Runner-up 4

Bonner crumpled the note and broke for the exit, then jerked to a stop, reversing toward his piled bags. He wavered for a moment, unused to indecision. “Forget the bags,” he muttered as he ran out of the terminal, bouncing off a man in loud floral-print shorts exposing pasty white legs and dodging an elderly couple towing huge wheeled suitcases.

He burst through the entrance doors into the noisy hustle of the arrivals drop-off zone. He darted across the outer traffic ring to the tune of angry honks and screeching brakes, jumping atop a bench along the road’s edge. He teetered on its curved anti-transient surface as he scanned the crowd for signs of Genie. Bonner searched for the familiar flow of strawberry-blond hair in the breeze filtering through the airport’s concrete canyon. Too many blonds here, he thought, too much plastic surgery. Searching for Genie in this crowd was like trying to find his Mercedes in the Gladstone’s parking lot.

Just then he spotted the familiar hair bouncing in the back of an Airport Hyatt shuttle van pulling from the curb. With a shout, Bonner gave chase. He dived into the street, startling bootleg taxi drivers hawking rides to the Valley. Yelling for the van to stop, he felt his lungs burn with the combined effort of screaming and running.

The van pulled to the curb in front of a family of four, the youngest wearing Mickey Mouse ears. He swung past the father, pushing into the van and stomped to the rear. She had her head down, concentrating on something in her lap. He stood in front of her and hissed, “nice trick.”

She looked up, confusion crossing her elderly face. This woman was at least 70 years old. Nice hairdresser, Bonner thought. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled as he pushed past the Disney family.

Bonner trudged back toward the terminal, checking his cellphone for texts. He figured some sort of ransom note would arrive in a few seconds. Instead, the phone rang. The display: Unlisted.

He answered the phone with a gruff, “What?”

“How’d you know it was me?” Ernesto said, laughing.

Bonner looked through the terminal windows. A phalanx of airport police and TSA inspectors had surrounded his untended bags. “Tell me something good, please. I don’t have time for anything else.”

“I’m sorry my friend, but I couldn’t deliver your package.”

Bonner stopped and closed his eyes, running his hand through his hair with a nervous pull. He spoke slowly, drawing out the words, “Tell me there’s a good reason.”

Ernesto laughed again. For a hired killer he was awfully cheerful, Bonner thought. “She’s moved out. I looked in the windows of her place -- everything’s gone.”

Kevin Grant is an insurance company executive who “dreams of telling stories, rather than listening to them.”