The Pegasus Marshal's Mate (U.S. Marshal Shifters 2)

Of course, that would have matched the name he’d put in the guestbook—but that couldn’t have been what he had told her.

He had written down Terrence, but he had said something else.

Tompoulidis.

“Suppose for a second that that’s my last name. If I needed to think of an alias on the fly, I might come up with Tom. So he really could be our flash mob guy, if nothing else.”

That Tiffani didn’t immediately protest that Bruce had been nice was almost enough to confirm his suspicions. Bruce had unnerved her, and Tiffani wasn’t a woman who was easily spooked.

“Well,” she said, “if it’s Bruce, then he’s given his boss two bad days in a row. Maybe he’ll be content with that.”

“Or maybe he won’t.” He checked his watch. ?

??Either way, we both have to get to work.”

*

“Are we going to tell McMillan our suspicions about Bruce?” Tiffani said.

He loved how quickly she had gotten into saying “we” and “our.” Maybe she liked the feel of that smooth canoe paddling as much as he did.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I’d like to have him on his guard, but he’s not really subtle. If he thinks Bruce is trying to sabotage his precious trial of the century, he’ll go nuclear on him—”

“And Bruce might not have anything to do with it.”

“Right. Though he still sounds like just as much of a creep as his boss. Anyway, even if McMillan doesn’t blow up, I definitely don’t trust him to not give the game away. If Bruce is our mystery caller, we want to catch him, not just have him scurry for cover.”

“On the other hand, we’re going to have a courtroom full of innocent, completely unprepared people.”

“Maybe if we get lucky, we’ll just get another flash mob.” He thought about it. “Maybe a mariachi band this time.”

She laughed. “Now, mate or no mate, if Bruce had asked me to dinner and drinks after sneaking a mariachi band into McMillan’s courtroom, I really might have said yes.”

“Then I’ll have to knock out the competition early.”

“Or hire a mariachi band yourself.”

“I’ll start looking for accordions.”

He drummed his fingers restlessly against the steering wheel. He wished the drive to the courthouse was longer so they would have more time to talk about all this.

His team would be invaluable in dissecting everything, of course, but he’d have to get them caught up first. And his mind felt like it was working a million miles an hour right now. The last thing he wanted to do was backtrack and slow down.

“I’ll tell McMillan that I have security concerns,” he said finally, turning into the courthouse parking lot. “That I don’t like the pattern this trial has already had of disruption and disturbance.”

“Disruption and disturbance are basically the same thing,” Tiffani pointed out.

“They are, but I’m hoping if I say them both, at least one of them will sink in a little.”

“A sledgehammer made out of words.”

“I’ll tell him I don’t want him to declare a mistrial or recuse himself, that I would never even dream of it, but that I want him to be alert to anything suspicious.”

“Hang on,” Tiffani said suddenly. “I might have just remembered something.”

She opened the leather satchel resting on her knees and dug through whatever was inside. She came up with a clutch of papers that her eyes flew over.

“Your notes?” Martin guessed.