“How are you going to make contact with the courier at the party? I imagine there will be hundreds in attendance.” Colton leaned back against the counter again. “It’s a big charity event for children.” Her partner choked out the last word, a frown descending on his face.
Lisette didn’t blame him. The irony of this whole situation struck her.
“I’m not to wear a mask. He’ll recognize me and approach me. Jackson has given the contact a picture of me.”
“How interesting―you have made yourself indispensable if we want to catch a higher-up in the ring.” Sarcasm dripped from Colton’s voice.
While Lisette felt the same as Colton, her brief look conveying that to the marshal, she had to be the “good” cop in this scenario. “So you’ll be turning over this middleman you report to in exchange for the deal?”
Saunders nodded. “And don’t forget the baby who won’t become part of the smuggling operation. You didn’t really know what was going on until I decided to talk in St. Louis. All that has to be worth something. Even the fact that the organization has several levels. I’m at the bottom of the rung. It’s a start you didn’t have before me.”
Colton pulled back the chair and sat between her and Saunders at the kitchen table. “Tell you what. We’ll go along for the time being. But if you don’t deliver at least the middleman and the baby, then the bargain is off.”
Lisette wasn’t sure Colton had that kind of authority, but by his no-nonsense tone and fierce, determined stare, it would be foolish on Saunders’s part not to snatch up the deal.
“Sure. Sure. You’ll be the hero getting this information. Jackson has dealings with the higher-ups.” Saunders put his hands on the top of the table and began to push up, saying, “Well, if you two don’t need me, I’m taking a nap.”
Colton clasped Saunders’s lower arm. “Don’t play me. You don’t want to rile me.” His look emphasized the threat behind his words.
Saunders peered at Colton as though trying to gauge his intent and then grinned. “I hear you. I’m no fool. I know that I have no other choice.”
Colton released his grasp, and Saunders scurried toward the bedroom like the rat he was.
“You’re positive he can’t fit through the window?” Lisette asked when their witness disappeared from view.
“Yes. But even if he tried, when he opened the window, an alarm would go off. We’d know and go outside and wait for him to become stuck.”
“At least we’ll know where he is at all times.”
He chuckled “Might be a bit chilly, especially at night, and then there are the bears that might be curious.”
“I thought they hibernated in the winter.”
“They have been sighted from time to time.”
“What do you know about Don Saunders?”
“I’d think of him like I would a rattlesnake. Deadly. He’ll make a lot of racket to ward us off, but when push comes to shove, he’ll strike without a second thought to save himself.”
“I have a feeling you don’t trust easily.” Lisette rose, needing to pace—do something. This wasn’t the part of the job she liked—sitting around and waiting.
“No. People usually end up disappointing me. But then I guess that goes with the line of work we’re in. How about you?”
“I have to agree with you. I’ve been burned, which makes me hesitate to trust others.” Especially when the people in question were her mother and a fellow FBI agent she thought she was in love with until the drama concerning her mom made Lisette a pariah within the Bureau.
“You know, I should have taken exception to what you said to Saunders, that you wanted a reason not to go along with me. What part of our conversation in the car did you need me to go over? The part where I’m the lead on this team?”
She moved toward the window that afforded a view out the front of the cabin. The other two windows in the living room flanked the fireplace and looked out the back. “I thought I would be the good cop and get him to think I was on his side.” She swept around to face him, only a few feet from her. When had he moved? Why hadn’t she heard him? As he continued toward her, her throat went dry. “It worked. If he can deliver what he says, it’ll get us closer to who is behind this smuggling ring.”
He paused an arm’s length away. “There is more than one person at the top. That’s the first I heard of that. He didn’t say anything about that to the St. Louis marshals.”
“See what happens when he’s rattled.” Lisette thought of moving back, giving herself some space, except that the window was there. The dryness spread from her throat to her mouth. Energy pulsated from Colton, reaching out and wrapping around Lisette. She sidestepped and put some distance between them.
“That’s why I did what I did. I never do something without a reason.”
“So you aren’t impulsive?”
“Being impulsive can get you killed. You have to be constantly thinking ahead and making plans how to act or react. You always have to have a backup plan or two.”
“Is that what happened on the way to the airport yesterday?”
He nodded. His gleaming eyes fixed on her, and he quirked a grin. “We did make a good team with Saunders.”
The word team resounded through her thoughts. From what she’d read about Colton, he wasn’t exactly a team player. She hoped he didn’t blow this case. She needed to make a good impression with her new boss. Denver was the first time she’d been assigned to a larger office. For six years she’d been relegated to some of the worst assignments in the FBI, even though she’d been one of the top in her class at the FBI Academy. No one had said anything, but she knew it was because her mother had to resign from the Bureau. Lisette would have to work twice as hard as others to prove her worth as an agent.
She pinned him with her regard. “Communication is the key to a good team.” Remember that before you mess up my chance at a better job in the FBI.
* * *
Colton finished his walk-through at the hotel where the charity masquerade ball was being held. The place was as secured as it could be with three hundred guests attending the party. Not a bad choice for a rendezvous to pass along information in an illegal activity. Most guests would be masked and the ballroom filled to capacity. It would be easy for Saunders to get lost in the crowd and slip away unnoticed if he and his team weren’t vigilant.
Marshal Quinn Parker approached, dressed in a joker costume. “Who in the world picked out this for me to wear?” He waved his hand down his length.
“You can blame it on Melissa. Is there a reason she would choose you to wear the joker outfit?” Colton imagined his boss’s secretary having a good laugh over what she picked out for them.
Parker laughed. “Have you looked at yourself lately? The only time I see a man wear tights is at a ballet.”
“You go to the ballet?”
Parker narrowed his eyes. “My wife drags me. Who are you supposed to be?”
Colton donned his velvet hat like the ones worn in the fifteenth century and bowed at the waist. “Romeo, at your service.”
“Where’s your Juliet?”
Colton looked behind Parker at the woman coming toward them. Lisette wore a dress that would be from the same time period as his costume. She moved gracefully in a long crimson gown with an elaborate beaded and jeweled bodice cut with a square neckline. Although what she had on was elegant, what caught Colton’s attention was Lisette’s long flowing golden curls hanging below her shoulders, and her eyes, accented