Joint Investigation. Terri Reed

inched closer to the room at the end of the balcony. The air around her shifted as if a hot-breathed creature mirrored her steps. Tensing, she glanced over her shoulder. The world was shrouded in inky darkness. A shiver of apprehension tripped down her spine.

      “Lord, please have my back,” she whispered.

      With laser-like focus, she returned her attention to the door of room 218. Was Birdman in the room? Would she finally catch him?

      She hoped so. She wanted this over. She wanted to take the man down. She wanted her life back, but she’d promised to bring her childhood friend’s murderer to justice. And she always kept her promises.

      Steeling herself against what she’d find inside the room, she reached for the door handle. Through the thin leather gloves she wore, the handle was cool. She turned the knob.

      The sound of glass being crushed behind her sent alarm sliding across her flesh. Before she could react, an arm snaked around her torso, pinning her arms to her sides and rendering her gun useless. A large hand clamped over her mouth, stifling her yelp of surprise.

      Panic flooded her system. The world narrowed to one thought—escape.

      She kicked and thrashed but the body at her back held her in an unbreakable grip. Her assailant unceremoniously hauled her off her feet and carried her away.

      * * *

      Royal Canadian Mounted Police inspector Drew Kelley gritted his teeth against the onslaught of feisty female in his arms. She packed a mighty hard kick and a mean elbow. Neither of which fazed him enough to loosen his hold. But he’d have bruises for her effort.

      Seconds before he’d seen the person wearing an FBI-issued windbreaker sneak up the stairs, he’d heard his American counterpart exclaim through the communication link wedged in his ear, “What’s the FBI doing here?”

      A good question indeed. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation was not part of this IBETs—Integrated Border Enforcement Teams—task force.

      Discovering the intruder was a woman had been a surprise. With his hand still over her mouth to keep her from alerting the drug dealers they were hoping to catch, he carried her down the motel stairs and across the parking lot to another bank of rooms.

      His team had commandeered a ground-floor room as their staging area. From there two members of the six-man team watched the parking lot, ready to signal when the fun started and they could move in to take down a drug dealer who was bringing illegal narcotics across the border into Canada.

      The Americans had received an anonymous tip that a major drug deal was going down tonight in room 218. However, this woman—this supposed FBI agent—might have messed it all up.

      The door to the ground-floor motel room swung open. US Border Patrol agent Luke Wellborn stepped back so Drew and the woman could enter the room. Luke closed the door behind him.

      “Get the gun before she shoots someone,” he growled to the men inside.

      US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Blake Fallon quickly disarmed the woman. He set the piece on the dresser and leaned against the wall with his arms across his chest. His hard features settled into cynical annoyance.

      Once the door was closed, Drew withdrew his hand from the woman’s mouth.

      “Put me down!” She twisted her head to glare at him. Her blue eyes sparked, making him think of gemstones in a jeweler’s display case, and her lush mouth bunched up with outrage.

      Not about to let a pretty face distract him, Drew tucked in his chin to squint down at his charge. “Not yet. Who are you?”

      “Special Agent Sami Bennett,” she ground out, and wiggled some more, trying to free herself. “My ID’s in my back pocket. I’m FBI.”

      Luke snickered. “Right.”

      Drew’s lips twitched but he held his smile at bay. He understood his colleague’s skepticism. Sami Bennett didn’t fit his image of a field agent. She was tall for a woman, reaching to Drew’s chin, which he estimated made her five-nine, and though there was no ignoring her feminine shape, she was slender, bordering on too skinny.

      In addition to the black windbreaker with the FBI logo, she was dressed from head to toe in black.

      He reached into the back pocket of her dark cargo pants to retrieve a leather wallet. He handed it off to the other man in the room, RCMP sergeant Justin Lorie.

      Behind a pair of thick dark-rimmed glasses, Justin inspected the identification inside. “Appears she’s telling the truth.” He held up the FBI badge.

      Blake snagged it. “We’ll see about that.” He pocketed the wallet with the badge.

      Sami thrashed in Drew’s arms. “Hey, give that back.”

      For all they knew, the ID could be fake. Just because she wore a marked jacket that anyone could order off the internet didn’t mean he believed her. Drew gestured toward the table and chairs across the drab, sorely outdated room. “Bring a chair over here.”

      Justin dragged the closest chair away from the window and set it in front of Drew. Thankfully, it had arms and though the plaid seat cushion had seen better days, the chair would suffice.

      Meeting Justin’s brown-eyed gaze, Drew conveyed his intent with one word: “Ties.”

      Justin nodded.

      Drew set the woman down in the chair and held her arms in place along the armrests.

      “What are you doing?” Sami struggled to break free of his hold on her. “You can’t do this!”

      Justin wound a plastic zip tie over the armrest and one wrist.

      “Not too tight,” Drew warned, not wanting to damage her skin.

      “Hey! Hey, you can’t—” she protested.

      Justin threaded the end of the tie through the joint, the click, click of the tooth sliding along the ridges sounding like nails on a chalkboard. He secured one wrist, then the other.

      Pulling against the restraints, the woman shouted, “I’m an American citizen. A federal agent. I’ll have your badge for this!” Her bright blue eyes flashed with anger in her attractive heart-shaped face. Blond hair escaped from beneath the black stocking cap covering her head.

      “You’re not in the United States at the moment. This is my jurisdiction, ma’am,” Drew pointed out.

      She leveled him with a mutinous scowl. “And you are?”

      “RCMP inspector Drew Kelley.”

      Sami looked at the Border Patrol logo on Luke’s jacket, then shot him a dark look. “You’re American. Tell him to let me go!”

      Luke shrugged, his boyish features conveying empathy. The ten-year USBP veteran looked as if he were fresh out of the academy. A look that fooled many into underestimating him. “Not my show.”

      “What are Border Patrol and ICE doing here?” She nodded at Blake, who, like Luke, wore a black jacket with his agency acronym emblazoned on the front and back. “A joint task force?”

      “The bigger question,” Drew said, “is what are you doing here?”

      She jerked her gaze back to him. “I’m tracking a serial killer. He is, or was, in that room. He’s going to get away.”

      “Serial killer?” He rubbed his chin. If a serial killer were on the loose in his country, his office would know. What kind of ploy was this? His gaze lifted to the other members of the task force. “Do you know anything about this?”

      Luke and Justin shook their heads.

      “Nope,” Blake said, his dark eyes flashing with disdain. “My intel says there’s a major drug deal happening tonight at this motel in room 218. She’s probably part of it. Maybe a decoy to distract us.”