by Diane Saxon
‘Toasted?’
‘Please.’ It may not be everyone’s ideal breakfast, but it was exactly what she wanted.
‘No problem.’ The quick wink wrinkled one side of his perfectly straight nose. If she had been ten years younger, she may have fallen for his fake flirtation, but she knew better. He thought he was a ladykiller, she didn’t suffer from the illusion that he had a thing for older women. He was a barista, it was his job to be friendly.
Jenna tapped her phone against the reader. Apple Pay made everything too easy. Easy to spend. Easy to keep track.
She smiled as the short message from Adrian slid in from the top of the screen. A bunch of roses emoji and a kiss.
Poor Adrian. Second day on the trot she’d pushed him out of her bed and through the front door with barely time to pause. It was his decision to stay and risk the early train to London instead of catching it the previous night.
She ducked her head to hide her smile. From her point of view, it had been worth it. He did things to her heart, not least of all when he’d tucked Fleur in close as they drifted off to sleep.
From his farewell kiss and follow up message, he didn’t have an issue with her shift pattern either. He’d taken it in his long, lazy stride as they left the house together, with her heading for the police station and him bound for the train station and London.
Jenna shuffled along the counter to make room for the big guy crowding her personal space and wait for her order just as her phone vibrated. She glanced down at the screen again.
I see you in there, get me one.
Jenna whipped her head back up to glance in the mirror behind the counter and search for Mason’s reflection in the car park.
From the corner of her eye, she caught the exchange, the fast sleight of hand as her lovely young barista handed over a wodge of small packets in exchange for a roll of money to the broad-shouldered man next to her.
Disbelief crowded her mind and she gave a long, slow blink.
Shit! She couldn’t unsee what she’d just seen. Nor as a police officer could she ignore it. As if she didn’t have enough on her plate.
Aware of time pressing, she drew in a breath and considered her options. She had a major incident to deal with. Debrief at 6:00 a.m. That gave her a brief window of opportunity to deal with something she simply could not ignore but had limited time and resources to handle.
With controlled stillness, Jenna gave a casual slide of her gaze upwards past the mirror, where she spotted the reassuring reflection of Mason’s car, and then onto the price list above. She leaned into the counter and narrowed her eyes to further study the board, determined not to give herself away.
Her heart thundered in her ears, blocking out the sound of the coffee machine, grinding away to create an overwhelming background noise to drive all thoughts from her head. The pulse in the base of her throat pounded as heat rose up her neck to flood her face.
Mind racing, Jenna clamped down on the instinct to whip out her warrant card and arrest both of them on the spot. She had no doubt the moment Mason realised there was an incident in progress, she’d have the necessary backup, but that wasn’t the issue. From the brief flash of packets and oversize roll of money, this wasn’t just an exchange for personal use. There’d been a lot of white stuff in those little packets and too much money for the barista’s smaller hands to handle, which was probably the cause of the quick fumble.
Young, good-looking barista wasn’t merely a two-bit pusher, he was up a few rungs higher on the supplier ladder. And the big guy. Unless he was laying down his supply for the next three months, it wasn’t just for personal use.
She drew in a breath and dropped her gaze back down to her phone as though it had only just buzzed. No one took notice of what anyone else did on their own phones.
When she raised her head again, she caught the barista’s gaze and shot him a bright, sparkling smile careful not to overdo it.
‘Sorry,’ she waggled her phone at Shaun, almost cringing as she hauled back on the overt obviousness and could only hope that neither of the men thought anything of it, other than she was an attention-seeker. ‘I’ve just been asked to grab another coffee for one of my colleagues.’ She stretched a wide smile for the benefit of both of them and turned to the big guy beside her as the queue beyond him grew. ‘Sorry. Do you mind me butting back in?’
With an insolent shrug, the guy grunted in her ear and tucked his hands deep into his jacket pocket without a hint that he suspected anything.
In the grudging silence, she gave a quick assessment of the man before she turned back to the barista, who flashed his perfect white teeth in a brilliant grin. ‘What else can I get you?’
‘I’ll have a grande latte.’ She squinted up at the board. It was probably what Mason was drinking at the moment, he quite liked the fancy shit, even though he pretended not to. She had no pretence. Straight up, strong, black, caffeinated, maybe some brown sugar, maybe not. Kept her heart rhythm regular, she swore.
Jenna scooted along and grabbed her triple shot, raising it in a toast to the sweet, young barista, who shot her a quick wink before he turned to the next customer in line. His multitasking the true sign of excellent training.
Sweet.
Hell.
Who could tell these days? Sweet had gone out of the window.
She flashed her Apple Pay across the screen once more and hoped he wasn’t also scamming the pay reader. That would really screw up her day.
The bell on the grill oven dinged and the handsome barista handed over her panini so she could tuck it under her elbow. She hung on for the grande latte, resisting the temptation to tap her foot, and then scooped up the two coffee cups, one in each hand.
As she turned to leave, she tossed another smile over her shoulder. ‘Cheers, Shaun.’
Jenna kept her muscles loose as she bumped open the door with her hip and wandered out into the car park as though she had all the time in the world. With a deliberate turn, she strode away from Mason to her own car. She stretched out to place one of the takeout cups on the roof while she pressed the key fob to unlock the car and opened the door. With her back to Mason, Jenna grabbed the cup, slid inside the car and placed both in the cup holders, tossing the paper bag with the hot panini on the passenger seat.
Fleur raised her head from where she was curled in a tight circle on Jenna’s favourite fluffy grey scarf in the passenger footwell and twitched her black, shiny nose at the smell wafting her way.
‘You’ve had yours.’ Jenna leaned down to stroke her fingers over the tips of Fleur’s ears, the only downy part of her virtually naked little frame.
As though she understood, Fleur lowered her head and closed her eyes. They’d probably overfed her anyhow. Jenna had no idea how much to give such a diminutive creature. They’d had to soak Domino’s food in warm water and mash it up so Fleur could pick at it while Domino hovered above, too polite to snaffle it from her, but too interested to move more than six inches away.
Jenna straightened and flicked a look up at her rear-view mirror just as the big guy pushed open the door to The Coffee Shack, balancing four takeout cups in a cardboard tray.
‘Shit.’ That wasn’t going to make it easy. Four.
Her radio crackled to life and shot her heart rate into overdrive.
‘What do you want, boss?’ Mason’s calm tones smoothed over Airwaves as she snatched the radio from the middle console, adjusted the driver mirror so she could watch the big guy and hunkered down in her seat.
‘Big guy just coming out of The Coffee Shack. Six-two, black Caribbean I would say, built like a brick shithouse.’ Smile like a shark. Unlike the barista, the hardened eyes of a long-time scrapper.
‘Got him.’
‘He’s just obtained a considerable number of little packets with white powder from our local, friendly barista. More than I’d consider reasonable for own use.’
‘In front of you?’ Disbelief tinged his voice.
‘They thought I
’d turned away. I only just caught the action out of the corner of my bloody eye when you sent your text. I couldn’t believe their bloody cheek.’
‘Did no one else see?’
She shook her head, even though Mason couldn’t see her. ‘There were a couple of people at the tables, but no one else in the queue at the time.’
‘Okay.’
‘It filled up within minutes after that. Way too many people around for me to do anything. And anyway, I wanted to think things through. We have a bloody major incident to deal with. This is the last thing I needed bowling over the top of it.’ She scraped the hair back from her forehead, clinging on to it in frustration.
‘Right, Sarge.’ He grounded her, always did. Gave her the respect for the authority she held and empowered her to use it. ‘What’s the order of the day?’
She narrowed her eyes as the big guy paused, all wide smiles and flashing eyes while he flirted with a pretty young woman proving he did know how to be nice. What an arse.
Mason left her in no doubt that whatever she requested, he was her backup. As reliable as the rising sun, Jenna knew he’d never let her down. Their partnership ran smooth, with barely a hitch in its stride, even since he’d started dating her sister. It could have changed their relationship, but it hadn’t.
Brain in gear, Jenna hit the talk-through button again. ‘We need to make an arrest of big guy without alerting the barista.’ Without taking her attention from the big guy in case he passed anything to the woman, she paused while she thought it through, balancing the risk of losing a damned good arrest, or holding out for the bigger fish. ‘I want to leave Shaun in place for the Drug Squad, because he obviously has a far higher-reaching contact somewhere along the way.’
‘Gotcha.’
‘Big guy has four cups of coffee. We need to know who the other three are for before we grab him. Is he pushing to them, or is he simply buying coffee to take to friends?’ She had her doubts. You didn’t buy that much cocaine and hang on to it while you innocently doled out cups of coffee.
‘Agreed.’
Mason made it easy. If he was uncomfortable with her plan, he was straight enough to say so without preamble. She’d be left in no doubt.
She continued to scan the reflection in her car mirror as she thought out loud. ‘There are only two of us. Four of them.’
Mason and she had badges, what did those four have?
‘Three. Ryan just happened by. He was about to slip into The Coffee Shack without informing us of his whereabouts.’ Mason lowered his voice to a gruff London accent. ‘I fingered his collar, Sarge, and now the boy will, through his own machinations, not have that nice, tasty zinger of a latte he was about to order without having the decency to ask his colleagues if they’d like to participate in this daily ritual.’
A lick of guilt slid in sideways. She’d not asked the others. She’d done a sneaky drive-by. But Ryan was the youngest and newest member of the team. It was his duty to run around after them, not the other way around. She comforted herself with that thought.
DC Ryan Downey, still relatively new to the team, had been through harrowing times on a previous case where the finger of suspicion had jabbed at him. He still had a long way to go. Not that Jenna wasn’t confident in his ability and certainly his honesty and enthusiasm, and despite everything he’d been through none of that had been tarnished.
Ryan’s voice grumbled over Airwaves from where, she assumed, he sat in his own car. She’d not spotted him when she walked out, but then she hadn’t been looking for him. ‘I don’t see why you find it funny. Yours will be bloody cold by the time you get it anyway.’
Jenna snorted as a hot wash of relief flooded through her. She had her team. They stood a fighting chance if the big guy decided to protest. Despite his size, Mason and Ryan could take him.
Her mind whirled as she tossed together a quick risk assessment in her head. As a police officer, it was her duty to arrest the law-breakers. As an investigator, it was her obligation to follow the upline to its source.
She swivelled around to sweep her gaze over The Coffee Shack door, knowing Mason had his eye on the big guy.
‘Okay. Here’s what we’ll do. We know who the barista is. Shaun.’
‘Shaun, the barista,’ Mason repeated. ‘Helpful, but we could do with a little more than a first name.’
‘Shit. Shaun? Yeah.’ Ryan stumbled over his words. ‘Shaun Cunningham.’
Jenna snapped a grin in the mirror. That’s her boy. A natural. Always managed to pull something out of the hat.
Disappointment laced Ryan’s words. ‘He’s sound, he is. Or at least I thought he was.’ Ryan sucked in a breath. ‘He knows what I do.’
For clarification, Jenna spoke into the radio. ‘He knows you’re a police officer?’
‘Yes, Sarge. I speak with him most days.’
So did Jenna, but she’d never mentioned what she did for a living, nor had she snagged his last name. He’d never asked her profession, and she made it a policy not to tell people she barely knew. Judgement could be a funny thing. They’d either ask you to arrest someone for them or spit in your face.
She leaned back in her seat, made herself comfortable while she watched the big guy wrestle with the tray of cups as he opened his car door. ‘Did he see you?’
‘No, Mason grabbed me before I even reached the door.’
‘Okay.’ She blew out a breath before putting them in the picture. ‘Shaun will be back to his job where he works every day. We’ll see him again tomorrow and the next day and he’ll never suspect that we know anything.’
‘He’d never have risked the quick switcheroo in front of you if he’d had any clue who you were.’
‘Provided he doesn’t get wind of a problem with his downline because we have no idea how often big guy comes in to visit Shaun, the barista.’
‘Okay.’
‘So, I’ll ask the Duty Inspector to contact the Drug Squad. They can do what the hell they like with him then.’
As the big guy slid into his red BMW X4, Jenna stabbed the start button on her own car and reversed up ready to follow.
‘You don’t want to stop him here, Sarge?’ Excitement reverberated through Ryan’s voice.
‘We’d definitely run the risk of Shaun seeing. No, we’ll tail him. Did you see if there was anyone else in the car with him?’
‘Not that I can see.’ Mason pulled his car out of its parking space and nudged it forward, ready to turn left onto the one-way system around Telford town centre.
‘Nor me. Also, I’m curious as to who he’s about to meet up with.’
Jenna had no idea where Ryan was in his little Suzuki Swift, but he wasn’t far if he could call… There he was, just edging out of the drive-through on the right.
‘Mason, fall in behind the big guy. Ryan, you follow at a distance, if you need to swap and change do that.’
‘Received.’
‘Received.’
‘Right.’ Decision made, she rolled her car forward to follow the others at a discreet distance. ‘There are three others he’s going to meet. It could be we make a pretty hefty arrest if they’re all pushers. What’s the betting he won’t have bought the end-game contacts coffee.’
‘So, it could be more pushers.’
‘Yep, just further down the food chain. Let me contact Control.’
Jenna changed channel on Airwaves. ‘Control, this is Juliet Alpha 77, who is the DI on today?’
Silence behind the static filled the car as she pushed it into fourth gear and took off, keeping her distance as they approached the first roundabout and Mason slipped into the inside lane to go all the way around. Ryan followed, leaving Jenna to bring up the rear.
‘Juliet Alpha 77. DI Taylor’s on duty this morning.’
‘Excellent. Can you put me through?’ A wave of relief swept over her. She had backup, support she could rely on with a man who lived and breathed the job. His knowledge was second to none and his dedication unquestio
nable.
‘Jenna? What’s going on?’ His gruff tones over Airwaves only sought to reassure. With an open line, both Mason and Ryan were privy to the conversation.
‘DI Taylor, sir. We have a situation. I was in The Coffee Shack—’
An indelicate snort came over the air before his voice laced with sarcasm came back at her. ‘No doubt you were.’
‘Yes, sir. I was collecting myself and DC Ellis some coffee when I witnessed what I believe to be an exchange of Class A drugs in a quantity that concerned me considerably.’
‘Right.’ His brevity assured her he was listening.
‘I’m aware I have the major fire incident to deal with, but I can’t ignore this.’
‘Relax, Sergeant Morgan, we have everything in hand here for the time being. So far, there’s very little progress with the major incident that you need to concern yourself over. Debrief has been re-scheduled for 10:00 a.m.’ The crackle of the radio filled the air before DI Taylor cut back in. ‘What do you need, Sergeant?’
‘The Drug Squad, sir. They need to set up obs on the barista, Shaun, who I’ve left in situ at the moment as he’s already passed the drugs on, although obviously I have no idea if he has more.’ She checked in her rear-view mirror and manoeuvred across the lanes. ‘The current situation is we’re tailing a red BMW Series 4, registration number…’
As she paused, Mason filled in the gap. ‘Bravo Yankee six-nine Sierra Mike Romeo.’
She blew out a breath, hoping the distance he kept wouldn’t arouse the man’s suspicions. ‘The driver took the drugs. Big guy. Black Caribbean. Six-four.’ She remembered the bump of his shoulder against hers, the tops of his arms wider than her thighs. No fat, pure muscle. ‘Eighteen stone. Aged…’ she blinked to bring the man back into her mind. ‘Twenty-three to twenty-six.’ Smooth, glossy skin. ‘Definitely no older.’
‘Okay, Sergeant Morgan.’ There was a pause with a vague tapping of keys in the background. ‘Car registered to one Lamonte Junior.’
‘Is that his official name, or is he a younger version?’
‘Official name, Jenna.’ Her lips kicked up in a smile at the dryness of Taylor’s voice, evidently unamused at her little quip.