Deal Gone Bad - A Thriller (Frank Morrison Thriller Series Book 1) by Tony Wiley Page B

along pretty
well. But that was already some time ago. Given their present circumstances, the
relaxed attitude remained on the surface. Underneath lay a deep bedrock of
suspicion. Clearly, Morrison didn’t fully trust Harris. And he sensed that
Harris felt the same about him. This also extended to the other partners in
their deal gone bad. Mike aka Junior and Tommy were wary of him. Harris was wary
of Junior. Morrison was wary of everybody. A thick, dark cloud still hovered
over that rotten failed operation. The only missing input being Cowgirl’s. Morrison
hadn’t seen her yet, but he bet she had reservations of her own too.
    At the end of their meal, Harris
drained the bottom of his beer mug and asked him, “What are you going to tell
Junior when you go back to his place?”
    The moment Morrison had
been waiting for. He picked up his table napkin and wiped his mouth. He could
see that Harris was eager to hear his response. His partner made every effort
to appear detached, but Morrison saw through him.
    “If you stop sending tails,”
he said, “I won’t tell him a thing.”
    Harris nodded. “Good,” he
said.
    His relief was obvious.
    “Good …”

Chapter 20
    Harris left at three
thirty for an appointment in town, leaving Morrison alone in the diner.
Together, they had enjoyed a long lunch, but Morrison was in no hurry to leave.
For one thing, he expected that at this hour, Johnson would still be sleeping. For
another, something had just caught his attention. Three booths down and suspended
from the ceiling was a flatscreen TV set on a news channel. And Sheriff
Sanford’s face had just appeared on it.
    The volume was set pretty
low. Normally, if there had been people and conversations going on in the diner,
as had been the case earlier, Morrison wouldn’t have been able to hear a thing.
The room was fitted with a dozen booths and, apart from them, was sparsely
furnished. Clear, knotty pine siding covered the walls up to the top of the booths,
then from there up they were simply painted white. There were no heavy curtains
or any trace of soft material anywhere. Nothing to absorb or dampen the sound. So
despite the low volume, Morrison could pick up every single word emanating from
up there.
    Not that it was absolutely
necessary to understand what the spot was about. For that, he had only to look
at Sheriff Sanford’s face. She was positively gleaming, in a serious-looking
way. She stood tall, straight as a rod, shoulders back, chin up. Her big
sheriff’s hat concealed the blond streaks in her brown hair and made her look
even taller. With her striking, healthy physical presence, she dwarfed the reporter
who kept throwing soft and easy questions at her. Of course, she hit each and
every one of them straight out of the ballpark. Taking all the credit for uprooting
a nasty ATM-skimming operation. Reaffirming her determination to serve and protect
all of Acton County’s good citizens. Morrison smiled to himself. She was good. She
was really good. He could see why she had won her first election. And would
probably win a second one by a landslide again.
    After Sheriff Sanford, the
news switched to the weather and Morrison lost interest. He had noticed a pile
of newspapers at the entrance and was about to go get himself a copy when his
mobile buzzed. It was a text message from Johnson. And it turned out he had
been wrong about his hacker friend still being asleep. The message read, Come
over. And don’t come empty-handed.
    Morrison was relieved but also
puzzled. He had planned to wait until seven or eight in the evening before
calling Johnson up. But now, barely five or six hours after last speaking to
him, Johnson was already contacting him? Morrison was curious. What could
Johnson possibly have for him now?
    Fortunately, there was no
need to kill time anymore, so he forgot all about the newspaper, got up and left
the diner.
    *
    On the road, for all his eagerness,
Morrison made sure not to push the Navigator beyond