Chapter 14

Joelle lay in bed several hours later, staring at the ceiling.

What was happening to her? She'd managed her life in an almost solitary way for the last ten years, but now…? She was jonesing for something she couldn't quite describe.

She really, really liked what she'd seen of Mike's team, and it gave her renewed doubts about her own vocation. Did she really want to spend the next thirty or so years working jobs that isolated her in such a way that she never really got to know her fellow agents, or the office staff with whom she remotely interfaced, or people in the apartment complex where she not-so-often lived?

Drammick, no.

When she was back in her home town during the brief stints Lester allowed between jobs, she'd seen how close her old team still was with each other, and with the guy who'd taken her place. The thought of her own fate—time running through her fingers while she remained alone—didn't sit well.

Was she jealous?

It hadn't hit her before that she might be, but now… Joe admitted to herself that she'd missed having buddies; confidants. If that made her green with envy over the other people in her jurisdiction, then yes, color her envious.

Now, however, she could almost glimpse a different future playing out. Already, with Mike, she was making up for her years of solitude. She'd shared her name with him, broken bread with his team, and…yeah. She couldn't believe she'd definitely jumped the guy.

Joe grinned. She'd made the first move, for sure, but Mike was no pushover. In fact, she'd spied an undeniably dominant streak in him; one he was clearly curbing for now, for her.

Did she want him to defer to her? Yes…but no. Yes, in that she wanted to maintain a decent share of control. But no, because it was hot as hell when the commanding man took over. And his actions didn't skeeve her out at all. She trusted him. If things between them worked out, Joelle could foresee that they'd take turns in the driver seat.

Which was plenty fine with her.

She glanced at the clock, and saw it was just after eleven.

Joe wanted… No. Almost needed to hear Mike's voice. He was fast becoming an obsession. But was it too late to call him? She bit her bottom lip and speculated. The team had to be finished with their drills for the day, but had they also hit their sleeping bags in preparation for training again at dawn?

Joe grinned. There was only one way to find out.

Reaching for her phone on the bedside table, she scrolled through her contacts and found his newly entered number. Joe ran her fingers over his name on the screen, and a thrill moved through her body. Drabnabit, the tremble she got when actually touching him was freaky enough. Now she was quivering just from grazing his name?

Joe groaned. She had it bad for the man.

She almost put the phone down, but her digits, it seemed, had a singular mind of their own as they reflexively hit his number. In for a pound…

Joe held her breath, waiting to see if Mike would pick up or if he'd turned his device off for the night.

"Hey," Mike answered with the single word. It was hushed and a little breathless.

"Hey yourself." Joe snuggled further into her bed, anticipating an amorous conversation, or at least an interesting one if he wasn't in the mood.

"Can't talk," he hissed. "Cisco is on my ass, and if he hears me, I'm toast."

Joelle immediately understood. "You're doing night drills."

Mike grunted.

"NVG's and laser weapons?" she questioned, picturing him geared up with the benign equipment. Not that a lack of bullets would curtail the bragging rights of the mock-combatant who eventually won.

"Mmm, hmm," was the answer.

Joe grinned. "Sounds like fun." Her brain engaged quickly. "Would you be interested in listening to an idea on how you can win?"

Another grunt. Clearly Mike was on the move, but she took the non-answer as an affirmative.

"Here's what you're going to do," she began. "Put your phone on speaker, then leave it by a tree, or behind a rock or something. Somewhere it's not visible, but the audio will still carry."

"Then?" Mike asked, under his breath.

"Then hide." Her amusement grew, picturing the scenario. "I'll count to fifty, after which I'll start making a skink-ton of ambient noise. When Cisco sneaks in to investigate what the hell he's hearing, you take advantage of his distraction, get the drop on him, and bam! You're the boss of his arrogant little tushy."

"Sweet," Mike whispered into the phone. "Two taps."

The truncated order made sense to her. "You'll give me two taps after you've planted your device?" she clarified.

"Yeah," he murmured back.

"Done."

Joe waited, almost giddy. When was the last time she'd had so much innocent fun? She couldn't remember, but…

Frock!

She shouldn't just be laying here like a lump. She needed to prepare. Stat. Keeping her phone close to her ear to catch Mike's alert, she rummaged around in her kitchen drawer and found a roll of aluminum foil, quickly pulling off a good length. Yes. That would do for starters. She glanced around the small kitchenette with a practiced eye. Ahah. Another prop. The electric can opener would be perfect.

But those two things weren't quite enough.

Joe snapped her fingers. Dry cereal. She reached for the box on an open shelf.

Yeah.That would confuse the hell out of Cisco.

She gathered all three items together, placing them on the counter, and waited.

It was official. Joe was woozy with glee.

When the taps finally came, Joe almost forgot to count, but eventually caught up by starting at ten. When she got to her goal, it was time to play. She took the length of foil she'd pulled off, and shook it until it made a low, thunder-like sound.

Once she'd exhausted that over a short period, she sent a hand to the can opener which she'd plugged in. She covered it with a dish towel, then holding her phone next to it, she hit the top bar to activate the appliance. A satisfying whir was emitted; a noise that would have a hard time being identified.

She timed it all so that, hopefully, when Cisco moved close enough to investigate the sound, she'd have switched things out for her last hurrah.

The cereal would be the ultimate coup-d'etat.

Pouring a decent amount onto her Formica countertop, she began crunching it with the heel of her hand. If that didn't sound like footsteps on sticks and underbrush to an unsuspecting Cisco, she'd turn in her spy-card.

Joe kept up the noise for six or seven seconds, then quieted.

The trap had been baited. Now to see if Cisco would bite.

The next thing Joe heard was a series of beeps, signaling that the laser guns had engaged, add to that a lot of grunting, and… She just couldn't tell what or who?—

"Goddammit, Mike. How the hell did you do that?" It was Cisco's voice, sulky and PO'd at the same time.

Yes!It had worked. Mike was victorious.

Mike's answering laughter flowed like liquid gold into Joe's ears.

"I had a little help from a friend," he snorted. She heard rustling over her phone. "Say hi to Elle."

"Wha—?"

Joe giggled. "Hey, Cisco. Got caught in a little sting, did you?" she preened, unable to contain her mirth.

"Fuck! You've been on his phone speaker. I call no-fair-sies," the man whined.

"I'm crying buckets," Mike gloated chokingly. "You know the chief didn't specify any rules. We were told we could use anything at our disposal, so suck it up." The man was laughing so hard he could barely finish his sentence.

"Okay, Mike," Cisco warned, "I will deal with you later. But you, sneaky-spy-girl," Cisco mock-growled at Joe. "Just wait. Payback's a bitch."

"Bring it on," Joelle snickered. It felt hella good not only to be included in the banter, but to be teased. "I have to warn you, though, Cisco. In general, I don't lose."

"Challenge accepted," Cisco returned enthusiastically. "I'll hit you with a mountain of shit when you least expect it."

"You can try," Joe continued to taunt. She was loath for the fun to end.

"What do you say, Joe?" Mike had finally gotten himself under control. "You wanna do two against one?"

"I'd say yes, but is that really fair?" Joe speculated, tongue-in-cheek. "Your friend doesn't have that much going for him in the first place…"

She trailed off as Cisco howled.

"Hell, no. You are so going down for that," he gasped out between belly laughs. "If you two can team up, I'm employing Kyle and Doug to help in my court."

"Aww," Joe responded. "I feel bad, knowing you have to bring in the big guns. But don't worry. We'll smoke them, too."

"He always needs back-up, Elle," Mike played along. "Maybe someday he'll get his training wheels off so he can ride bikes with the big boys."

"Ooh, then he can?—"

The phone in her hand suddenly came to life with an alert. She quickly changed screens while leaving her speaker engaged.

Her adrenaline spiked.

"Skittles, Mike. I've got to go. That semi is on the move again."

"Okay, Elle. But please be careful," he responded, and she could hear the worry in his voice.

"Always. Good night, handsome." Her impish side came out again. "And good night, Mike." She hung up before either man could call her out.

Moving quickly back into her small bedroom, she pulled out dark clothes and dressed as quickly as possible. She didn't want to waste time. If her man Benji was taking his truck out at this time of night, it could only be for nefarious purposes. She'd already ID'd him as a day-hauler for a meat packing plant nearby, so there was no good reason for him to be out and about after hours.

Making sure to holster her gun, and gather up other pertinent equipment, Joe also grabbed a water bottle and a couple protein bars, just in case her stakeout was prolonged. In a way, she hoped it was. Because that would mean being closer to her goal of breaking the fentanyl ring wide open. On the other hand, it would suck to wrap things up too quickly. Joe was hankering for more time with Mike, so solving the criminals' activities would be counter to her personal goals.

Tough noogies, she told herself, shaking off her desire to draw out her op. Her job came first. Always. If and when this particular one was over, and if it looked like things with Mike might go somewhere, she'd contemplate her next move. But for now, it was game on, baby, with the task to which she'd been assigned.

Twenty minutes later,Joe watched as Benji and the man he'd met at the bar, took bags that could only be fentanyl from a storage facility, loading them into the storage compartment of his tractor. It didn't take long to load the four dozen, one kilo packages, but holy hell, each one was enough to kill a half million people. Joe wanted nothing more than to take down the rasp-bowls immediately, but snapped a series of pictures instead because apprehension was not her job. Besides, she needed to cool her jets until she could trace this to the top dog.

She hunkered down to wait, then followed the semi and the car when they left.

Joe hadher headlights turned off, and stopped several hundred yards from a rusted out, extremely rundown looking warehouse, parking her car in a heavily treed turnout where hopefully it wouldn't be spotted.

She stealthily made her way to the metal structure where Benji's tractor and his buddy's vehicle sat, idling. Three men, two of whom she'd already tailed tonight, stood next to a closed, overhead door, conversing.

There was Benji, as well as the other guy whom her office had yet to give her ID on. But they were accompanied by an older, well-dressed individual who had to be higher up on the food chain since he was doing most of the talking.

Joe couldn't get close enough to hear what they were saying, but it seemed like perp number three was laying down some kind of law because the other two were nodding their heads in deference to him.

Schmidt. Why hadn't she thought to put ears on Benji's semi? Duh. Because the device wouldn't work beyond a nine-hundred-foot radius. But that didn't mean she shouldn't have intuited that a scenario like this might arise. Rookie error.

First chance she got? She was tagging that mother-footer's ride.

But for now…

She slid on her NVG's, which immediately made her think of Mike in the woods.

Nope. Not going there. This was no time to become mentally distracted.

She refocused.

Crouched in the shadows, Joe memorized everything she could about the third man's appearance. Slicked back, salt and pepper hair. A nose that had been broken and set badly at some juncture. A gold stud, like a weathered nugget actually, adorning one earlobe.

Other than that, his suit was high quality, his shoes polished, but…if she wasn't mistaken… Yes. The man was missing the pinky finger on his left hand. That physical tell had to trigger something in the agency's data base.

Figuring she'd discovered all she could for the time being, Joe breathed slowly and calmly, leaning back into the darkness while continuing to watch the interaction. She had her infrared camera at the ready, hoping for another drug exchange she could document, but nothing of that ilk occurred, so she took photos of the three men, instead.

Ten minutes passed and then the entire verbal exchange was over. The two men with whom she was familiar headed to their vehicles. The third man turned and disappeared into a people-sized door on the side of the building, giving Joe no clue as to what was inside.

At least for now.

As the pair of already identified perps took off, Joe came out of hiding to do recon around the entire perimeter of the building, and…

Nothing.

Except a low humming inside that sounded like a small engine.

No windows allowed her to get a glimpse of what was within. There were no guards around the rust-bucket edifice whom she could subdue and drag off for questioning, and no additional cars parked where Joe could find them.

Perp number three, who she'd nicknamed "Nugget" in her head, must have driven his vehicle in through the large, overhead doors and parked inside. Which meant she was going to have to keep watch for as long as it took for the man to make a move.

Joe let out a yawn.

This wouldn't be the first all-nighter she pulled, but the timing sucked. She wanted to be fully awake for her first date with Mike the following…uh… Joe glanced at her watch, and amended that to this evening since it was currently going on 1 AM.

Snickety-snot.

It figured.

Just when Joe had something better to do, she had a feeling her man of interest inside wasn't going to oblige with a speedy departure.