“Flo!” Gina shouted and waved.
“Jenna! Can't imagine how you found us,” Florence said, laughing as she stood up to hug Gina.
“It's my superspy powers,” Gina joked back. Flo had no idea what Gina did for a living. The best lies always stuck close to the truth.
Fleur was already sticking her nose into the crates one by one and checking on her friends. If they’d been free, Fleur would have attempted to roughhouse with the Malamutes. Gina imagined that if the dog hadn't grown up on the streets, she wouldn't have fared well among the bigger dogs. But Fleur was fast and scrappy, and she knew how to keep them in line. All of the dogs settled down once Fleur was in charge.
Florence shook her head as she watched Fleur do her thing. “I should hire Jasmin to watch my pack,” she said.
“She does have a knack for it.” And she did. Fleur tended to be in charge of the pack of Watchdogs as well.
“Here,” Florence said, turning around and grabbing a big water bottle. “I got you one because you just got off a plane and I know you never hydrate enough.”
Gina laughed. “Thank you.” She twisted open the cap and downed about half the bottle. Florence wasn't lying; Gina was dehydrated. The water was cold and good and it helped refresh her.
Florence moved one of her bags off the chair next to her and motioned for Gina to sit.
“Now tell me what's going on with your ex. How much trouble are you in? Do I have to hide you or will I need to provide bail money in the near future?”
Gina smiled carefully, putting just enough regret into her face that she looked genuinely upset, but not enough to make Florence worry too much. Gina had carefully cultivated Jenna’s persona and fed it in bits and pieces to Florence. Jenna was a bohemian who dabbled in training and showing dogs, a world-traveling trust fund baby with terrible taste in men. She was always rushing into and out of doomed relationships and sometimes just needed to get away. Like now.
“No, it's nothing like that. He never threatened me, he’s just being a jerk about the breakup. I just need to get away for a while. You know how it is. Give him some space and he’ll forget all about me.”
Florence frowned and shook her head. “Well, I think you need to give him enough space that if he finds his way back to you, he’ll also find his way into a jail cell, but that's just my opinion.”
“Yeah, not that you're opinionated at all,” Gina said with a grin.
“You know I'm just looking out for you, sister.”
“Of course I do, and I appreciate it.” Gina put her hand on Florence’s. “So tell me, how are you? How are the dogs? How's your husband? Who all is flying with us today? Do I know any of them?”
Florence laughed at the usual barrage of questions. Gina had her convinced she was nothing more than a busybody who loved gossip.
“Sal is fine. He's around here somewhere. He wandered off, I think to find soft pretzels or something. Funny, whatever he wants is always just beyond the call of the Pack of Chaos. As for everyone else flying with us, we have some new faces this time.”
That worried Gina. Anyone could be a plant. Even though she thought she had hidden her tracks well when she made friends with Florence years ago, who knew how long she’d been watched, and by whom?
“So tell me about the noobs. Are they just helping you out? Any new owners?”
“A new groomer and new handler. There’s a new-to-me breeder of Weimaraners.” As Florence went on about every passenger, Gina took mental notes. Then she excused herself, went to the bathroom, and did a quick recon on the new people, or as much of one as she could with her limited time and resources, and they all seemed to check out. She looked at their photos and didn’t recognize anyone outright. But, after her escape from the diner, The Repair Shop might hire out or borrow someone from another group. Gina had started wondering too if they trained officers away from the rest of them, just to keep in reserve for rogues like her.
Stop it. You’re only going to make yourself even more paranoid and then you’ll be jumping at shadows instead of recognizing true threats. She already felt like she was being watched at the airport, but saw no one suspicious—or anyone she knew.
Gina looked over the new groomers’ social media and discovered they were Americans traveling together who’d met on the show circuit and become friends. There were two married couples, Brits and a Canadian, all with mundane, civilian backgrounds as far as she could tell. She already knew one of the other dog breeders, a pleasant woman named Vreni who raised Dachshunds and spoke Swiss-German. The man who bred Weimaraners was German and also appeared legitimate, but one never knew.
Just look at me. She smiled ruefully.
The rest of the flight was taken up by dogs whose owners weren’t traveling with them, and that’s where Gina came in.
“Hope you got a little rest on your flight here,” Florence told her. “We’ve got our hands full between Newark and Frankfurt.”
It would be Gina’s job to help Florence and Sal watch over the other dogs, along with the Malamutes during the flight, though Florence continued to joke that Fleur could probably handle the Pack of Chaos all on her own.
One by one, the other passengers and their dogs arrived and Gina met them. Hans the Weimaraner breeder who sidled up to Gina and Vreni and couldn’t decide which of them to flirt with more—ugh!—spoke German. He was just coming back from the Beverly Hills Dog Show, which checked out online earlier. To defend herself from Hans’ flirting, Gina answered him in French with a shrug, feigning a barely passing understanding of German while Vreni giggled at her, knowing better.
By the time they boarded, Gina had completely settled into being Jenna again. She almost felt like a normal person.
A dangerous feeling. One that could get her killed.
