Alex felt the first real unease settle under his ribs.
Karen lowered her voice. “Alex, do you believe your dog?”
It should have been an easy question. On any other day, it would have been.
Alex looked at Claire Bennett, at the way she was trying not to cry in front of strangers, at the boarding pass crushed in her hand. Then he looked at Ranger, who had never once held a false alert out of stubbornness or drama.
“Yes,” Alex said. “But I don’t think he’s telling us what we think he’s telling us.”
Karen’s expression tightened, not with annoyance now, but attention. She nodded toward Mia. “Private room. Keep it calm. Nate, clear the lane.”
An airport police officer named Nate Price stepped in from the far side and began moving passengers back with a firm but quiet voice. Mia offered Claire her hand, not touching her until Claire gave the smallest nod. Alex kept Ranger several feet away, but the dog tried to follow the moment Claire moved.
“Ranger, heel,” Alex ordered.
The dog obeyed for three steps. Then he looked at Claire again and gave a sharp, desperate bark that made her shoulders jerk.
“Please,” Claire said, her voice breaking as Mia guided her toward the side corridor. “Please don’t let him near me.”
“I won’t,” Alex said.
He meant it. At the same time, he knew he was already breaking something else: her sense that the world was safe enough to walk through without being treated like a threat.
The private screening room was built to be neutral and somehow failed at it. Beige walls, gray floor, metal table, two plastic chairs, a wall clock that clicked too loudly in the spaces between voices. Rain tapped against a narrow window near the ceiling, though from inside the room no one could see the runway, only a strip of wet glass and the dull color of late afternoon.
Mia helped Claire into the chair closest to the door. “Do you want some water?”
Claire nodded, then shook her head before Mia could turn. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be difficult.”
“You’re not being difficult,” Mia said.
Alex stayed just outside with Ranger. The door remained open, but he kept the dog back with his body and the lead wrapped once around his hand. Ranger stood with both front paws planted, watching Claire with a focus that made Alex’s skin prickle. Every few seconds, his nose lifted and tested the air.
Nate set Claire’s tote on the table. “We’re going to check your belongings first.”
“Fine,” Claire said. “There’s nothing in there.”
There was not. Mia worked carefully, narrating every movement before she made it. Wallet. Phone. A pack of tissues. Peppermints. A paperback with a drugstore receipt tucked into the pages. A bottle of prenatal vitamins. A folded cardigan. A small plastic bag with crackers, a lip balm, and a pair of baby socks so tiny they looked more like something made for a doll.
The last thing Mia took out was an ultrasound photo in a clear sleeve.
Claire reached for it immediately. “Sorry. Can I—”
Mia handed it to her.
Claire pressed the photo against her chest for a second, embarrassed by the instinct after it had already happened. “My sister wanted me to bring the latest one. She’s ridiculous about baby pictures, and he’s not even here yet.”
“He?” Mia asked.
Claire gave the faintest smile. It disappeared almost at once. “A boy.”
Ranger whined again from the hallway.
Claire’s face changed. She leaned back in the chair and put both hands over her stomach. “Can you close the door?”
Alex did not wait for Mia to ask. He pulled Ranger farther down the hallway, enough that Claire could not see him, though the dog resisted every inch.
Karen appeared beside Alex. “Anything?”
“Nothing in the bag,” he said. “He’s still on her.”
“He’s trained for explosives, not people.”
“I know.”
Karen studied the dog. Ranger was breathing fast now, not panting from exertion but from strain, the way he did when he was being asked to hold back from work he believed needed doing. Alex had seen him that way only once before, during a training exercise when a handler had hidden a scent source incorrectly and everyone else insisted the dog was wrong. Ranger had stood his ground until the trainer finally checked the room again.