“Next time, can you please pick a guy who prefers a sensible climate?” Andrej grumbled as he zipped out of the airport loop and onto the interstate, where they promptly stalled again in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

“It’s hotter’n hell out there.”

Unfortunately, some clichés are impossible to resist, so after a moment of fighting it, Misha gave in and deadpanned, “But it’s a dry heat.”

Andrej nailed him with a disgusted glare. “Seriously, man? ‘It’s a dry heat’? That’s all you’ve got? I’m embarrassed for you. You used to be funny.”

“You want sparkling wit, hook up with a comedian,” Misha said, unruffled. He was off the plane and moving again, hopefully toward Riley, so he was feeling a lot better than before. A little punchy, maybe, from too little sleep and too much coffee. Airline coffee at that. Riley wouldn’t have approved. The man was particular about his caffeine.

Misha knew his elation wouldn’t last—not with half the town’s population blocking his way as they snail-crawled along the interstate—but he was determined to make the best of it. He fished his cell out of his pocket and winced when he saw the list of missed calls. His father was not going to be happy with him. His mother either. They’d even recruited Mariya. Misha shrugged it off. Couldn’t be helped. Mikhail Tokarev was officially on a mission and thus on radio silence. Except for mission-related calls, of course. He hit the speed dial.

“Kolya? We’re in El Paso. What’s the situation?”

“That was fast,” Kolya noted, sounding unsurprised. Stoic fucker.

“I got tired of sitting on my ass.” Misha shifted in his seat to get his shirt unstuck from the skin on his back. He wanted a shower and a change of clothes, but it’d have to wait. “Did you find him or has he ditched you again?”

Like most of his attempts to get a rise out of Kolya, it was a wasted effort. “Got him.”

Misha’s body tensed and straightened so fast he almost knocked himself out against the car roof. “No shit?”

“He should’ve given up his truck.” There was a touch of smugness in Kolya’s voice, the deep satisfaction of a hunter finally closing in on his prey. Apparently, Riley’s continued evasion had bugged the man after all.

Kolya wasn’t used to being hoodwinked, and the fact that Riley was a civilian had added insult to injury. “He spent the night in a motel off exit eleven.”

Again with the past tense. Misha spared a second to stare at the phone in his hand with a healthy dose of disgust. Kolya, he reminded himself. This was Kolya. Annoying son of a bitch, but good at what he did. You had to handle Kolya right or he’d balk… and a balking Kolya could out-stubborn a mule. So Misha thumped his head back against the headrest and forced himself to be patient.

“He still there?”

“Yep.”