Page 5 of Snowbirds
Chris ignored the sense of humor comment. He didn’t need to know what Morrison had been up to. Instead, he said, “Radisson’s not that bad. Give him a chance.”
Andy Radisson was the FBI agent in charge that Chris’s people worked with most often, when investigations warranted it. He was a nice guy, and Chris actually liked him. And his team could be a good fit for Ivan and keep him off Paulter’s radar. Chris made a mental note to reach out to Andy and give him therundown on Morrison. With any luck at all, he could keep Ivan from going off the rails.
“Traffic getting here today was a fucking monster,” Morrison complained. “Burnside was backed up going both directions, and some asshole almost rear-ended Big Blue.”
“Heaven forbid,” Chris said dryly.
Big Blue, a Ford Taurus sedan of indeterminate age, was Morrison’s prized possession. It looked like a beater but was actually a James Bond-style decoy, complete with secret compartments, and easily reached one hundred and twenty miles an hour.
A sleeper, just like Morrison.
Chris refused to ask what Morrison had done to incur Paulter’s ire. Because there was definitely a reason he was being loaned to the feds and they both knew it. And it had only been three official work days since he’d left.
“I’ve gotta go,” Morrison said. “Looks like Radisson is ready to see me.”
“Goodbye, Morrison. Try not to get into any more trouble while I’m gone.”
Morrison mumbled something he didn’t quite get followed by a, “Yeah, alright.”
Setting the phone down in his lap, Chris leaned back in the lounger again so that the umbrella cast a shadow on his face. The thriller waited for him, but he wasn’t interested in picking it back up.
Instead, he watched the senior citizen motorcycle gang stomp back to the street, mount their bikes, and ride off, clouds of dust billowing out behind them. Whatever they’d wanted, they were pissed the resident hadn’t answered the door.
A rogue gust of wind chose that moment to whip up and blow a mix of sand and grit across the road in a whirlwind directlytoward him. The thin coat of grime plastered his front and stuck to the sunscreen he’d applied earlier.
“Motherfucker.”
This was officially the vacation from hell.
THREE
Morrison
“Seven-fourteen Sunrise Surprise West,Surprise, Arizona,”Ivan muttered to himself.“Well, that’s a fuckton of surprises.”
Ivan Morrison peered out of Big Blue’s windshield to scan the numbers tacked up next to the house doors or on utility poles where there were RVs parked instead of modular homes.
“Seven-ten, seven-twelve…” he read aloud. “Ah, there it is, seven-fourteen, the magic number.” Rolling to a stop, he set the parking brake and stared out the driver’s side window. There it was, Hatch’s forced vacation home.
“Not bad, not bad at all.”
Admittedly, it had to be torture for Hatch not to be hard at work behind his desk. There was only one other time Hatch unexpectedly hadn’t been in his office—that Morrison was aware of, at least. That time, Morrison had tracked him down at his home, where he’d been holed up with the flu and miserable as fuck—and still click-clacking away on his laptop. Luckily, the neighborhood phô place agreed to deliver several gallons of five-alarm broth, and Hatch had been back at his desk by the following Monday.
Seven-fourteen was a well-kept single-wide mobile home that had mutant orange lava rocks substituting for a lawn and bright terracotta pots with prickly pear and other cacti planted in them. Where the yard met the street were several healthy-looking aloe and century plants and?—
He squinted at the yard art. Was that small statue a masturbating frog? Somebody in the house had a sense of humor.
Morrison sniggered. Everything he’d seen so far in Surprise was much too cheerful for Agent Christopher Hatch; the man tended to brood. Additionally, he chose only the deepest of blacks for his wardrobe most of the time—black suit, black tie. Add the black mood and voilà, Special Agent Hatch. It had to be hard for him to be gloomy when the sun was shining like it was today.
Yes, Morrison tended to wear black too, but that was because it hid the coffee stains. He was looking forward to lounging around in a t-shirt and shorts and getting some full-on vitamin D. He ran his fingers through his hair, still a little shocked at the current short haircut. It would grow back, he reminded himself.
The various lots in Sunrise had been developed along a semi serpentine-shaped road so they weren’t right next to or directly across from each other—almost like an artist’s rendering of the sun’s rays. He’d spotted a clubhouse and Olympic-sized pool near the entrance. Common areas at one end of each street were littered with white plastic loungers, and at this time of day, not many were occupied, but a few dedicated citizens appeared to be actually enjoying the March heat.
“You did good, Blue.” Morrison patted the dashboard of his car, a matte black souped-up sedan that no one suspected was owned by a law enforcement officer. And also, it was definitely not blue. Maybe didn’t get the greatest gas mileage, but he cared more about being able to catch bad guys.
Almost as soon as he’d gotten off the phone with Hatch, he’d told Radisson he had a family emergency and didn’t know when he’d be back. Radisson had tried to tell him to call Paulter instead, saying, “He’s the man in charge right now,” but Morrison had steamrolled right over that idea. He’d never liked Dennis Paulter much, and he certainly wasn’t going to start acting like the man was his boss.
Nope. Not gonna happen. Radisson would do just fine. And it wasn’t as if the FBI hadn’t tried to recruit Morrison on a regular basis; Morrison was more than happy to do the shift in his mind now. Besides, regardless of what he’d said to Hatch on the phone, Morrison respected Agent Radisson and his team.
