Czytaj książkę: «Act Of Valor»

ONE

Instinct ratcheted up Violet Griffin’s pulse. Something was definitely not right with the passenger who stood before her, his body stiff with impatience. The impatience part was par for the course at LaGuardia Airport in Queens. Her ticketing counter at Emerge Airline was always crazy, and passengers were not known for accepting delays with good cheer, but this guy was downright jumpy. Long and lean, with an ill-fitting canvas jacket, dark glasses and bottle-blond hair caught in a tight braid, he chewed his lip until it was his turn.

“I wanna talk to him, not you.” The man pointed at her boss, Bill Oscar.

She took a moment to breathe, plaster on her “you will not fluster me” mask and flip her curtain of wheat-brown curls behind her shoulder.

“No need. I can take care of you. May I see your driver’s license please?”

He shifted the strap of the bag that hung from his shoulder. “I said I want your supervisor to check me in. That guy, over there.”

She gritted her teeth, trying to keep her thoughts from coming out of her mouth. “I assure you, I can handle it, sir. I’ve been doing this job for a very long time.”

“No,” he snapped. “Him.”

Shifting slightly, her fingers inched toward the security phone. If the man was about to become out of control, he’d be met with plenty of airport security.

But her boss flashed her a plump-cheeked smile. “I got this, Vi.”

Insulted, she stepped aside and tended to another customer. Bill’s easy grin was still in place. He must think her testiness was pure overreaction, since he did not seem the least bit nonplussed. Had he intervened to spare her aggravation, then? But she was an expert at dealing with aggravation and soothing ruffled feathers. She’d been doing it brilliantly for ten years now. She pondered her reaction to the guy as she processed a line of customers. Was her patience thinner than usual? Had her recent anguish started to show at work?

Zach Jameson’s tormented blue eyes surfaced in her memory. He was in agony over the death of his older brother Jordan, the victim of a murder made to look like a suicide. She’d heard the officers gathered at her parents’ diner reliving the terrible situation, trying to grapple with their grief. It had been torment for all the Jameson brothers, Noah, Zach and Carter, and for the entire NYC K-9 Command. Jordy had been the well-respected leader of their unit based in Queens. The loss was compounded by the fact that the guy who planted Jordan’s fake suicide note had run into traffic and been killed while officers attempted to arrest him. The papers had run daily stories filled with more speculation than fact, but until the medical examiner’s official findings were in, only Jordy’s cop brothers knew for sure that their mentor had not killed himself, especially since his widow was expecting their first child.

Sadness and anger cloaked the whole NYC K-9 Command Unit in smothering grief, but it was the youngest Jameson brother who seemed to struggle most. She’d known Zach since she was a kid, and she prayed she could help him through the worst time in his life, but he was cold and distant, buried in a chill she could not penetrate no matter how hard she pressed.

Bill finished with the twitchy passenger and walked him across the busy floor to a security agent by the baggage screen. Violet relaxed. His carry-on bag would be x-rayed, and authorities alerted if anything was amiss. She was about to call out a thank-you to Bill when she saw the TSA agent usher the man through the line without putting his bag on the conveyor or walking him through the metal detector.

Agape, she hurried to her boss. “Bill, did you see that?”

He shuffled through the papers on his counter. “It’s not a problem. Don’t worry about it.” He gave his attention to the next customer.

Not a problem? How was allowing a passenger onto a plane without proper scan not a problem? Boss or no boss, she was about to let Bill have a piece of her mind when a voice snapped her back.

“I’m in a hurry.”

The next passenger’s license identified him as Joe Brown. The short, barrel-chested man was a regular, flying on business, she’d always assumed. The overhead lighting gleamed off his scalp, which shone through a harsh crew cut as he pushed his suitcase onto the scale.

“Your luggage is overweight, sir. You’ll have to pay a fee.”

He started to argue, but she merely pointed to the digital numbers on the scale. “Take something out and put it into your carry-on or pay the fee. That’s it.”

With a jerk, he plopped the suitcase down, putting his body between her and the contents, and yanked the zipper. She smelled the overpowering whiff of menthol. She leaned forward.

He stared at her, eyes like wet stones. “Cold rub. I’ve been ill.”

Cold rub? Tension slithered through her stomach. She’d heard before from Zach that smugglers had all kinds of notions about how to fool the noses of detection dogs like Zach’s beagle, Eddie. Cold rub...to mask the smell of...?

When the customer yanked a rolled-up leather jacket from his bag, she saw a glimpse of something inside, lumpy, wrapped in a sock. Whatever it was had some heft to it.

Her heart stopped. Cocaine? Should she call security? But what if she was misreading the situation like she might have with the previous passenger? She forced a nonchalant smile. “Excuse me for one minute.”

She walked quickly to Bill and whispered to him. “I think that guy’s smuggling drugs.”

Bill frowned. “I’ll take it from here.”

She watched, pulse pounding in her throat as her boss approached Joe. The man stood quickly, pulled on the jacket, one side hanging down lower than the other. Whatever he’d had rolled inside must be jammed in the pocket now. She fingered her phone, ready to call for security or maybe even Zach. His work with a drug-detection dog took him all over Brooklyn and Queens as well as other boroughs, but currently he was assigned to LaGuardia Airport. She’d waved to him not an hour before, noting the slump of his shoulders, the haggard look that indicated another sleepless night.

To her utter shock, Bill Oscar pointed Joe toward the same security agent. This could not be. She grabbed at his sleeve, snapping at him. “What’s going on?”

He detached himself. “Nothing at all. You need to relax. As a matter of fact, you’re due for a break. I got the counter.” He gently pressured her away. “Go get some coffee. You look tired.”

He practically propelled her away, which only flipped on her stubborn switch. No way. Whatever is going on here is not happening on my watch. As Joe Brown strolled toward the TSA agent, she hurried along with her cell phone. If Bill was suddenly abdicating his job, she’d at least get a good picture of Brown and text it to Zach.

Just before she took the photo, Brown turned around.

His look brimmed with such malice, it was all she could do not to run. Her mouth went dry as she read the threat in the grim lines of his mouth. Backing away, she headed toward the employee break room, skin erupting in clammy goose bumps. The terminal was undergoing a remodel and the place where she was headed was sectioned off with cones—only employees allowed. Plastic draped the work areas and the din of an air compressor and a nail gun assaulted her eardrums.

Call Zach. Her fingers fumbled with the phone. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, and she risked a look. Brown was striding toward her, putting himself between her and the milling crowd.

She realized her mistake at once.

Isolated corridor.

Empty break room.

And a drug smuggler bearing down on her.

She could scream, but over the din of the air compressor and construction noises no one would hear a sound.

It was time to run.

* * *

Officer Zach Jameson surveyed the throng of people congregated around the ticketing counter. Most ignored Zach and K-9 partner, Eddie, and that suited him just fine. Two months earlier he would have greeted people with a smile, or at least a polite nod while he and Eddie did their work of scanning for potential drug smugglers. These days he struggled to keep his mind on his duty while the ever-present darkness nibbled at the edges of his soul.

Jordan, his oldest brother and chief of the NYC K-9 Command Unit, was gone. Sometimes it still felt unreal to Zach. His words at his brother’s funeral came back to him, when he’d promised Jordy’s widow, Katie, that he and his brothers would bring her husband’s killer to justice.

But they hadn’t, not yet. It didn’t help that his older brothers Noah and Carter, and other K-9 officers of the unit and all their collected dogs were officially off the case because of their familial connection to the victim. Even though Noah had been appointed interim chief, he was shut firmly out of the investigation like the rest of them. A storehouse of training, intelligence, loyalty and commitment and where had it gotten them? Nowhere. The only lead so far had been killed during the attempted arrest, and Zach had not even been on scene to try and prevent it. And to add one final twist to the knife in his gut, Jordy’s police dog, Snapper, was still missing.

With Jordy gone, justice and duty were the only two things Zach had left, the former seeming more unreachable every passing day. As for duty, sometimes it felt like he was going through the motions in a haze—phoning it in, as his brothers might say. The badge meant everything to him, and he despised the way that grief was dulling his edge as a cop.

Eddie plopped his bony rump on Zach’s steel-toed boot and looked up into his face as if to say, “Let’s do our jobs, okay?”

He stroked the dog’s ears and sucked in a breath, trying to clear away the fog that had descended on him the moment he heard of his brother’s death. A cop always lived with the fact that he might lose his life in the line of duty, but not this way, when Jordan and Katie had their first baby coming, and not when Zach should have been watching Jordan’s back like Jordan had always done for his younger kin.

Jordan was the one who had prayed and prodded Zach through his police training, a process made more difficult by Zach’s dyslexia. Everything hands-on came easy, but the written exams...taking those was like chiseling away at a mountain with a butter knife.

“Don’t give up. Police force needs you, Zacho,” Jordy had said during their tutoring sessions, employing the nickname Zach despised. “You’re gonna be a great cop.”

For all his brother’s confidence, Zach hadn’t had so much as a whiff of suspicion that his brother was in danger. Some cop, clueless and inept. His brain knew he should talk to somebody, somebody like Violet Griffin, his friend from childhood who’d reached out so many times. His brain knew, but his heart would not let him pass through the dark curtain. And there was no way he was talking to some department-appointed shrink who wasn’t even a cop. They’d have to slap on cuffs and knock him unconscious before they dragged him into that office.

“Just get to work,” he muttered to himself as his phone vibrated. Probably another text from his mom. Ivy Jameson paid no attention to the fact that he was not supposed to take personal messages while on duty. Truth be told, he’d been avoiding her calls because he could not stand to hear her cry or detect the worry in her voice when she asked him how he was doing. He’d call her later.

The phone trilled again, indicating it was a call this time. He checked the number.

Violet.

He considered ignoring it, but Violet didn’t ever call unless she needed help and she rarely needed anyone. Strong enough to run a ticket counter at LaGuardia and have enough energy left over to help out at Griffin’s, her family’s diner. She could handle belligerent customers in both arenas and bake the best apple pie he’d ever had the privilege to chow down.

It almost made him smile as he accepted the call.

“Someone’s after me, Zach.”

Panic rippled through their connection. Panic, from a woman who was tough as they came. “Who? Where are you?”

Her breath was shallow as if she was running.

“I’m trying to get to the break room. I can lock myself in, but I don’t... I can’t...” There was a clatter.

“Violet?” he shouted.

But there was no answer.

He sprinted toward the Emerge Airline break room, Eddie racing right behind him.