“Morning,” Adrian said.
Morrow did not respond to the greeting.
“Identification.”
Adrian glanced at the pump display. “For buying gas?”
“For standing here watching a police investigation.”
“I was standing here before you arrived.”
“ID.”
Adrian kept his hands visible. “Am I being detained?”
Morrow’s expression hardened. “You always answer questions with questions?”
“When the questions involve my rights, sometimes.”
A woman at pump five slowed as she replaced her gas cap. Morrow noticed her watching and took another step closer to Adrian.
“I got a report about a suspicious person matching your description.”
“What description?”
“Male. Dark jacket. Loitering.”
Adrian looked down at the fuel receipt in his hand. “I just bought eleven gallons of gas.”
“You’ve been staring across the lot.”
“So have half the people here since you blocked that man’s truck.”
Morrow’s jaw shifted.
Adrian heard Nina again. “Dispatch log shows no suspicious-person call at this location.”
That mattered.
Morrow pointed at the sedan. “Whose car?”
“Mine.”
“Registration?”
“Current.”
“License?”
“Also current.”
“Then show me.”
Adrian met his eyes. “Tell me the legal basis for the detention first.”
Morrow exhaled through his nose, almost smiling. “You think you’re a lawyer?”
“No.”
“Then stop acting like one.”
Adrian had been insulted by people more dangerous than Luke Morrow. He had been threatened by a county executive, followed home by a contractor under indictment, and once spent six hours inside a restaurant storage room while a target’s armed cousin searched for the person who had photographed a payoff. Anger was useful information when it belonged to someone else. He did not intend to donate his own.
Morrow looked toward Hale’s pickup. Hale was still there, gripping the steering wheel.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Morrow said. “You’re going to hand me your license, and you’re going to tell me why you were watching that truck.”
Adrian understood then that Morrow was not improvising. He knew Hale mattered.
“I wasn’t watching the truck.”
“You just looked at it.”
“So did you.”
“Hands on the car.”
Adrian stayed still. “For what reason?”
“Officer safety.”
“You approached me.”
Morrow reached for Adrian’s wrist.
Adrian moved his hand back half a step, not fast enough to look aggressive.
“Do not grab me without telling me why I’m detained.”
The officer’s voice rose. “Hands on the car. Now.”
The woman at pump five had taken out her phone.
Adrian saw Morrow notice her again.
This time, the officer’s face changed. Public attention was not restraining him. It was irritating him.
Nina said, “Say the word.”
Adrian answered without moving his lips much. “Not yet.”
Morrow heard something.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing to you.”
“Who are you talking to?”
Adrian did not answer.
Morrow grabbed the front of his jacket and turned him toward the sedan.
Several people gasped.
Adrian planted his palms on the roof because resisting would accomplish nothing and might destroy the operation. Morrow kicked his feet apart and began a pat-down.
“Anything sharp on you?”
“No.”
“Weapon?”
“No.”
“Drugs?”
“No.”
“Then you won’t mind the search.”
“I mind an unlawful search.”
Morrow’s hands moved over the outside of the rain jacket and stopped at the inner left chest pocket.
Adrian’s credentials were there.
For a second, he considered letting Morrow find them.
Then Morrow’s radio crackled.
A voice said, “Unit twelve, status?”
Morrow answered too quickly. “Code four. Suspicious subject refusing to identify.”
Nina’s voice came through Adrian’s receiver. “That transmission is being recorded.”
Morrow reached toward the credential pocket.
Adrian turned his head. “If you open that pocket, understand that everything you are doing is being recorded by federal agents.”
The officer stopped.
A few droplets of rain ran from his hairline to his cheek.
Then he laughed.
“Federal agents.”
“Yes.”
“You expect me to believe you’re federal?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Morrow’s eyes narrowed. “You’re playing games.”
“No. I’m warning you that this stop is part of a recorded federal operation.”
The warning should have ended it.
Instead, Morrow leaned closer.
“People who actually work for the government show ID when police ask.”
“People who actually work for the government know that isn’t the rule.”
Morrow yanked Adrian’s right arm behind his back.
The first cuff clicked shut.
At pump five, the woman filming said, “Officer, he isn’t doing anything.”
Morrow snapped his head toward her. “Ma’am, stay out of this.”
Adrian felt the second cuff close.
“Luke,” Nina said in his earpiece, using Morrow’s first name deliberately now, “we have enough. I’m moving.”
Adrian whispered, “Hold.”
Morrow jerked him away from the sedan. “Who keeps talking to you?”
Adrian looked past him toward Victor Hale.
Hale was no longer in the driver’s seat.
He was standing at the far side of his pickup, staring toward the outdoor trash cabinet where he had hidden the newspaper.
A man in a Redstone Recovery rain shell had emerged from the convenience store and was walking toward it.
Adrian had seen him in surveillance photographs. Owen Pike. Redstone’s field operations manager.
Pike had not been scheduled to appear.
The case had just become more complicated.
Morrow saw Adrian looking and stepped directly into his line of sight.
“Eyes on me.”
Adrian shifted half a step and watched Pike reach the trash cabinet.
Morrow shoved him against the rear door of the cruiser.
“Stop looking over there.”
That was the mistake.
Not the cuffing. Not the invented suspicious-person call. The urgency in that sentence.
Adrian stopped moving entirely.
“You know him,” he said.
Morrow’s grip tightened. “Know who?”
“The man by the trash cabinet.”
“There’s nobody by the trash cabinet.”