Page 110 of Love Overboard
“Right!” Althea and Daisy chimed.
Lacey gave up. They hurried along the dock as fast as a group of septuagenarians could and flagged a small white minivan with a Taxi sign on top. The five of them piled inside and headed for the airport.
Daisy and Gerry settled in the back. Lacey sat on the first bench seat in between Althea and Emily. She tried calling Jon’s phone for the fourth time and got voicemail. She groaned.
“What do I say? I was awful to him last night.”
“He loves you, baby.” Althea rubbed Lacey’s spine. “That covers a multitude of sins.”
Gerry’s head bumped the van roof as they hit a deep pothole. “Don’t you worry, Lacey.” She massaged her scalp. “Any woman who helped track down a ton of cocaine can recapture her man, no problem.”
Lacey chuckled. “I’d hardly call six bags a ‘ton.’”
“Six bags?” Emily lowered her chin. “Is that all they found?”
“Yes. In a paper grocery bag, like you said.”
“But six.” Emily held her hands in front of her and moved them from side to side and then vertically.
Gerry slanted forward. “What are you doing?”
She shook her head. “Each of those little bags holds five pounds. When I met Ricardo on the pier, the paper sack was so full that flour bags were peeking out of the top. Therehaveto be more than six.”
“What do you mean?” Lacey asked.
Emily crossed her arms in front of her. “I mean, someone must’ve taken a share of the drugs before Ricardo was busted.”
“He had an accomplice!” Gerry pulled out her notebook and scribbled.
“Who?” Althea leaned past Lacey. “His roommate?”
Lacey gave a hysterical laugh and pressed her index fingers to her temples. As if apologizing to the man she’d rejected multiple times wasn’t hard enough, now she had to catch another smuggler.
“Driver.” Daisy raised her voice to a genteel screech. “Please turn the air conditioner on. It’s stuffy back here.”
“It is broke.” He eyed her in the rearview mirror. “Sorry.”
“We’re about to solve another mystery.” Gerry snapped her notebook shut. “Who cares if it’s hotter than blazes?”
“Excellent point, girls.” Emily sat up straight.
“What is?”
“It must be eighty-five degrees outside. Why would a man wear thick jeans and a large sweatshirt? A man who hasn’t worn a decent-fitting set of clothes since we’ve known him.”
Althea gasped. “You mean—”
“I mean”—Emily tapped her finger on the seat cushion—“this morning, Mr. Collins was wearing a suspicious amount of baggy clothing.”
“Wait.” Lacey took her hands from her head. “They talked about this in our personnel training. Drug mules wear body suits or even tape packets to their torso under their clothes. And I caught Collins in a staff hallway one day talking to Ricardo. I thought he must be lost.”
“He’s lost all right.” Althea nodded. “Sounds like he needs to find Jesus.”
Emily scrolled through her phone. “We should be there soon. The Cozumel airport has a special lot on the east side for private planes. Driver—”
She tapped the man on the shoulder and directed him where to go. The taxi screeched to a halt at the curb. Everyone spilled out of the back. Daisy opened her wallet to pay, and the others looked around.
“How do we ferret out where he is?” Althea asked. “Have him paged?”
