“How’s it coming getting these lights on?” Colton spoke into his comlink.
“It shouldn’t be long,” Janice said. “The good news is I don’t think Saunders could have done it. At least not personally. The control box isn’t near.”
He didn’t trust Saunders one bit, but the deal the government had made with the criminal was a good one. Could someone in Saunders’s organization know about Saunders being in WitSec and recognized he was being watched?
“Where are you guys?” blasted through Colton’s earpiece.
He didn’t have a means to answer Saunders as the man only wore a listening device. But Colton wanted to shout, “Tell us where you are.” From what he’d read about Saunders and seen over the past few days, the man’s intelligence wasn’t in the genius level.
“I can’t find anyone in this mess,” the annoying voice whined.
“Lisette, you hearing this?” Moving, Colton panned the faces of the people around him.
“Yes, but I’m almost to the back and I haven’t seen him.”
“Maybe he’ll make it to an exit. They’re all covered, so he can’t get out without being spotted.”
A few curse words came through Colton’s earpiece, and he wanted to yank it out. But he didn’t.
“Quit stepping on my toes,” Saunders yelled.
Suddenly a couple of yards to the right, the crowd pushed back. Shouts and sounds of fists hitting flesh came through the earpiece. Colton rushed toward the commotion, shoving his way through the people fleeing away. A ring of spectators circled two men fighting—one Saunders.
“Found him,” Colton said into his comlink, then dove into the melee, straight for Saunders, who had pinned a man to the floor and continued to pummel him. Colton grabbed Saunders’s arm and jerked him upright. “Lisette, I need help in the northeast corner of the ballroom. Everyone else stay where you are.”
The guy on the floor scrambled to his feet, swiping his hand across his face to wipe the blood away, smearing his white clown paint. “You’re going to pay for this.” He balled his hands and charged Colton, standing between him and Saunders. Colton backed away, but the enraged guest barreled into him. “You can’t protect him. He started it.”
Colton held the clown by the shoulders, getting into his face, while the angry combatant tried to skirt around Colton to get at Saunders.
“You stepped on my foot,” Saunders shouted behind Colton. “You might have broken my toe.”
“I did not. It was an accident.” The man’s breath reeked of alcohol. His face reddened where the white paint was gone. Colton suspected his blood pressure was sky-high.
Lisette parted the crowd and appeared at Colton’s side. He glanced sideways and mouthed the words, “Help me.”
She edged even closer, wedging her way between him and the man he held. “Can I help you? You’re bleeding.” Lifting a cloth napkin toward his face, Lisette smiled at the injured clown. “Come with me. I’ll take care of you.” Her voice held a lilting Southern drawl.
Colton pivoted toward his charge and gripped his arm, tugging him toward the wall. “What were you thinking, calling attention to yourself?”
“Protecting myself. Where were you?” Saunders glared at him. “I’m probably gonna have a black eye from his punch.”
Colton had no compassion for Saunders. He made alienating others an art form. “I have a feeling the man you were hitting will have more than that.” Dragging a chair to his witness, he continued, “Sit and don’t move.” Standing next to Saunders, Colton searched the area to see where Lisette went with the other guy.
* * *
“This isn’t as bad as I thought it would be.” Lisette dipped the end of the napkin in a glass of water and dabbed it against the clown’s face, painted white except around his nostrils. “You lost your nose.”
“That was the first thing to go,” the man grumbled. “I ought to sue him.”
“For a missing clown nose?” Lisette grinned while slanting a look toward Colton and Saunders. She continued wiping at the clown’s white makeup, trying to get a better picture of the man.
“I’m going to owe the costume shop for it.” He clasped her hand. “I’m going to the bathroom and take care of the rest of this mess. Thanks for your help.”
She gave him the wet napkin, then reached up to his red wig. “It’s askew. Let me fix it?”
“Lady, it’s fine.” He drew back; his dark eyes, outlined in black and red paint, widened. “I’m fine.” Then he stomped off in those big shoes he wore.
The lights came on in the ballroom, revealing half of the attendees gone and the other half still trying to leave. Lisette glanced around her, seeing Quinn at the door nearest her. She nodded at him, then strode to Colton and Saunders. “Tell me the hand-off went down.”
“Of course. When the lights went out, I got turned around. I don’t have no cell phone like the others.” Saunders rose. “Looks like the party is over an hour early.”
Colton scanned the area around them. “It is for us. We’re leaving. Make your way to the far right door, then keep walking back the way you came into the hotel.”
One of Saunders’s bushy eyebrows lifted. “Alone?”
“Oh, you’ll never be alone. We’ll be there.”
As Saunders strolled toward the exit, Colton put his arm around Lisette. His touch surprised her.
“In case anyone is watching. We’re a couple concerned by the fight.” He began leisurely sauntering in the same direction as Saunders. “What did you think about the clown? Did you find out anything about who he is?”
“No, in fact, when I started wiping his face, he took over and said he would take care of it in the restroom.”
“Wouldn’t hurt to check the one nearest the ballroom. Maybe I can get a better glimpse of him.”
“Do you suspect him of something?”
“I suspect everyone in this room.”
“Even me?” Lisette tried to tamp down the feelings he generated by his close proximity. She wasn’t succeeding. Her heartbeat increased, and for a few seconds she had a hard time focusing on the mission at hand.
“Should I?”
“The U.S. Marshals Service approached the FBI, not the other way around.”
“Then I don’t,” he said with a laugh.
She wanted to punch him in the arm.
At the exit he stepped away from the people still leaving the ballroom and turned his back to them, then a minute later he returned. “I let the team know we would be along after I check the men’s restroom. Quinn said a disheveled clown rushed out the door he was guarding and disappeared in the crowd heading toward the north entrance to the hotel. There’s a restroom near there.”
While Colton ducked inside the bathroom, Lisette stood guard, watching everyone passing her. What happened to the woman Saunders was dancing with when the lights went out? She remembered what she looked like. The lady dressed as Little Bo Peep wore a thin black mask that didn’t conceal her face as much as some of the others in the ballroom.
When Colton returned from the bathroom, he shook his head, a frown marring his features.
“Maybe he went home instead.”
“Yeah, maybe. But there were five minutes Saunders was out of sight. A lot can happen in five minutes.” Colton slipped his arm around her waist and started for the south entrance.
“But he didn’t try to escape.”
“True. But we’re going to get the surveillance camera footage from the hotel and see about identifying the people who attended.”
“Three hundred? What do you think happened?”
“I don’t trust Saunders. I want to cover everything in case something goes wrong later. Too many things happened tonight to be pure coincidence.”
“And we should look more closely at who the waiter, the clown and Little Bo Peep were. See if we can identify them. They had physical contact with Saunders toward the end.”
“First we need to get him back to the cabin safely. We�
�ll follow Janice and Neil and have a little chat with Saunders. Then we’ll come back to the hotel. I want to check footage not only of the hotel but the parking lots.”
“Leave it to Saunders to make us put in a long night. That man is not cooperative.”
“It’s people like him that make me question staying a U.S. Marshal.” Colton increased their pace toward the parking lot where the rest of the team was waiting with Saunders.
“But if we can take down a child-smuggling ring these long nights will be worth it.”
As they left the building, Colton dropped his arm from her waist. Lisette surveyed the lot where the team had parked their various cars around the one Janice and Neil had brought Saunders in. Over half the cars were gone. Couples walked toward their vehicles. She searched among the crowd for any sign of the woman Saunders had danced with, the waiter who had bumped into him or the clown. No sign of any of them.
The velvet coat that matched the costume she wore wasn’t warm enough. A cold wind blew from the north and burrowed deep into her bones. There was a chance for snow. But she didn’t think that was the reason for the chill. Something went wrong tonight, and she didn’t know the full scope of it. She hated loose ends. That was one of the reasons she’d become an FBI agent in the first place.
* * *
At the cabin Colton parked behind the car Neil had driven to the masquerade ball and watched as the marshals escorted Saunders inside. Before talking with the man, Colton needed to compose himself and not let Saunders rile him. That wasn’t always easy. The guy had a talent for getting under a person’s skin.
Lord, give me the patience to deal with this man. I know I don’t always have it, but I’m being played. I just know it. What do I do?
“Are you okay?” Lisette asked, her husky voice penetrating the anger beginning to build toward Saunders. He angled his head toward her. The soft light from her open car door revealed worry lines knitting her forehead.
His anger dissipated. “I was just thinking about our witness. It’ll be nice when we don’t have to deal with him anymore.”
“So Saunders isn’t going to be your new best friend?”
“Not even if I was desperate.”
Lisette laughed. “I’m with you on that one.”
The light musical sound caused his stiff muscles to relax. His hands slipped from the steering wheel he’d been gripping like a vise. “Let’s get this interview over with. We still have a lot to do tonight.”
After placing a call to the team in the cabin, Colton climbed from his car. A light snow began to fall. He felt ridiculous dressed as Romeo. The wind sliced through him. With the tights, he might as well be in shorts. Good thing he’d thought to bring a change of clothes. He grabbed his duffel from the backseat and hurried toward the cabin.
At the door Lisette peered at his bag. “An extra set of clothes?”
Nodding, he knocked on the door. “You look great in your gown. My costume stands out like a neon light in the pitch-black of night.”
A faint blush stained her cheeks. From the cold? Or his compliment? She made a point of playing down her beauty. Was she uncomfortable with it? Why?
Those questions fled Colton’s mind when he stepped into the toasty warm cabin and faced Saunders. Frowning. Did the man have another expression?
Their witness paced in front of the gas fireplace. “My one night of freedom—something more interesting than a solitaire game—and the evening was cut short.”
“This place beats being in prison,” Neil grumbled, then went into the kitchen and plugged in the coffee.
“So you weren’t happy with the lights going out?” Colton dropped his duffel bag on the floor and covered the space between him and Saunders.
“Why would I be? I had my arms around a beautiful woman, enjoying her company.”
“She wasn’t your contact?” Lisette sat on the couch, crossing her legs and lounging back as though she didn’t have a care in the world.
But if she was anything like him, Colton imagined she was tied up in knots, trying to figure out what really went down tonight. “If she wasn’t, who was?”
“She wasn’t. At least, I don’t think so. She was the pleasure part of this evening.” Saunders plopped into a chair close to the fireplace. “I’m not sure when the message was passed to me. Frankly, I thought it hadn’t been until I put my hand in my pocket as I was trying to find my way out of the ballroom in the dark.”
“So you have no idea who did? The waiter who bumped into you? The man who fought with you? Little Bo Peep?” Suspicious of anything that came out of Saunders’s mouth, Colton took a seat on the couch next to Lisette. The scent of coffee perking saturated the small cabin. He would need a lot to stay up this evening and then drive back to the hotel.
“What part of ‘I don’t know’ do you not understand?” Saunders dug into his front pocket and withdrew a wad of paper. “I was gonna read it when I got to the lobby.”
“That’s okay. I’ll take it.” Colton leaned forward with his palm out.
“I can’t read it?”
“No need to.”
Saunders’s eyes narrowed to slits as he dropped the crumpled paper into Colton’s hand. “The least you could do is read it out loud. You wouldn’t have it if I hadn’t come to you with the information.”
Neil barked a laugh and spilled the coffee in one of the mugs he was bringing to the trio in front of the hearth. “I think you’ve got it wrong. Remember when you were captured at the warehouse?” After handing Lisette her drink, he went back to the kitchen to get a rag to wipe up the mess.
With his usual glare, Saunders raised his chin. “Still, I’m the reason you have this lead. Remember that when you’re looking down your nose at me.”
Colton spread out the note, scooting closer to Lisette for her to read it, too. Ignoring Saunders’s disgruntled look, Colton swung his attention to her. “What do you think?” He hoped she’d understand his reference to where the baby exchange would take place.
“Not the best place.”
“Where? Since I’m gonna be the person to pick the baby up, I think I should know. Who am I gonna tell?”
Colton shifted his gaze to Saunders. “Who said you would be involved?”
“Well, hello, because they’re expecting me. You don’t think the powers-that-be haven’t given the courier a picture of the person he is to hand the child off to?”
“He does have a point,” Lisette said in a strained voice, “although I hate the idea of him holding any child.”
“Me? I have nephews, and I’m great with them.”
Lisette leaned close to Colton and murmured, “Poor boys.”
He got a whiff of a light flowery fragrance that reminded him of a field of wildflowers growing not far from his extended-stay hotel. When he jogged, he could smell their scent as he went by.
“Where do we pick up the baby?” Saunders asked, surging to his feet. “I have a right to know.”
“Your rights don’t involve this. You’ll be informed when you need to know the day of the exchange.” Colton rose and met Janice halfway to grab the mug she brought him.
“When?” Saunders said in a demanding voice.
“I’ll tell you if you tell me what you did when the lights went out.”
“I tried to find you. What else was I gonna do? Escape? You had guys on all the exits. Besides, my best chance is to get a clean start somewhere I can’t be found. Otherwise, I’m dead. That’s a good motive to make sure this all works.”
“You would think.” Colton sipped the hot drink.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You haven’t answered my question. Right before the lights went out, you disappeared.”
Saunders’s face slowly became red, and he made fists at his sides. “My mama didn’t raise no dummy. I didn’t disappear. You did. I swung the lady around and looked toward where you had been and you were all gone. You haven’t been listening to me. I couldn’t leave if I wanted
to. And I didn’t.” He began pacing in front of the fireplace, opening and closing his hands. “I’m putting my life on the line to get what you need. I deserve some respect.”
Colton let him stew for a long moment. There wasn’t any reason not to tell Saunders about what was on the paper other than to see how he reacted. Saunders might slip and give him an idea of what was going on. “The baby comes in the day after tomorrow in the morning. No flight number. Just a time for you to meet the person in the baggage claim area.”
“How do I know who it is?”
“He’ll―or for that matter she’ll―know who you are and approach you with the child and will say, ‘Do you know a good hotel nearby?’ You’ll say, ‘Any of them are good.’ Before the courier will hand over the baby, he’ll ask you what the code sentence is.”
“What is it, or are you gonna keep me in the dark about it?”
“‘Jackson wishes you a happy birthday.’”
“Who in the world thought up this stuff?”
Colton gritted his teeth. The whine in Saunders’s voice screeched against his nerves. “You’ll have to take that up with Jackson. After all that, the exchange will take place.”
Saunders paused, a scowl making his thick eyebrows scrunch together. “Where?”
Colton shrugged. “We’ll have to wait and see.” The drill of Lisette’s gaze pierced through him.
“If it’s gonna work, the courier can’t be picked up. Otherwise, Jackson will find out. And it can’t look like half the people in the area are cops.” Saunders prowled from one end of the living room to the other. “Does it say where I’ll take the baby?”
“Nope. I’m assuming the courier will tell you that.” Colton took another swallow of his coffee while Janice sat at the computer checking the camera shots.
“Snow is coming down.” Janice swiveled around in her chair. “You two should head back into town. If our guest remembers anything else, I’ll let you know.”
“Not tonight. I’m going to bed.” Saunders headed across the room to the hallway. “I’ve got a headache.”
When his bedroom door clicked shut, Lisette rose, the same intense expression on her face. “Does he have to be involved in the exchange? Look what happened tonight. He’s up to no good.”
WITNESS PROTECTION 02: The Baby Rescue Page 5