Page 66 of Keeping Amanda
And he was great with Rain, volunteering to take him out to do his business, and he’d even taken time off to go to the vet with her to get him checked over. They’d learned the dog was in surprisingly good condition for being a stray from the jungle. The vet guessed him to be around three years old. He was underweight, but not dangerously so, thanks to the nutritious food Amanda had been feeding him.
While Nash went to the naval base every day, Amanda spent her time researching options for upgrading her teaching certificate to include younger grades, and emailing some of the contacts she had for schools in the area about possible job openings. But it was the wrong time of year for hiring, most schools already had all the teachers they needed, which wasn’t exactly a surprise but kind of frustrating all the same. She couldn’t live off her savings forever.
That morning, Nash had woken her with his head between her legs, eating her out to a monster orgasm before grinning like a loon and casually walking toward the bathroom with a huge hard-on, which he refused to let her do anything about, saying he’d take care of it in the shower because he wanted her to getmore sleep. Now, with Nash at work, Amanda was sitting at her small kitchen table, back in front of her laptop.
Once again, she was researching the best way to get her credentials to teach younger grades…when Rain’s head suddenly came up off the dog bed that Nash had brought home one day, saying he needed something better than blankets on the floor.
The dog growled low in his throat, a sound Amanda had only heard one other time—when she and Nash were in the jungle, and Rain was trying to prevent them from going down the path that would lead to the rebels.
Surprised, she looked at Rain. He’d left his comfy bed and was now standing between her and the foyer, staring at the door and still growling.
“Rain? Come here,” Amanda said.
The dog wouldn’t budge.
The hair on the back of Amanda’s neck rose. She had no idea what Rain sensed, but it couldn’t be good if he was acting like this. She stood and hesitated, not sure what to do.
A second later, there was a loud pounding at the door.
Amanda jumped, the sound scaring the crap out of her.
Rain barked. A deep sound that startled Amanda almost as much as the knocking. She’d never heard Rain bark. Not once. The fact that he was doing it now wasn’t exactly a comfort.
“Amanda Rush? Open the door. DEA. We have a warrant.”
What the heck?! DEA? A warrant? Amanda was so confused. But the man pounding on her door obviously wasn’t going away. And she certainly had nothing to hide. She would’ve thought they had the wrong apartment altogether, except the man had specifically said her name.
She quickly hurried to the door, grabbing Rain’s leash on a hook next to where she hung her keys and purse every time she walked into the apartment. She quickly attached it to his collar and took a deep breath before unbolting and opening the door.
Three men immediately pushed inside the small foyer, forcing Amanda to take several steps back to give them room.
Rain alternated between barking and growling menacingly.
“Keep your dog under control or we’ll have to remove the threat,” one of the other men said firmly.
Shocked that this was happening, Amanda backed against the wall and kept a tight hold on Rain’s leash. Two of the men walked past her into her apartment without a second glance and the third thrust a piece of paper toward her.
“Search warrant. We’ve received a tip that there’s a large quantity of cocaine in this apartment. That it was brought into the country recently. You’ve been working and living in South America, correct?”
“Um, yeah. Guyana. But I didn’t bring any drugs back with me. I don’t do drugs,” Amanda protested.
“The information was credible, and in light of where you’ve spent the last few months, that’s why the judge approved the warrant. If there’s anything here, we’ll find it. Please step outside and let us do our job.”
Amanda was so confused and scared. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. She held the warrant in her hand as she was escorted to the door. She had no idea what her rights were in this situation. Could she say no? Could she refuse to let them look through her stuff? She had nothing to hide, but she felt violated all the same.
“Can I have my phone?” she asked, as she stood in the hallway of her apartment building, trying to ignore the way the neighbors—the few around at this time of day—were peering out of their doors, attempting to see what was going on.
“Not right now,” the agent said. He didn’t close her door, just turned his back on her without a second glance.
Looking down, Amanda was embarrassed that she was still wearing her pajamas. The oversized shirt she usually wore to bed and a pair of ratty old sweats she’d pulled on when she’d gottenup. She was decently covered, but barefoot and braless, and she felt exposed and judged by both her neighbors and the three men who thought she was some kind of drug dealer.
She was left in her hallway for over an hour as the men searched her entire apartment. Eventually, she and Rain sat on the cold concrete while waiting for the agents to finish. Rain had stopped growling and barking, but he immediately climbed into her lap when she sat down, and every muscle in his body was tense. It was more than obvious he was doing what he could to protect her. It was sweet in a sad way.
All Amanda wanted to do was call Nash, but the agents wouldn’t let her have her phone. Wouldn’t let her go back inside her apartment. She couldn’t go anywhere either, because she didn’t have her keys. She could see them hanging on the peg by her open door, but she had a feeling if she tried to grab them, she wouldn’t like the consequences.
The third man, the one who seemed to be in charge, was keeping an eye on her while also overseeing the other two agents as they worked.
Finally, they seemed to finish the search. The three men came out of her apartment. The two agents who’d been rifling through her things didn’t give her another glance as they walked past her and Rain in the hallway. The man in charge didn’t say he was sorry, didn’t explain that they hadn’t found anything, though that was obvious—she’d told him he wouldn’t, that she hadn’t brought drugs into the country when she returned. The guy simply nodded at her and left.
