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.’