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

behind had
kept the same gap relative to him. So it must have slowed down too.
    Morrison went pensive. Is
that guy tailing me?
    The car was a light gray
Chevy Impala. Pretty anonymous. The kind that you could get at a rental car
counter. That an elderly couple could buy with their pension money. That a law
enforcement agency could source to accomplish surveillance work. It was really
a multipurpose vehicle, inconspicuous by virtue of its ubiquity. But then
again, perhaps it was just a car that happened to be passing by when he merged
on the road—the most likely occurrence. He peered back again. The Impala was
too far back for him to have a clear view of the driver. With the glare coming
off the windshield, he couldn’t even see if the driver was alone. Could’ve been
a man or a woman. He really had no way of telling.
    Morrison continued on his
way. With the cruise control locked at fifty, he kept driving toward town as if
he were oblivious to his surroundings.
    But a discreet inquiry was
definitely called for.
    When he reached the outskirts
of Acton, he veered into the shopping center’s parking lot and stopped in an
empty spot in front of the wine store.
    From the corner of his
eye, he saw the gray Impala nose its way into the parking lot as he covered the
few feet separating him from the store’s entrance.
    He wanted to do this
anyway. Buy a good bottle or two. Of course, it hadn’t been his priority this morning,
but now that he had about fifteen minutes to kill, why not enjoy it?
    Wine was relatively new
for him. A year before he was busted, he had worked on a deal with a Frenchman.
An old guy. Looked like an amiable retired civil servant. Nobody could have
guessed how he made his living in a million years. A real pro. Morrison had
struck up a friendship with him and in the course of their collaboration, the
Frenchman had introduced him to wine.
    There was nothing snobbish
or uptight in his appreciation of it, just a deep, heartfelt love that he
communicated really well. Under his tutelage, Morrison got to know the different
varietals. Learned how terroir influenced their expression and taste.
For his part, he had fallen hard for a quintessentially American wine, California
Zinfandel. Red, of course. Not the bubble-gum syrup marketed under the label
White Zinfandel. The store had a good selection of them. Those he preferred
came from Lodi in the Central Valley. Old vines. They had that inimitable roasted
red pepper aroma that he liked so much. He grabbed a bottle of Herzog. Then he ran
his fingers over the surface of a dozen different ones before opting for a
bottle of bold Ravenswood. Since he had some time, he perused the aisles,
taking in all the beautiful labels. The austere Bordeaux. The refined
Bourgogne. The flamboyant Australians. When he was done, he brought his two
bottles to the counter and grabbed a cheap corkscrew with the store’s logo from
a display. He paid in cash and didn’t ask for a bag. He wanted his purchases to
be clearly visible when he left the store.
    Back in the Navigator, he
dropped the two bottles on the passenger seat and got going again. Without
making a show of it, he paid close attention to his mirrors as he pulled out of
the parking lot. Sure enough, when he rejoined Acton Road, he saw the gray Impala
emerge from its own parking spot and inch carefully after him.
    Earlier, that could’ve
been just another car heading from the countryside to Acton’s shopping center at
exactly the same time he was. Would have made a lot of sense. But the
probability of its driver then spending the exact same amount of time as Morrison
shopping and rejoining the road immediately after him was infinitesimal.
    So he was really being
followed.
    But the question was, who
exactly was being followed—him or the Navigator? Nobody knew he was staying at
Mike’s. It had come as a complete surprise even to him. And he knew he had not
been followed to or from Mike’s compound the previous night. So it