WITNESS PROTECTION 02: The Baby Rescue

by Margaret Daley

  “That’s clear.” Colton finished the last few sips of his drink, then put the mug on the counter in the kitchen. “But what? He’s been in our custody from the time he was apprehended at the warehouse.”

  “Not on lockdown. He did get a call before he told you all he wanted to make a deal. Who did he call?” Janice asked.

  “From what the marshals said, his lawyer was in court so he decided not to leave a message. At first, he wanted to talk directly to his lawyer, then when he decided to cooperate with us, he thought it best no one knew where he was, even his lawyer.” Lisette twirled strands of her hair around her finger.

  Was that another sign she was upset, when she didn’t have her glasses to fidget with? “I see you’ve been reading Saunders’s file. We’ll talk about it on the way to the hotel.” A grin tilted Colton’s mouth. “I’d rather these two be snowed in with Saunders than all four of us. I’m afraid it could get ugly if there were five of us in this small cabin.”

  Laughter burst from Janice. “I see you’re not sending Neil and me home.”

  “We’re not going home just yet. We’re checking out what happened at the hotel first.”

  “I still think we got the short end of the straw,” Neil grumbled as he followed Lisette and Colton to the door.

  “We’ll be back tomorrow morning to relieve you unless it’s a blizzard. What snow I’ve seen won’t stop me. Remember I grew up in Alaska. I’m used to worse.” Colton stepped out into the wind, which whipped against him with small flakes falling fast enough to cover his car.

  As they hiked the short distance to the Firebird, Lisette said, “I grew up in New Orleans. Until I moved here, I had no idea how deep snow can get. This winter I’m finally getting used to it. That’s one reason I have my SUV. The four-wheel drive is great.”

  Colton slid behind the steering wheel and started the engine. “I know Saunders isn’t to be trusted. We’ll put protocol in place to keep him in line at the airport. At least I don’t see the lights going out there. Besides, the exchange is in the middle of morning, and the baggage claim area has a lot of windows.”

  “And doors. We’ll need all the help we can get. A child’s life is involved. Selling a baby is unthinkable.”

  Colton pulled out onto the highway, the road slick with the fresh snow. Thoughts of St. Louis flashed into his mind. Something sinister was going on there and it had spread out to infect a lot of places. “From what I’ve read about you, you’ve worked on a lot of cases involving children. Why?”

  “As a teenager I worked at a day care center. At church every Sunday, I took care of the babies. I loved it.”

  “Then why did you go into law enforcement? Why not become a teacher or something?”

  “Because I wanted to be like my...” Her voice faltered, and she went quiet.

  At the turn onto the Interstate 70 ramp, Colton glanced at her. Shadows played across her features, but he didn’t need to see her face completely. He could read her expression: closed, distant, her gaze slanting away from him. He’d hit upon a sensitive subject she didn’t want to discuss, which only made him more curious. He’d heard rumors about her mother. Something happened with her. She’d been on the fast track to the higher echelon in the Bureau, then she’d resigned and disappeared. He’d never liked the politics of an organization so he had steered clear of any discussion with fellow agents he’d known.

  Colton merged with the slow-moving traffic on I-70. “When we get to the hotel, the first thing we should do is look at the surveillance tapes.”

  “And see what their security says about the lights going out.”

  “Right. I’ll take the tapes. You check with security.”

  Silence fell between them, and Colton decided not to break it. They were temporary partners. Soon this would be over. He’d go for interviews in Dallas and L.A. for positions that were opening up at those offices, and she’d go her own way. They’d probably never work together again, and that was just fine with him. There was something about Lisette that intrigued him, and he didn’t want to pursue the attraction.

  * * *

  As Lisette followed hotel security down to the basement below the ballroom to check on the fuse box, she replayed the conversation in Colton’s car on the trip from the cabin. She’d almost blurted out why she’d become an FBI agent: her mother. That would have led to a discussion she didn’t care to have.

  Lisette hadn’t talked to her in years. When she’d tried to reach out to her after her mother had been asked to resign, she hadn’t wanted to see her or talk to Lisette at first. She’d believed her mom innocent until they had finally discussed what happened to her mother. When Lisette walked away from their last meeting six years ago, she’d felt her mother had done something wrong. Lisette’s anger grew as she’d received the cold shoulder within the Bureau and been given the worst assignments. It was clear people thought Lisette was guilty by association. She should forgive her mom. Their relationship had always been rocky because she’d never been able to do enough to earn her mother’s approval. But these past years her faith had been affected. The Lord wanted her to forgive; she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do so.

  The security guard stopped at a fuse box. “Someone tampered with this. Must have caused the lights to go out.”

  “Who has touched this box since you discovered the cause of the blackout in the ballroom?”

  “Just myself when I fixed the problem.”

  “Then I’ll need your fingerprints to rule them out.” Lisette stepped up to the panel and began dusting for latent prints. “What did you touch?”

  The guard pointed to the door on the box and the fuses involved with the lighting of the ballroom. “That’s all.”

  As she pulled what prints there were off the panel, she said, “You touched here?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Lisette finished her task, but it was beginning to look as though the only set on the fuse box would be the security guard’s. If that were the case, that meant it had been wiped clean after the deed had been done. “How accessible do you think this area is for others?”

  “It wouldn’t be difficult if a person knew what he was looking for and where.” The guard retraced his path to the elevator.

  “So someone had to have knowledge of the hotel layout?”

  “Probably or he would be wandering around. The more he did, the more likely he’d be discovered and questioned. No one was tonight. We do have cameras in various places, but they aren’t monitored in real time. So it’s possible we missed something.”

  “We’ll need the tapes of this part of the basement for this evening.” Lisette exited the elevator on the floor where the hotel security office was located.

  As she walked down the corridor toward the room at the end, her high heels clicked against the wood tiled floor. She glanced at her watch. It was after two in the morning. She didn’t think she’d be able to sleep much tonight. Images of the masquerade ball kept parading across her mind. Five minutes unaccounted for. What mischief had Saunders been up to? Did he really think they would believe he had been searching for her and Colton?

  The guard opened the door to the office and waited for Lisette to enter first. Colton and another man were viewing footage of the main lobby earlier in the evening. “I’ll need access to this one, too.”

  “Also any of the basement area around the fuse box,” Lisette said as she took a chair next to Colton.

  He looked at her. “Did you find anything interesting?”

  “I think the fuse box was wiped clean except for his prints. I only found ones where he touched.” She indicated the guard who had accompanied her. “But I will run all the ones I took.”

  Colton shifted to the security guy next to him. “Please pull that footage up. Start with half an hour before the lights went out.”

  After a couple of minutes, the corridor leading to the fuse box flashed up on the computer screen. The hotel employee fast-forwarded until a man appeared getting off
the elevator. He stopped it to run in real time.

  “Do either of you know this person?” Colton asked.

  Lisette moved behind him to get a better view while the guard by the door came to her side. The man striding down the hallway, dressed in black slacks, white dress shirt and maroon tie, knew where he was going. No hesitation. No searching a corridor that ran into the one he was taking. He kept his head bent down, away from the camera, as if aware he was being watched. At the box, he opened the panel with a handkerchief and used it to pull the necessary fuses, then he swiped down the area, pivoted and hurried back the way he came. But instead of using the elevator, he took the stairs.

  “Are there cameras in the stairwell?” Colton asked, excitement lacing his voice.

  “Yes.” The security guy next to him brought up the footage of the stairwell and, using different shots, followed the saboteur up to the first floor where he entered a room nearby, then left a moment later with a coat on. As he left the hotel, his face still hidden from view, Lisette bent forward. “Stop. I see something that might help us ID the man.” She tapped the monitor. “Zoom in on the front of his jacket. There’s something on it.”

  A clear image of a moose appeared on the screen. “A logo? The writing under the moose is not clear—it’s too small from this camera’s angle.” Colton looked at both men. “Have you seen this before?”

  “Actually, I did earlier this evening when everyone was arriving for the masquerade ball,” the guard next to Lisette said.

  She shifted toward him. “Do you remember seeing this man’s face?”

  FIVE

  Colton rose, facing the hotel security officer whose name, Allen Prince, was plainly displayed on the gold nameplate on his dark navy blue coat. “Anything at all you can remember would be a big help in finding this drug dealer we’re looking for.” He’d used the explanation to the hotel security staff that he was a U.S. Marshal, heading a team looking for an escaped drug dealer who was supposed to be at the ball.

  Prince twisted his mouth. He squinted as though trying to remember. “I saw him when he was getting out of a car. I was off to the side watching the people in costumes arriving for the ball. A limousine service dropped him off.”

  “Do you remember which company?” Colton glanced back at the computer monitor in the office and could see fuzzy lettering underneath the moose. The distance from the camera and the angle of the shot didn’t make the photo clear.

  “Sinclair Limousine. Their cars are all white. I might be able to work with a sketch artist. If I saw the guy again, I think I would recognize him.”

  “But you haven’t seen him before today? You don’t think he’s an employee?”

  “He might be. I only work the night shift. I’m not familiar with all the staff who work days.”

  Colton removed a card. “If you think of anything at all, I want you to call me. I need your address and phone number. I’ll send a sketch artist over to your place tomorrow. Once we have a picture of him, we need to circulate it among your employees. This might be our first break.”

  Prince moved to the desk, jotted his information down on a piece of paper, then handed it to Colton. “I hope you catch the drug dealer.”

  “So do I,” Colton replied, catching Lisette’s attention. “It’s late. We’ll be reviewing the footage from this evening in detail tomorrow, especially with regards to the man in question. Maybe we’ll find him in another clip with his face revealed. Thank you two for your cooperation.”

  “We’ve never helped in capturing an escaped criminal,” the other security employee said.

  Colton nodded at the two, then made his way with Lisette toward the door. Out in the hallway away from the office, he released a long breath. “Thankfully they accepted our reason for being here tonight without risking exposing what was really going on with Saunders.”

  “I’ve found a lot of security people want to help an ongoing investigation. The info Allen Prince gave us might be just what we need to discover what really went down tonight since Saunders won’t be forthcoming.”

  “We could threaten him with revoking his deal with the government.”

  “I’m not sure he’s smart enough to know what’s best for him.”

  Colton halted at the end of the corridor. “Until today, I would have said the same thing. I think there’s more going on in that head of his than he wants us to know.”

  Her full lips thinned out. “Then that’s even more of a reason not to let him be a part of the exchange.”

  He shook his head, wishing he could prevent that. “Whoever is the courier is expecting him.”

  “Yes, it’s interesting how clear that has been made to us.”

  He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her mouth, tinted red to match the costume she wore. Tonight she’d worn makeup that emphasized her beautiful features. Usually she played them down. What had caused her to do that? He’d dated women who were gorgeous and had no problem highlighting their assets. Some had even used their beauty to get what they wanted. Lisette was the opposite, and that piqued his curiosity.

  At her car, she turned toward him. “What’s the plan for tomorrow? We have a lot to work out before the exchange the following day.”

  “I’ll pull in another marshal to guard Saunders with Quinn. Probably Brad. They’ll relieve Janice and Neil. We’ll meet at the U.S. Marshals’ office by eight and make our way through the hours of hotel footage. I only viewed a little of it tonight. We’ll specifically be looking for the clown, Little Bo Peep, the waiter who bumped into Saunders on the dance floor and the guy who turned the lights off. Then we’ll go out to the airport and case it out. I like to have a plan and then several backup ones.”

  “I agree. It wouldn’t hurt to have someone monitoring the surveillance cameras at the airport when the exchange goes down. I can call an agent at the FBI to help with that.”

  “Fine. This is going to require a lot of coordination. The airport is crowded, especially at that time of day. This is skiing season, and the snow in the mountains has been good this year.”

  “If all goes well, this will be over in a few days. That is, if Saunders comes through.”

  The soft glow of the lights in the parking lot played across her face, drawing his attention to those full lips, sparkling green eyes slanting slightly up, the arch to her eyebrows, her pert nose, the few freckles covered by her makeup. He liked those freckles. In fact, he found he liked both Lisettes—the glamorous one and the professional one.

  “I hate to think we’re depending on Saunders, but that’s often what the U.S. Marshals Service depends on. Criminals like Saunders.”

  Her chest rose and fell with a deep sigh. “I know. The FBI deals with their share of criminals leading them to other bigger ones.”

  “Does it ever get to you?” Colton asked as they stood in the middle of the parking lot, a few flakes still falling, the silence from the recent snow making it seem like no one else was around even though a hotel full of hundreds of people was yards away.

  “Yes, especially when dealing with a case involving a child.”

  “Then why do you ask for those cases?”

  “Because someone has to and I vowed long ago to protect the children.”

  “Why?”

  Shivering, she hugged her arms against her. “Why not?”

  “This isn’t the time to talk about it. I need to let you go. Eight o’clock will be here in five hours.” But he made a note to ask her again. Each time he saw her defenses go up, his curiosity concerning her deepened. It must be the detective in him. He couldn’t afford for it to be anything else. “Good night.” He reached around her, brushing his arm against her, and opened her door. “See you in a few hours.”

  She hesitated. “Does it ever get to you?”

  “All the time. That’s why I turned to the Lord, or I couldn’t do this job.”

  She tilted her head to the right, one corner of her mouth lifting, her eyes softening. “See you at eight.”
<
br />   When she slipped inside, he shut the door and stepped away. He waited until she’d driven away before heading to his car a few rows away. What did that last look mean?

  * * *

  The next evening the lights of the Denver airport faded from view out the side mirror in Colton’s Firebird. Lisette relaxed back in her seat, closing her eyes for a moment. She worked hard to gather her thoughts after a long, tiring day watching hours of footage of the hotel from the night before, then coming to the airport to coordinate the security for tomorrow’s exchange.

  No matter how thoroughly they planned today, Lisette couldn’t shake the feeling something bad would happen tomorrow. Chills goose bumped her from head to toe. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms.

  “You want me to turn up the heat?” Colton asked as he slipped into the traffic on I-70.

  She slid her eyes open and stared out the windshield, glad there was no snow falling. “It wouldn’t help. I was thinking about the exchange. I wish we could meet the courier without Saunders.”

  “If we could, I’d be the first one on board. We want the baby, and we want the middleman. Saunders is our means to both at this time.”

  “I know. You’re not telling me something I haven’t said over and over to myself. But Saunders is such a...” She couldn’t find the word to describe the creepy, slimy way she felt when around him.

  “User. Predator. Those are kind words to describe him. In the end he’ll get his just rewards.”

  “But he’ll go into WitSec and live a life somewhere safe.”

  “What I meant is he’ll have to answer to the Lord in the end for his sins. That thought is what keeps me going some days when I see people get away with crime. They aren’t really. It’ll catch up with them.”

  “Is that what you meant by your faith helping you to do your job?”

  Colton glanced toward her. “Yes.”

  In the dim light of the car, their gazes connected for a second before he looked away, but in that instant she realized she liked him. There was a depth to him that surprised her. He’d seen some evil things in his line of work, and yet he still believed in God. In fact, his job had strengthened his faith whereas she had begun to pull back from hers.