wrapped around Creed’s waist. Despite never having flown in a helicopter before, she didn’t appear stressed at all.
Creed, however, didn’t have a good feeling about this trip. In fact, he was beginning to regret taking the assignment. None of his dogs had ever been in a helicopter before. He couldn’t help thinking the sixteen-pound Jack Russell terrier felt even smaller cradled next to him.
But Grace was taking it in stride, already used to the thumping of the rotors and treating the roller-coaster ride as if it were just a part of the adventure. She watched and sniffed at the unfamiliar surroundings, anxious to get to work, because as soon as her vest went on, she knew they were headed for a job, and this girl loved her work. That was what made her such an excellent air-scent dog. She possessed a natural curiosity. The tougher the puzzle, the more excited she became.
“She’s not exactly what I expected” was the first thing Commander Wilson had said when he met Grace and Creed on the helipad before takeoff.
While Wilson handed Creed his own “mustang”—the aircrew’s term of endearment for the orange flight suits they wore — he stared at Grace as though perhaps Creed might have brought the wrong dog. Even the rest of the crew — copilot Tommy Ellis, flight mechanic Pete Kesnick, and rescue swimmer Liz Bailey — looked at the terrier as if they weren’t sure what to do with her.
But it was actually Grace whom the Coast Guard had requested. Last week she’d made the national news when she managed to sniff out two kilos of cocaine at Hartsfield’s international terminal in Atlanta. A Colombian woman had creatively found a way to make chocolate bars with cocaine centers. She had made it through customs and was headed out of the area when Grace pulled Creed off the line they were working and raced after the woman.
Two weeks before, Grace had stopped a duffel bag filled with a case of peanut butter. It was coming down the conveyor belt out of the cargo hold of an American Airlines flight from Iquitos, Peru. They had already spent a morning going over checked luggage from incoming international flights when Grace alerted Creed to the red-and-black duffel that looked brand-new. Sure enough, in the gooey middle of each jar was a triple-bagged stash of cocaine. Each sixteen-ounce jar of extra-crunchy contained almost a kilo. Creed was told that the twelve-pack carton had a street value of nearly a million dollars.
Suddenly they were becoming celebrities. Just two days ago, Creed and Grace had traveled to prerecord an appearance on The View that was scheduled to air this week. Creed’s partner, Hannah, was fielding calls for more appearances, on Good Morning America and Fox & Friends. Grace, of course, was taking the attention the same way she reacted to everything else — as if it were just another part of her daily adventure.
Creed not so much.
He’d worked hard to carve out a mostly private life for himself despite building a nationally known K9 business. At first he bristled at the media attention, until Hannah convinced him it could be a way for his sister, Brodie, to find him.