Page 13 of Saving Grace

When they arrived at Jericho Airlines ticketing counter—or what was left of it—Matt immediately spotted Grace’s purse. His heart quickened as he walked briskly toward the item, scooping it up and ignoring the warning of the CSI tech not to touch anything.

He found her smartphone a couple of feet away. He would recognize it anywhere with the abstract-art phone case. Was she on the device when the explosion happened? Did she get thrown? The techs were only now processing the deceased, which meant she could be injured and in a hospital somewhere.

Numerous hours and hospitals later, they were no closer to finding Grace than when they started. They’d even bumped into Troy and his men at the Emory University Hospital. The bikers weren’t having much luck either.

As they left yet another emergency room, Matt took a couple of quick steps into the late winter night and roared his frustration. He rested his hands on his thighs, hunched over, as the weight of desperation of not knowing whether Grace was alive or dead beat him down.

Sympathetic stares followed him, but he didn’t care. “Ahhhh ….” He shouted again. “Where are you, gypsy? Where are you?”

A hand landed on his shoulder. “Come on. We need to regroup,” Colt said. “I’ve got a condo not far from here.”

“I want to keep looking,” Matt growled.

“Seriously, Foster, you’re not helping Grace any,” Colt shot back. “You haven’t eaten. You’re dead on your feet and we need to come up with a game plan.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“I brought my laptop,” Colt said. “I worked surveillance as a SEAL and I’ve got access to AGS analysts. They can hook us up with street cams and satellites, not to mention the entire Atlanta health care system and police department databases.”

“Well, fuck,” Matt muttered. “What are we waiting for?”

*****

Grace

I heard arguing.

I had woken up once before but pretended to be sleeping. I heard them discussing routes out of the city, but police checkpoints had been set up looking for the suspects in the bombing. My abductors were hesitant to take the chance. The stop-start of the ambulance lulled my already groggy self back to sleep, but now I’d been jolted wide awake because there was panic in Diaz’s voice.

“Quiet!”

“I did not sign up for this. I could lose my job,” Diaz snapped.

“Or you could lose your family.”

What is going on?

“This was not part of the deal. I didn’t agree to hurt anyone.”

“She has seen too much. She knows too much. The plan had to change.”

What did I see? Did I tell them I had amnesia? Somehow I knew that wouldn’t go over well or that they would believe me at all.

“We wait for El Segador’s signal that we’re clear,” the person arguing with Diaz said.

El who?

“Let’s just dump her at a hospital and cut our losses.”

That’s a great idea.

“No,” Not-Diaz said. “Just relax. We have many cops in our pockets. We just have to wait for them to be in place so we can get out of here without any problem.”

Great. Now I can’t trust the police either?

The dying man at the airport told me to trust no one.

I could only trust myself.

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