“That makes four of us,” Brad said to Bridgette. “I spotted the car of the same type and assumed you’d been taken.”

Bridgette looked around at the drawn faces showing the strain of their worry and anxiety of the last week. Her own stomach muscles had yet to relax. But rather than head off to their safe houses, they had stuck it out and taken the risk to attend this meeting to see if she’d made it. Amazing. But her fear and anxiety, mixed with a surge of affection for the team, was now also flooded with relief. Bridgette knew the car that had spooked them and what it was doing in the alley, but only after the fact, and what could she have done about it if she’d known earlier?

“You don’t have to worry about the Mercedes, guys,” she said. “It wasn’t parked there because of you. It belongs to the Gestapo lover of a prostitute who lived in the building by the alley. She’s since been arrested on charges of being a spy and the car is no longer there.”

“How in the world do you know that?” Victoria asked.

“I have my sources,” Bridgette replied archly. In fact, the plight of the poor prostitute had been discussed at the supper table at the convent. Sister Mary Frances, mother superior of the Sisters of Charity convent, got the news from the concierge of the apartment complex where the prostitute lived. Bridgette had not connected the dots between the Mercedes and the bare floor under the mail slot. All along, for the team’s safety, she had not been comfortable with the major’s decision to assign Dragonfly a mutual drop box. Last week’s situation called for revisiting the issue. She sat forward and folded her hands on the table. “For your own peace of mind, and mine, maybe it’s time we question the wisdom of a central location for a drop. All our angst this week could have been avoided if you each had your own dead-letter box,” she said.

She stopped talking as tea was brought in. Just as well, Bridgette thought. The lull would give them time to think about an alternative to the mail slot, but when the proprietor had gone, Chris spoke up. “Speaking for myself, I see the logic of a single collection point. As the major pointed out, Labrador, I don’t see how you could possibly do the footwork your job would require.”

“I could manage it,” Bridgette said.

“Really?” Victoria challenged, eyebrow perked. “How?”

“Well, I thought I’d look for places within close proximity to one another near the metro stop where we get on and off the train each day…”