Crammed in the back of a surveillance van, Barrett sat on one side of Quinn, Siobhan on the other. Gamble was in the front passenger seat, Barnes next to him, both men wearing plain brown windbreakers with a logo that matched the company name and colors on the van’s exterior.

“Eyes on that gray sedan,” Barnes said over his headset.

Barrett scanned the three monitors in front of them. The detective had been talking to the men and women stationed around the building. None of them were looking at black and white screens and trying to decide what was grey and what was pink.

“There,” Quinn said as a small four-door appeared in the bottom right corner of the center screen. “That’s her in the passenger seat.”

The car backed into a parking space near the door of the shop with its papered up windows. A female detective and another plainclothes officer waited inside. It was a few minutes before four-thirty and Barnes was hoping that Naomi would go inside, separating her from the driver for an easier takedown.

About five parking spaces away, another cop pretended to have engine trouble. Naomi got out of the car and approached him.

“Dang, she didn’t even dress up for the interview,” Siobhan laughed. “You called it right. Maybe you should get some kind of a criminal minds degree.”

“I just know this particular criminal mind,” Quinn sighed. “I don’t want to learn any others and pray I can put this one behind me.”

“Amen,” Barrett murmured, his lips brushing Quinn’s cheek. Putting his mouth up to her ear, he whispered low enough that only she could make out his words. “Either way, you’re staying with me, love.”

Reaching under the shelf, she found his hand and squeezed lightly.

“Hey, you got any cigarettes on you?” Naomi asked the undercover cop working on his truck.

He appeared to eye the sedan with her boyfriend still in the driver seat, the engine running.

“How many.”

She held up two fingers as she leaned against his truck and looked at what he was working on.

“Hey, my old man is good with engines. Maybe he can help you?”

“Yeah? You mean that guy?” He pulled out the cigarettes and handed her two.

Naomi nodded, put one of the smokes in her mouth. “Light?”

The man held up his lighter and gave it a flick. Despite the absence of any kind of a breeze, Naomi wrapped her hand around the flame and stepped up close to the guy.

“Of course, he’s not much good for anything else,” she teased.

“I hope he’s watching his gun,” Siobhan muttered.

“He’s a pro,” Barnes scolded from the front seat. “I’m betting she goes for the wallet.”

“Not likely,” Quinn said. “She does that and she knows she doesn’t get to wait around for me to show up.”

“Keep it.” The cop working on his truck handed her the lighter with a throaty laugh. “Maybe you sweet talk him into fixing my truck, then we ditch him. What do you say?”

Naomi turned coy, picked a tobacco flake from her lip and flicked it from her finger as she pointed toward the papered up door. “First I have an interview.”

Walking away, she moved like she was on a runway, looking over her shoulder at the man as she returned to the car and stood next to the driver side door, the window down. She handed the cop’s lighter and spare cigarette to her boyfriend.

Bending at the waist, Naomi gave the driver instructions while she waved and jiggled her bottom in the direction of the undercover cop. As she spoke, the microphone inside the lighter picked up every word.

“While I’m inside, why don’t you check and see if there’s anything worth taking in the truck.”

“I thought you wanted to wait around and mess your sister up some. Can’t roll him and stay.”

“Let me figure out the logistics,” Naomi growled. “Just get a look inside. Tools, a good spare tire. My mom’s pissed about losing the Western Union money. She won’t send any more today.”

“You think she’d be pissed about you torching that cabin and car.”

“Yasss,” Siobhan hissed, reaching behind Quinn to offer a high-five to Barrett. “I love it when the perps are utter morons.”

Gamble grunted from the front seat, but didn’t order Siobhan to settle down. Barrett figured the sheriff would save the lecture for the ride home.

“Are you kidding?” Naomi snarked. “I think she might have been touching herself as I described how Quinn’s life turned to ashes and blew away.”

“Speaking about touching—”

The boyfriend reached for Naomi but she gracefully sidestepped out of reach. “Remember, go give our new friend a hand while I ‘nail’ Quinn’s interview for her.”

“Ready Team One,” Barnes said.

Team one was the inside team. Barnes and Gamble watched the interior feed from a handset up front. Barrett couldn’t see it from where he sat.

Naomi sashayed up to the store’s door. She tugged on the handle then knocked when it wouldn’t budge.

“Take your time, Team One, boyfriend’s out of the car and moving to Lookout One.”

Quinn shifted in her seat. Barrett stopped watching the screens and stared at her. Like a hummingbird’s wings, her pulse fluttered wildly at her neck. He leaned close and whispered again.

“She’s going down, love, and all because of you.”

Quinn flicked a smile. It struck him then that she didn’t want the credit for her sister getting sent off to jail. He should have thought about it sooner. If this was one of his brothers acting crazy and trying to ruin his life and endangering the lives of others in the process, he’d still be torn up about luring him to an arrest.

“I’m sorry, baby,” he said, his arm sliding across the back of her chair to rest gently against her shoulders. “But you deserve to be free and you are keeping her from hurting other people. Who knows what she would do if it was a civilian instead of a cop working on that truck.”

Nodding, Quinn turned and hid her face against his neck for a second.

“Lookout One has contact with the boyfriend,” Barnes advised. “Open the door, Team One.”

On screen, Naomi lifted her hand to knock again. The monitor jumped to the interior view as a tall blonde threw the lock on the door and slowly pushed it open.

“Quinn? I…uh…” The female cop’s voice held a note of distaste and the level of shock a real business owner would likely feel upon opening the door for a job applicant and finding her dressed in a dirty hoodie, the pale foundation and heavy black eyeliner and lipstick making her look like a roadie at a Marilyn Manson concert.

“That’s me,” Naomi snickered. “Hey, I’ve got to whiz really bad. Is the restroom working in this joint?”

The cop pointed toward the back of the floor room. “That’s my partner, Mark, at the table.”

“Cool,” Naomi answered, her gaze on the blonde as she locked the door.

“That way,” the cop indicated. “If you still need to…whiz.”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” Naomi sauntered forward, drifting toward the table where the second cop had a high-end laptop open next to a combination printer and scanner.

“Boyfriend is in custody,” Barnes advised. “I repeat, boyfriend in custody.”

“Nice equip—”

“Police!” the blonde shouted, grabbing Naomi’s right wrist and yanking it halfway up her back as she kicked out Naomi’s right ankle and slammed the teen chest first onto a second table set up with folders full of blank papers.

“That’s it,” Quinn said, her voice taking on the numb tone of the prior night. “That’s really it.”

“Love…” Barrett didn’t care if his cousin was right there or about Gamble and the detective up front or how many cops outside the van might hear him. He turned Quinn toward him and grabbed her shoulders. “You had to do this, love. She was never going to let you have a life. You heard that guy say she was going to stick around and mess you up…just like you thought she would.”

Quinn stared at him, a dozen emotions running across her delicate features.

“Don’t fade on me, love.”

She shook her head, the motion releasing a flick of tears that landed and sparkled on her cheeks.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Quinn answered, lifting her arms and wrapping them around Barrett’s neck. “Except home with you.”