First Drop

You know what the first drop is. It's that moment when your roller-coaster trolley teeters, tips, and starts racing for the bottom. A scream rips the air, and you're the one who's screaming. To paraphrase Charlie Fox: Welcome to my ride. It should have been an easy one. After Special Forces training and a wee sojourn at a school for would-be killers, Charlie has a plush assignment: Baking her chilly British bones in the Florida sunshine minding a mogul's kid. But then the kid is kidnapped, the mogul-daddy disappears, Charlie's boyfriend/boss goes on radio silence, and suddenly she's up there all alone, the wind whipping as she stares into the drop, a scream rising from her chest, and all of it in a country where you can't get a decent beer.