Page 134 of Cautious Love

He nods but I can tell he doesn’t believe me.

Daisy knocks and hands Beckett his cup of coffee.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

She blushes and scurries out the door.

“Is your team ready to back us up?” I watch him closely. This isn’t some kind of cockfight. I have no interest in trying to assert my dominance. I’m the sheriff. I protect this town, and I invited them in. But I know how the feds can operate too. It’s simple: I invited them here, I can ask them to leave. Though I have no interest in doing that. We need them, hence the reason I called them.

“We are but we figured a face to face would be more effective to make sure everything is ready to go, and expect full retaliation. It will also give me a chance to communicate to headquarters instead of being vague for security reasons.”

“Fair enough, what do you want to know that you don’t already?” I ask him.

Supervisory Special Agent Beckett starts rattling off questions, making suggestions, and simply nodding his head to my responses.

“After we get Kensington’s lieutenants, he’s going to tighten up big time. It will either stop the shipment to Chicago, or it will speed up the timeline. We have to be prepared for both,” I tell him.

“Last I heard, you weren’t able to figure out when they were shipping this Chicago order. Do you think it’s wise to move now?” Lawrence asks.

I hum and take a sip of lukewarm coffee. “On top of material witnesses. I told your boss that we’re waiting for confirmation from our source. The problem is my DA won’t agree to move on it unless we have the opportunity for a full seizure. If we can do a coordinated response, it will be the last piece of the RICO indictment.”

“I’m surprised the AG for Wyoming doesn’t want in on this,” Beckett says.

I shrug. “That’s not my department. I’ve been in contact with our DA, she told me what we needed so I’m going to get it for her.”

“Fair enough.”

I nod and hand him a file. “I’d like for us to pick up these three today. I don’t want to give them time to run. The son Grey Kensington is in the wind.”

Lawrence flips through the photos. “Connor, John, and Elise. Interesting group.”

“We may be small town folks out here, Special Agent, but women can sell illegal drugs just like men can.”

Lawrence shrugs and snaps the folder closed.

“Luke and I will take John. We ask that you pick up Connor and Elsie. We expect Connor to be at Perry’s later this afternoon, and Elsie is a waitress there so we’re hoping you could grab them at the same time.”

He nods. “Not a problem.”

“Will you be able to transport them out of Paxton County, tonight?”

“Consider it done. We’ll meet you behind the station,” Lawrence says.

I stand and offer my hand. “Thank you. Y’all can hang out here. I can send Daisy out to get whatever you need.”

Lawrence nods and leaves my office.

“John should be headed to Bobby’s in a couple of hours.”

“I’ll be back. I need to get Shiloh home.”

Luke nods, and his phone dings with a text. He reads it and sighs. “Looks like we’ll be ahead of the Kensingtons. Will said they’re going to move next week. They have five vehicles to move the product.”

“Wonderful, if all goes as planned, we can get them before they leave the property.”

“Do you want to put more surveillance on them?” Luke asks.

“Let’s stick to the plan.”