Chapter Five
Medical Examiner Cornwall had just uncovered Greg Mason’s body when there was a knock on the door.
Thayne looked up to see the face of a man peeking through the window in the locked door.
“Oh, it looks like the cavalry has arrived,”
she said, dropping the sheet back over the body and taking off the gloves she’d just put on.
“The cavalry?”
Jarrett sneered as she walked away.
Thayne looked at his partner and shrugged.
“Don’t ask me.
The locals maybe?”
Clara opened the door and two men in dark suits walked inside.
Both men were in their midthirties, about the same age as he and Jarrett and judging by the way they smiled and shook the coroner’s hand, they knew her.
They didn’t look like cops and in fact, Thayne thought they had the look of Feds all over them.
“Feds,”
Jarrett whispered as he leaned toward Thayne.
Thayne nodded as he glanced over at Jarrett who gave him a knowing wink.
He couldn’t help but smile at his erstwhile partner.
The two men walked over to Thayne and Jarrett who still stood beside Greg Mason’s covered body.
The taller of the two men flipped open a badge as he stopped in front of them.
“FBI special agents Matt Terraciano and Lincoln Snow.
You’re ATF?”
Terraciano asked.
“Yes.
I’m ATF Special Agent Thayne Wolfe.
This is my partner, Special Agent Jarrett Evans, and this is ATF Investigator Ada Carrillo.”
They all shook hands.
“Aren’t you supposed to be out there checking to see what types of explosives blew up?”
Terraciano, asked.
“Instead, here you are, looking at bodies.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be investigating cybercrime or something?”
Jarrett asked snidely, ignoring the badge as though it just pissed him off and got in the way.
They had just talked about calling the local FBI branch in on this and here they were, making trouble with his partner.
Thayne got a sinking feeling in his gut.
One of these days, Jarrett was going to step in it and not get out of it so easily.
“No need to get testy,”
Special Agent Snow admonished his own partner.
“We’re all here for the same reason, I believe.”
His voice was calm and sounded much less annoyed than his partner’s.
“What makes you think this isn’t a serial killer?”
Terraciano asked, frowning at Jarrett.
“Is it?”
Jarrett asked.
Thayne watched his handsome partner’s dark eyebrows elevate.
The coroner cleared her throat.
“As fascinating as it is to watch you agent’s circle jerk, I think you came here to examine the body.
Correct? I have other things to do today.”
Thayne glanced at Ada when she snorted loudly and covered her mouth with her hand.
She sent him an amused look and a shrug. “Sorry,”
Thayne said, turning his attention to Clara Cornwall.
“We wanted to get a look at the body ourselves,”
Jarrett said with a frown.
“Good.
That’s why we’re here too,”
Snow said.
The nicer of the two agents, Lincoln Snow, seemed to be all business and Thayne could appreciate that, but he was very interested to see why the FBI had been brought in on the case just like Jarrett was.
Terraciano was going to be a pain in the ass.
The M.E.
put on a clean set of gloves and pulled the sheet back down.
“As you can see, Greg Mason has a large number of burns on his body as well as injuries from the impact of debris.
I just got the body a few hours ago and I won’t finish up the autopsy for a few more but on cursory examination, it looks like the skull fracture may turn out to be the cause of death.
Though, it might also be the extensive amount of burns.
He never woke from the coma that he was in when he was brought to the hospital immediately after the explosion and once I open the cranium, I expect to find hemorrhaging and bruising there as well.”
She stepped back and walked over to a light box, switching it on to show a skull X-ray hanging on it.
She pointed to some spots on it which appeared to be white.
“This is where he had a skull fracture.
You can see that here.”
“What caused it?”
Jarrett asked, squinting at the X-ray as Thayne joined him to look at the X-ray as well.
She stepped back over to the body and reached out, taking Mason’s chin and turning it to the side.
There was a massive laceration on the man’s left temple where the hair had been shaved away.
He looked like Frankenstein’s monster.
Thayne swallowed hard as he felt his mouth fill with saliva.
He felt like he was going to be sick and the smell of burnt flesh in the room was just nauseating.
He glanced at Jarrett who didn’t seem bothered by any of it at all and then at the two FBI agents, both of which had masks in their hands covering their mouths.
Even Special Agent Snow’s mocha skin looked kind of green come to think of it.
“As you can see, something struck Greg Mason on the side of the head.”
“Is there any way you can determine what struck him?”
Jarrett asked.
“Not really.
If it were something like a baseball bat or bludgeon, I’d be able to tell, but this wound shows that he was struck with a small blunt object which would have caused immediate incapacitation.
After that, the burns could have occurred when he was caught in the blaze the fireworks blast caused.
Whatever burns he suffered,”
she waved her hands over his skin, “would have been secondary to the wound.”
Thayne watched her hand, noting how she seemed to dismiss the possibility that the burns had been the cause of death.
“Okay, so he’s hit by an object of some kind and then he probably went ‘lights out’.
Was the hemorrhaging the cause of his coma?”
She turned her bright sights on him.
“Yes, exactly,” she said.
“But he could have just as easily been pelted by debris from the explosion,”
Special Agent Terraciano concluded.
“Then again, it happened on a military base so it could be another terrorist like the guy who shot up Fort Hood.”
Thayne turned around and stared at him for a second before letting out a breath he wasn’t aware he’d been holding.
He exchanged a glance with Jarrett who was doing a good job of biting his tongue.
He looked murderous.
“That was an Army base but I think I see where you’re going with this,”
the coroner said hesitantly.
“Until I finish, it’s all inconclusive.”
“Okay,”
Thayne said as she covered the body back up.
“I assume you’ll let us know your findings once you conclude your autopsy?”
She smiled at Thayne as she turned to him.
“Yes of course.”
Thayne handed her his business card.
“Thank you,”
Jarrett said.
“Can we talk to you out in the hall?”
he said to the FBI agents.
Thayne glanced at his partner, hoping that he wasn’t planning on starting something with these two.
He knew sometimes his partner had a short fuse.
Then again, Thayne did too, especially when they were dealing with stupid people.
Fortunately, the two FBI agents looked more than capable and not in the least bit stupid and they had planned on calling them anyway.
Terraciano’s conjecture that the killer may have been a terrorist and in the military like the Fort Hood shooter wasn’t sitting well with either of them, however.
Special Agent Snow held out his hand.
“After you.”
Thayne and Jarrett walked out of the M.E.’s office followed by Terraciano and Snow.
He noticed that Snow seemed to be the senior of the two agents even though he was younger… and much less of a hot head.
Terraciano reminded him of Jarrett with a mouth that was trouble all the way.
Thayne almost had to smile about that.
“Tell us what you’ve found out so far in this case,”
Jarrett said.
“Anything other than the fact that it happened on a Marine base have your panties in a wad?”
Special Agent Snow held up his hands in a placating manner.
“Look, we are more than happy to share if you are.”
“Good,”
Thayne interjected immediately.
“Is there a serial killer using fire as his weapon of choice? You mentioned that.”
“No, we’re not saying that.
We were brought in because Homeland is convinced there may be some terrorism connected to this,”
Snow admitted.
“Terrorism?”
Jarrett asked.
“We’re not sure but if you’d like, we could discuss this over coffee,”
Snow said.
“Would you like to join us, Investigator Carrillo?”
Ada smiled at Snow.
“It’s nice of you to ask, but I really have some things to do.”
Special Agent Snow smiled at her, holding out his hand.
“No problem.
Nice meeting you.”
She shook his hand and then Terraciano’s, Thayne’s, and Jarrett’s as well.
“Keep me updated on anything I need to know?”
she asked Thayne.
“Of course, Ada.”
He nodded.
“So, coffee?”
Snow asked.
“Coffee sounds good,”
Thayne added.
“We’ll follow you.”
They walked out into the parking lot only to find a black SUV with government plates in the front of the lot.
“Feds,”
Jarrett sneered as they walked to his Jeep.
“You do realize we’re Feds too, Jarrett?”
Thayne pointed out with a sideways grin.
“Humph,”
his partner grunted.
That brought a smile to Thayne’s face.
They got to the Jeep and Jarrett drove it to where Snow and Terraciano were pulling out onto the main highway, headed to a local shopping mall where Thayne knew they had a Starbucks.
Instead, the SUV pulled into a Denny’s restaurant parking lot.
He rubbed his belly.
Food did sound good now that he thought about it.
“We need to know why Homeland thinks this may be linked to terrorism,”
Jarrett said before they got out of the Jeep.
“But, if Terraciano keeps up with the military cracks, I’m gonna lose it.”
Thayne glanced over at him.
“I was thinking the same thing, Jarrett.
It’s best to keep a cool head if we want to get something out of these agents, though.”
Jarrett nodded.
“You think we should share what we found regardin’ the religious angle?”
he suddenly asked.
Thayne looked over at him to see if he was mocking him.
He couldn’t find any trace of it and he relaxed, not even really realizing that he thought Jarrett might be making fun of his theory that a religious fanatic could be involved.
He sighed.
“I suppose, but then it’s just a gut feeling with me, Jarrett.
I’m not sure putting it out there wouldn’t make us sound crazy.”
Jarrett nodded.
“Okay, I’ll follow your lead then.”
Thayne nodded as they got out of the Jeep and met the FBI agents at the front door of the restaurant.
“You must have been hungry,”
Thayne said with a smile.
“I realize it’s still not really lunch time yet but my partner doesn’t eat breakfast so lunch is very important to him,”
Special Agent Snow said, hooking a thumb at his partner.
“And I’m sure ya have a huge appetite after the scent of all that burnt flesh,”
Jarrett snipped.
Thayne couldn’t help but smile.
Terraciano rolled his eyes at him as he opened the door.
They all walked inside and waited for a waitress to seat them in a booth at the back of the restaurant where they wouldn’t be overheard.
After giving their drink orders, Jarrett leaned across the table, keeping his voice low.
“So, ya wanna tell us why Homeland is involved in this?”
Jarrett got right to the point.
“The Bureau has intelligence that there is a smuggling ring bringing fireworks up from Mexico in transports which have no DOT authorizations,”
Special Agent Snow said.
“So far, the Mexican officials have tracked the shipments from the port city of Valparaiso, Chile, into Mexico.
It seems they originate in China and then are picked up when they dock there.
From there, they’re distributed north through South America and into Mexico and then into the US by truck.
The Mexicans have been able to stop some of the trucks but others have made it across the border before being intercepted so we fear we haven’t gotten all of them.”
“Chile? That seems like a stretch,”
Thayne said in complete surprise.
“We thought so too but that’s what’s happening.
The CIA on the ground in South America confirms it.
They’ve been able to plant tracking devices on the shipping containers at the point where they originate in Chile,”
Terraciano replied.
“The CIA is involved in this?”
Jarrett asked.
Thayne looked over at his partner, a little surprised that he was so cool about it but he imagined Jarrett had probably had a lot of contact with the CIA since he’d done so many overseas missions while in the service.
“Yeah, that’s what I said,”
Terraciano said snidely.
Thayne watched the hackles rise on Jarrett’s back.
He could tell when his partner was pissed and fed up with something and Thayne knew if he didn’t diffuse the situation, Jarrett was going to deck the annoying FBI suit.
Fortunately for them all, their waitress arrived with coffees all around.
She set them down and then took their food orders.
Jarrett stuck with coffee and Thayne opted for a bowl of fruit.
He knew they’d be going back to one of those breweries if he had his way tonight, but coffee alone wasn’t gonna cut it until then.
His partner was way too wound up to eat at the moment and Thayne was rapidly getting there.
“Thanks,”
Jarrett muttered.
“Can we keep this civil, Special Agent Terraciano?”
“Good idea,”
Special Agent Snow said.
“I don’t really know why we can’t all cooperate here.
We’re on the same team.”
“Okay, fine,”
Jarrett said as Thayne opened his mouth, about to agree with Special Agent Snow.
“So you think you have smugglers bringin’ fireworks across the border from Mexico but what’s the correlation with smuggling and terrorism and how does the Bureau think this particular San Diego incident connects? Proximity to the Mexican border or somethin’ else?”
“Both actually.
Proximity to the border would make sense since the pyrotechnics experts might be tempted to buy stuff on the cheap from an illegal supplier who is connected to the smugglers while they’re down here.”
“Well, the wife of the lead pyrotechnician who died in the blast, said that her crew watched them unload the truck, and Investigator Carrillo already checked with DOT to make sure the load had the proper HAZMAT placards on the truck and paperwork on file,”
Jarrett replied.
“That doesn’t mean she or her husband didn’t pick up some other fireworks along the way,”
Snow added.
“One of the things we always check is to see what chemicals were used in the shells which exploded.
Investigator Carrillo has already sent samples to the ATF’s lab for analysis.
If anything differs from what was on the HAZMAT manifest for the approved load, we’ll know it.
It could be Greg Mason, the lead on the crew, might have thought he could get away with using substandard shells but that seems like a stretch since he and his wife had been doing this over twenty years,”
Thayne said.
“And I don’t think he expected to get all blowed up, either,”
Jarrett drawled.
The FBI agents both chuckled at his ridiculous accent and Thayne grinned.
“Maybe Mason wanted a little bonus for the retirement so he pocketed the money the base paid him and shot off substandard fireworks,”
Thayne said.
“When will you get the analysis of the explosives back?”
Snow asked.
“Investigator Carrillo tells us that she expects them back this afternoon.
Our lab is testing for the origin of all the explosives but because 80-90 percent of all fireworks are shipped from China, that’s most likely going to turn out to be where they came from,”
Thayne replied.
“Where else would they have come from?”
Terraciano asked.
Thayne was relieved to see that he was toning down his abrasiveness.
“Japan or Malta, generally,”
Thayne said.
“Though Japan usually manufactures the very expensive and high-end stuff which wouldn’t have been used here.”
“High-end stuff?”
Snow asked.
“Yes, some firework shells are implanted with a microchip and those are much costlier to manufacture.”
“What?”
Terraciano asked, looking completely shocked.
“Some of the very high-end fireworks contain a microchip implanted inside the shell itself so the show operator can set the detonation to time precisely at whatever interval the operator chooses between launch and ignition,”
Jarrett said.
“With some of the pyro-musicals, they want the fireworks to detonate when a shell reaches a particular altitude after being shot off or when a song hits a particular crescendo or something of the sort,”
Thayne added.
“Pyro-musicals?”
Snow asked.
“Right?”
Jarrett laughed.
Thayne just watched his partner snort and he smiled some more.
“Son of a bitch,”
Terraciano muttered.
“Technology really is somethin’.”
The waitress walked up and set down Thayne’s fruit bowl and the FBI agents’ burgers.
Jarrett snorted as he looked over at Thayne’s fruit, meeting Thayne’s gaze with the ice-blue of his own.
Thayne’s heart sped up as he noted the dimples in his stubbled cheeks appear along with his smile.
“Tell us more about the terrorist angle,”
Jarrett said, sipping the black coffee the waitress had refilled.
“From what Homeland has shared with us, they seem to think that there’s a group of homegrown terrorists who may be the recipients of some of those bootleg fireworks,”
Terraciano said in between bites of his food.
“You’re talking about militia groups?”
Thayne asked.
“Yes,”
Snow replied.
“We have been trying to get someone undercover inside this particular militia for nearly a year but haven’t been able to do so.
It’s run by a character who calls himself Reverend James.
They are highly suspicious about outsiders, as you may imagine, and anyone wanting to join has to be recommended by someone inside.
That means turning someone already in the group and that’s where things have stalled.
These guys are fanatical in their extreme right-wing belief systems about government, black helicopters, and Big Brother watching them.
You nearly have to be born into some of these groups to be trusted.”
“And here I thought those militia groups stuck to fertilizer bombs for the biggest bang,”
Jarrett snorted.
“The CIA says that perhaps they’re planning some terrorist attacks over the Fourth of July holiday next weekend,”
Snow said.
Thayne looked over at the dark-skinned man, appreciating his calm.
“That’s fuckin’ scary,”
Jarrett drawled, exchanging a glance with Thayne.
“There’s gonna be tons of kids hurt.
I’ll never understand how terrorists think.”
Thayne frowned, feeling sick to his stomach as he pushed his food away, his appetite completely gone.
“Do you have any theories about the incident out at Miramar?”
Special Agent Snow asked.
“No,”
Jarrett replied before Thayne could even open his mouth.
“We just got here yesterday.
We’ve toured the base where the incident happened but at this point, we can only guess at things.”
“We went out there too.
Have any guesses you want to share with us?”
Terraciano pushed.
Thayne and Jarrett exchanged a look between themselves again and Thayne just shrugged.
Jarrett finally nodded and blew out a breath.
“The truth is, we think the event at Miramar has a religious aspect that can’t be ignored.”
Thayne cringed, waiting for the laughter he expected from the two FBI agents.
It didn’t come.
Instead, the two FBI agents exchanged wary glances.
“You mean because of that note that was sent to the base operations office?”
Snow asked, sounding like the question was more of a conclusion than a question.
“Yeah.
Wolfe and I have been lookin’ into that but like I said, we just got here.”
“Since we’ve been tracking this militia and the leader is a dude calling himself Reverend James, the religious bent to the notes actually makes sense in a way.
If one of his followers is a religious kook, it would track with the notes being some sort of warning that Doomsday is coming or something of the like,”
Snow said.
“The thing is, we’ve been looking but this guy really stays under the radar.
He seems to use word of mouth to get his message out because our cyber division can’t find an image of him on the Internet.
Their best guess is, Reverend James is a ghost which doesn’t help us at all.”
“Ghosts don’t blow people and kids up,”
Jarrett said.
Terraciano and Snow shook their heads.
“No.
They fuckin’ don’t,”
Terraciano said.
Thayne nodded, feeling a little better about their theory.
The puzzle pieces seemed to be coming together just a little bit more.
“As long as you don’t think we’re crazy about the religious aspect, do you think the Bureau could look into the possibility of incidents in other regions where notes were left behind? It wouldn’t necessarily have to be an explosion.
The terrorist might have started with other crimes—I don’t know—something smaller.”
“The way a serial killer starts out by killing small animals and pets?”
Terraciano asked.
“Yeah, that makes sense.
We’ll check.”
“Thank you,”
Thayne said.
“As soon as you hear something about the analysis of the explosives, will you let us know what you found?”
Special Agent Snow asked.
Thayne smiled, happy the agents didn’t think he and Jarrett were off their rockers for following the religious angle.
He nodded.
“Of course.
We’ll be happy to share.
Keep us updated also?”
“We may have to since you both seem to know what you’re doing,”
Terraciano admitted, albeit almost grudgingly.
“Thanks,”
Jarrett said.
“Another thing.
If you could see what the FBI has on explosions of fireworks nationwide that they may have dismissed as accidents, that would be helpful.
We plan on interviewing the rest of the Mason crew but it might be real interesting if there were other crimes of the same type that we can tie to them or this Reverend James and his followers.
We’ll check within the Southern California region as well, but it might be helpful to see if there’s a serial using fireworks as a weapon and disguising it as an accident.”
Snow shook his head.
“If there’s a serial killer using fireworks as a method of killing, it would be one I haven’t heard of, but we will talk to the Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico.”
“We really appreciate that,”
Thayne said.
He looked over at his partner, thinking how happy he was that at least Jarrett had made the overture to the FBI and how glad he was they’d taken him and Jarrett seriously about the note.
Now the ball was in their court.
He and Jarrett would do what they needed to do but at least they were all on the same page.
****
They finished up their lunch meeting with the two FBI agents, feeling that at least they’d made some headway.
If Greg Mason had purchased fireworks from the smugglers, it just showed how dangerous the unregulated fireworks really were.
Neither Jarrett nor Thayne believed that Greg Mason knew how dangerous they were, if he had done that.
Mary Mason seemed to be honestly mourning the loss of her husband and neither Greg nor Mary had ever had trouble with the law before.
Mary had been convincing but Jarrett knew that sociopaths could easily fool others by hiding their true emotions.
God knew, Jarrett had met enough of them in his time.
He was convinced the sociopaths he’d met had no conscience at all which just allowed them to be truly evil without even trying.
As they got into the Jeep to head back to the hotel, Thayne’s phone rang.
“Wolfe,” he said.
“Hey, Sarah,”
Thayne said, glancing over at Jarrett.
“Let me put you on speaker so Evans can hear you too.”
Jarrett watched Thayne press a button on his phone and place it on the console as Jarrett drove toward their hotel.
“Hi, Evans,”
Sarah said sweetly.
“I’ve done some follow-up on the stuff you asked me about this morning, guys.”
“Hi, Connor.
What did ya find out?”
Jarrett drawled.
“Well, a couple things.
First of all, I looked into any and all reports of fireworks mishaps which might have missed our radar in our division.”
“Okay,”
Thayne said.
“So, what I found was that most of the mishaps were small accidents which occurred when folks, usually teenagers or kids, suffered burns or other injuries to their hands and fingers caused by the mishandling of fireworks.
In one case, a guy stood on two chairs over a skyrocket and had a friend set it off while he filmed it for YouTube, causing burns on his genitals when the rocket was launched up his shorts,”
she snorted.
Jarrett grinned over at Thayne.
“A Darwin award winner,”
he muttered as Thayne laughed.
“What an idiot,”
Thayne said.
“So what else?”
“There was one incident during the Chinese New Year parade in LA’s Chinatown earlier this year where someone sent up a lantern with exploding fireworks.
They shot down into the crowd and hurt some folks.
We had an investigator assigned to the case but she determined that no further investigation by the ATF was warranted because the injuries were relatively minor and she concluded it was an accident and not set off to intentionally hurt anyone.
Since there was no arrest, a special agent was never assigned the case.”
“What the hell?”
Jarrett asked, surprised by the fact that a special agent hadn’t been assigned to review the investigator’s findings.
He knew that ATF investigators, typically women like Ada Carrillo, did the majority of the agency’s grunt work, handling the licensing side of the ATF, doing spot checks, and carrying out routine inspections.
They usually didn’t call in an agent unless they felt as though they had evidence of a crime or when an arrest was imminent.
“After reading our investigator’s report, I called the LAPD to get their take on it.
I hit a brick wall, to be honest.
I left a message for the officers that took the call and called the investigator who works out of our office but she’s been on maternity leave since March.
She hasn’t gotten back to me yet,”
Sarah said.
“But I do think someone’s going to have to go and talk to all the parties involved if we want to rule out a connection to Miramar.”
“Chinese New Year was when?”
Thayne asked.
“In February.
The parade was in Chinatown and it gets huge spectator attendance with a massive LAPD presence.
You should be able to find someone to talk to about the incident.
A police report was filed but it was sorely lacking in details.”
“So there were injuries only? No deaths?”
Jarrett asked.
“No deaths, but there were some minor burns,”
Sarah replied.
“Okay,”
Jarrett said, pulling into the hotel parking lot, “Did you find anything out about suspicious fireworks explosions in other regions? Militia involvement or anything like that?”
“Militia involvement?”
Sarah’s voice sounded slightly surprised.
“You think there’s some connection to militias that I should be following up on?”
“We’re not sure about anything, Sarah,”
Thayne said.
“Jarrett and I were talking to a couple of FBI agents down here that suggested there may be some illegal fireworks being smuggled into the country on non-DOT approved transports and without the proper HAZMAT certifications.
They have some intelligence that suggests a possible domestic terrorism angle so we want to make sure we cover all bases.
Homeland is involved in the FBI’s investigation and we’re going to call the ATF satellite office in Mexico to see what they know.
The FBI said they’d follow up but if there are common chemicals used, we might just get lucky and match other incidents to whatever our lab comes back with once the trace analysis is completed on the remnants of the explosion out at Miramar.”
“Jesus.
What did you guys step into down there?”
Sarah asked.
Jarrett pulled into a parking space and switched off the Jeep.
“More than sparklers,”
he scoffed.
Thayne sent him a sideways glare and then turned back to the phone.
“Keep your ears open for that while you make your calls.
We’ll follow up with the Chinatown incident if you’ll send us the reports and then finish up down here and come home.
We’re waiting for the autopsy report on the victim who died from his injuries this morning and then barring any unforeseen circumstances, we’ll probably be headed back up to LA tonight.
You didn’t find out anything about incidents from the other divisions?”
“Not yet.
Those calls are next and Stanger is gesturing for me to come into his office so I gotta go for now,”
Sarah said.
“Hey, you can always send him my favorite gesture,”
Jarrett deadpanned.
She laughed through the phone.
“I’ll make sure to tell him it’s from you, Evans,”
she said brightly.
“Bye for now.
I’ll send you that stuff and get you an update as soon as I have one.
Do you want me to brief Stanger what you guys are up to?”
“If it saves me making the phone call to him,”
Jarrett said.
“Thanks, Sarah.”
“No problem.
Bye, guys.”
The phone disconnected and Jarrett glanced over at his partner.
He was grinning at him. “What?”
“Sparklers,”
Thayne huffed.
“You’re a clown, Evans.”
“That’s why you lurve me,”
Jarrett replied with an exaggerated drawl.
“Come on.
We have some reports to read and calls to make, Evans,”
Thayne said.
“Then, if you’re lucky, I might make you see some fireworks of your own.”
He grinned.
Jarrett barked a laugh as he got out of the truck.
“Now that’s something to look forward to.”