WITNESS PROTECTION 02: The Baby Rescue

by Margaret Daley

  Lord, give me the patience to deal with this witness. He’s going to test what little I have.

  Again Colton proceeded toward an exit, but this time he took it at fifteen miles over the speed limit. He checked his rearview mirror. No white truck. He blew a long breath out slowly. They weren’t safe yet. In his mind he pulled up the map he’d studied and began crisscrossing his way toward the west and the airport, coming in a back way.

  His car phone rang with a call from Marshal McCall. He punched it on.

  “The police rounded up the three guys involved in the accident. They’ve been taken in for questioning. We don’t know if it was intentional or not. They say no, but then that’s to be expected. Keep your eyes alert. There could be someone else in case those three failed.”

  “Assume the worst?”

  “You’ve got it. Are you at the airport yet?” Josh asked.

  “Almost. We had to take a detour. I thought I saw the truck behind me on the highway. I guess I didn’t.”

  “Detour? Where? We’re on Highway 3 right now, nearing the exit for the airport.”

  “We’re coming in from the other side. Maybe five minutes away. Let them know at the airport.” If all goes well.

  A heavy sigh came through the connection. No doubt Josh McCall wasn’t too happy he’d changed the plans without telling him, but Colton had been busy driving in icy conditions.

  “See you at the plane.” The tightness in the St. Louis–based U.S. Marshal’s voice expressed his irritation.

  The dark gray clouds raced toward them. Rain splattered the windshield with ice increasingly pelting against the glass. Colton floored the accelerator as much as he dared, only slowing down when he had to make a turn into the airport.

  Colton kept his focus on the U.S. Marshals Service’s jet parked near a hangar and took the SUV across the fields between runways where the terrain was rough, easier to drive on with ice. He hit a hole in the ground and bounced up, thumping his head on the car’s roof. Saunders grunted and spewed a few more curses.

  The jet was only another hundred yards away. Once he got Saunders on the plane he could relax, at least until they reached Denver. Then the real work began: getting more useful information from Don Saunders. What they did with it would depend on if those three guys were after Saunders.

  Parking near the steps into the jet, Colton threw a glance over his shoulder as he saw the lead SUV heading for them. “Let’s get him inside.”

  He came around to open the back door while Parker moved across the seat and followed Saunders out of the vehicle. As Colton kept watch, Parker hurried their witness onto the jet.

  Marshal McCall and his partner, Serena Summers, exited their car and made their way over to Colton. From the body language pouring off the woman whenever she and Josh were together, Colton wondered about how well the pairing of those two marshals was going.

  His brown eyes diamond hard, Josh got in Colton’s face. “Your risky driving and going off on your own could have resulted in someone getting killed.”

  He held his ground and tapped down his anger, saying in a controlled voice, “It didn’t and it could have possibly saved our witness’s life if that was a planned accident. Sometimes we can’t stick around and ask those questions. Our witness is here and safe.” With a smile, he nodded toward Serena, a beautiful woman with long brown hair and a look of sadness in her eyes, no doubt from the death of her brother, Daniel, Josh’s partner. “Now if you’ll excuse me, we need to get out of here while we still can.”

  As Colton mounted the steps to the jet, his shoulders sagged with weariness, the adrenaline rush subsiding. And this was just the beginning of his part in the case.

  * * *

  FBI Agent Lisette Sutton entered the Supervisory U.S. Marshal Tyler Benson’s office in Denver, and two men rose. She supposed the taller one of the pair, standing in front of the oak desk must be U.S. Deputy Marshal Colton Phillips, the person she would be teamed with in this case involving child smuggling and baby brokering across state lines. She shook his hand first, then the marshal’s behind the desk.

  “I’ve been assigned to work the Saunders case with you.” From growing up in New Orleans, it had taken her years to drop the y’all from her speech. Outside of the South, she found that the word didn’t sound businesslike—too casual—and she was determined to make it in an occupation still dominated by men.

  “Have a seat, Agent Sutton. Your boss called me half an hour ago.” U.S. Marshal Benson gestured toward the chair next to her new partner.

  As she took the seat, she slid a glance toward U.S. Marshal Phillips, quickly assessing his medium-length dirty-blond hair and strong profile. He swung his gaze toward her and locked on to hers. His startlingly blue eyes fringed in long lashes caught hold of her, and for a moment she couldn’t look away. His eyes were intense. Focused. Assessing her as she had him. Her stomach fluttered. Slowly one corner of his mouth tilted up, and he glanced away. Surprised by her momentary reaction to Colton, Lisette centered her full concentration on Benson, resolved not to let anything or anyone divert her from the job to be done.

  “From what Don Saunders has given us so far, we’re dealing with a black-market baby adoption ring that covers a good part of the United States, possibly even other countries.” Benson shuffled a couple of folders until he found the one he wanted and opened it.

  That was the reason she would be working with the marshals’ team guarding Saunders. If what the man said was true, all kinds of federal laws have been broken. But the reason she’d pleaded with her superior to be assigned to the case was the fact it involved children, her specialty.

  Benson cleared his throat. “Now that Saunders is here in Denver and settled into a safe house, we need more. He has additional information he’s promised the marshals in St. Louis once he was out of the area. That office went to a great deal of trouble to make it look like Saunders escaped the police so Saunders could maintain his ties with the organization. He insisted on coming to Denver because of some contact he has here. He told them he has a good reason and would tell us when he safely arrives. He has arrived. Time to question the man, and if he’s bluffing, call him on it if he wants to remain in WitSec.”

  “I heard from my boss there was an incident yesterday in St. Louis. What happened? Will that affect his usefulness within the organization?” Shifting toward Colton, Lisette peered at him, wiping any kind of expression from her face. She’d learned to shut down her emotions. She couldn’t make a mistake like her mother, a former FBI agent, had. Emotions could get in Lisette’s way of doing the best job possible. Her mom had been accused of taking dirty money from a crime scene and then later not backing up her partner. When she’d tried to talk to her mother right after it happened, she wouldn’t say much at all, leaving Lisette to think the worst—her mom had betrayed her partner and the FBI.

  “A couple of guys interrupted our transport to the airport. I talked with Marshal McCall in St. Louis this morning. They have interrogated the three men involved in the wreck and run background checks. There doesn’t appear to be any connection to the criminal elements in St. Louis. The marshals are digging deeper to make sure the trio is exactly what they claim to be. We have to assume at this time they are what they say and proceed forward if we’re going to use Saunders’s contact in Denver.”

  “Who are the people involved in the wreck?” Lisette kept her gaze trained on the cleft in Colton’s chin, chancing only an occasional glance at his eyes, which were a beautiful sky-blue—attention grabbing. I never call a man’s eyes “attention grabbing.” What in the world is going on here?

  Colton zeroed in on her. “The two in the white truck are ranchers who were in St. Louis yesterday on business. The guy in the Mustang works at a hospital and was late for his shift.”

  “Or so they say. With enough money and expertise a background and identity can be built. You all do it all the time.” Lisette lifted her gaze to his, as intense and direct as he was. She could play this gam
e—she could see he was trying to exert his dominance over her early on in their partnership.

  “We had him at a safe house in St. Louis—not the U.S. Marshals’ office. A limited amount of people knew about him even within the U.S. Marshals Service, so it’s not likely he was compromised.”

  “Could Don Saunders have orchestrated an escape somehow?”

  “Again not likely. It’s not as if he had access to a phone at the safe house or as if he ever left the place. The only time he made calls was to support the story that he got away. Those calls were monitored.”

  “Cell phones are small and can be concealed,” Lisette said, aware that suddenly it was as if she and Colton were the only two in the office, that his supervisor was a bystander following their conversation. “If he wasn’t kept in a jail cell, he had some freedom at the house. I doubt they had eyes on him twenty-four hours a day.”

  Colton shifted toward her, his large hands clasping the arms of the chair. “I was one of his guards that last day in St. Louis. He was thoroughly checked for a cell. I’ve been doing this for years. I know my job.” A grin flirted with the corners of his mouth for a few seconds before becoming full-fledged.

  “But if he has been compromised in any way, our chance to find out more about this organization and catch the others involved will vanish. A smuggling ring like this can’t exist. Children are involved.” She hadn’t meant for the last sentence to come out so vehemently, but she’d never forget her first case with the FBI—a child abduction that didn’t end well. It left a mark on her that she’d never be able to erase, especially since her younger sister had died of SIDS when Lisette was a child. There had been a time she’d wanted a family—children. Now she found that focusing entirely on her career was safer for her emotionally. It was too hard for her to depend on others who could let her down.

  Dead seriousness replaced his smile. Colton sat forward, closer to her. “I know exactly what’s at stake with this case.”

  He snared her attention as though trying to read her mind. Silence ruled. Tension charged the air. Her voice had given her away. Had she revealed something else in her expression?

  Marshal Benson coughed. “You have a drive ahead of you. Hash it out in the car. We’re lead on this case, Agent Sutton, but we value the FBI’s input.”

  In other words, Marshal Colton Phillips would run the show. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t make her views known. She had six years of experience in the FBI, and before that, she’d been a police officer. “Who is Saunders’s contact in Denver? And is this going to help us?” Lisette dragged her gaze from Colton and directed her question to his boss.

  Before the man could open his mouth, Colton answered, “That’s what we’re going to the safe house to find out.” He stood. “I’ll bring the car around front.”

  He left his supervisor’s office without a backward glance toward Lisette. The atmosphere defused with his departure.

  She’d heard Colton was a maverick who often got results by acting and thinking outside the box. She had serious misgivings about working with someone like that. She’d even considered asking her superior to assign another FBI agent when she’d heard who her partner would be. But she couldn’t walk away, not when children were involved. That overrode all misgivings she had about her partner for this case. Which left her working with the type of law enforcement officer she tried to steer clear of. Her mother had been like that, doing whatever it took to get the job done, and she’d ended up discredited. She resigned from the FBI not long after Lisette had graduated from the FBI Academy at Quantico. It was not a stellar way to start her career—the daughter of a disgraced agent who hadn’t backed up her partner and had been suspected of taking money from a crime scene.

  She stiffened her spine. She would make the best of a bad situation and rise above any shortcoming Colton Phillips might have. Then she remembered something else she’d heard about the man: he got results so the U.S. Marshals Service tolerated him.

  She wanted to be more than just tolerated. She wanted to prove not all Suttons were the same. She wasn’t anything like her mother.

  “Agent Sutton, Marshal Phillips is a bit unorthodox, but he does get the job done. After you two get the rest of the information from Saunders, we can then decide the best way to proceed. My children are teenagers, but it wasn’t that long ago they were babies. One crime that bothers me more than anything is one against a child. We need to get the people behind this ring.”

  Lisette rose, gripping the straps of her purse. “I totally agree. If Saunders has any info, we’ll get it out of him.”

  Marshal Benson pushed to his feet and stretched his arm across the desk. “We don’t have a lot of time to play with here. According to Saunders, something is going down soon.”

  Lisette shook his hand. “I understand. Good day.”

  She took the stairs to the first floor and exited the building, scanning the cars for Colton. A honk sounded in the early morning, drawing her attention. The man climbed from a black Firebird—obviously not a U.S. Marshals Service’s vehicle. The highly polished car gleamed in the sunlight.

  She approached him. “I’m surprised this Firebird isn’t red.”

  “I thought about that, but I didn’t want to be too obvious. I’ve got to blend into traffic sometimes.” He started to round the front. “Let’s go.”

  She watched him. “You want me to drive?”

  A look of horror momentarily graced his face, then his expression evened out. “No way anyone else gets behind the wheel of my car.” He opened the passenger door. “I was being a gentleman.”

  A flush seared her cheeks, and she stared at him over the top of the Firebird. “I’ll follow you in my car.”

  “What is it?”

  “A navy blue Ford SUV.” She gestured toward where it was parked in the lot nearby.

  He chuckled. “That screams ‘federal agent.’ No, we’ll use my car.”

  For a long moment she drilled her gaze into him. He didn’t waver but returned her stare. Then she heaved a sigh and skirted the rear to the Firebird. “And your car screams ‘I want to drag race.’”

  “I haven’t tried that. Maybe I’ll take up that sport someday.”

  She slid into the passenger seat, aware of the close interior in the Firebird. She should have insisted on driving them in her SUV, or at the very least following him.

  He still held the door. She reached to close it, but he shut it instead. Then he grinned at her and came around to his side, his movements economical and fluid. He caught her staring out the windshield at him and gave her another cocky grin.

  She refused to look away.

  He settled behind the wheel and started the engine. “I promise you that before this assignment is over, I will show you what this baby can do.”

  A male and his car. She rolled her eyes and peered out her side window. She’d been excited about the new assignment. It had the potential to prove to her superiors she wasn’t anything like her mother, but now she was having major doubts about her partner. This was going to be a long assignment.

  TWO

  Before putting the Firebird into Drive, Colton twisted toward Agent Lisette Sutton. “We need to get a few things straight right from the start.” He waited until she turned her head toward him, not one emotion visible on her face. He didn’t say anything for a long moment, curious to see what she would do. He hadn’t wanted to team up with an FBI agent, especially one he knew nothing about.

  One of her eyebrows arched. “We’re in a no-parking zone.”

  “I think it would be safer to talk about this without driving. The conversation needs our full attention.”

  She released a long breath. “Then tell me before I grow old.”

  “You and I may not perform our duties the same way, but in this case I am the lead. I just wanted to make sure you heard fully what my boss said about this being under the U.S. Marshals Service’s jurisdiction.”

  “My hearing is perfectly fine.” Lisette Su
tton fiddled with her glasses.

  “Then I have the final say in how we operate. I have been a marshal for ten years with a high success rate. I know what to do.”

  “I heard you the first time in Marshal Benson’s office,” she said with little inflection in her voice, her expression neutral.

  “Good, then there should be no problems between us.”

  “For your information, I won’t blindly follow anyone’s order.” She looked him squarely in the eye, anger piercing through him. “There are rules and procedures in place for a reason.”

  Colton’s gut hardened as though preparing for a punch while his hands balled. “What have you heard about me?”

  “I work with an FBI agent who was assigned to Miami at the same time you were. He told me you went into a house without a search warrant, jeopardizing the case.”

  “But I saved the witness. There wasn’t any time to get a warrant. When it comes to people I’m protecting, I do what I must to keep them alive. That is my primary duty.” He threw the car into Drive and pulled out into the traffic.

  His tight grip around the steering wheel made his hands ache after ten minutes. He loosened his hold. He’d had to grab the witness in the case she’d referred to because of a mess-up with the FBI. The agent for the Bureau had taken an eye off the witness, and he’d escaped because he was scared testifying put him in jeopardy. Colton wondered if she knew the whole story: that the agent responsible had lost his job over the mistake. In Lisette Sutton’s point of view Colton had to prove himself, but as far as Colton was concerned, she had to prove herself to him. He trusted no one, and especially not an officer who was inflexible. He’d learned that inflexibility could get a person killed.

  The atmosphere in his car could freeze a person faster than a Nor’easter in the dead of winter. Colton kept his gaze trained on his surroundings but occasionally found himself slanting a look toward his partner. Lisette Sutton sat ramrod straight in the passenger seat, her head held high, emphasizing her long, slender neck. Her mouth set in a firm line disguised the fullness of her lips—not that he’d dwelled on that in his supervisor’s office or when he’d shared his opinion in the car earlier. But he had to admit her sea green eyes had drawn his attention over and over, even though they were hidden behind those brown-framed glasses she kept fidgeting with. This FBI agent was all business. Her bearing, right down to her blond hair, a deep golden shade, pulled back into a tight bun, shouted that fact to the world. Even her outfit—black pants with a matching suit coat and a plain white blouse—supported that impression.