Page 12 of Flash Freeze

Hernandez groaned.

“I know it’s Sunday,” Athena acknowledged. “You’ll just have to attend early mass. Now, get out there.”

Her teams headed for the elevators. “Do you have the address?” she asked Bach, who was looking at his phone.

“Just pulled it up on GPS. Let’s hope Rivers is at home so we don’t have to hunt him down on a golf course.”

My sentiments exactly, Athena thought as she stepped into the full elevator car. She had no intention of missing a night with Flash after two weeks apart.

Chapter 6

Twenty-six-year-old Cody Rivers worked for a local solar power outfit and lived in a house that looked like it should belong to his grandmother. The whitewashed, wood-sided house sat in an older part of town, gray shutters framing the windows and a detached garage tucked off to one side. While it was clearly old, he’d made some upgrades—most conspicuously the solar panels on the roof. The concrete driveway, sidewalk, and front steps were stained and cracked, and the grass was spotty. However, inviting shade trees graced both the narrow front and back yards, promising relief from the summer heat.

“Are you sure this is the right address?” Bach asked as he walked up to Athena, who stood on the sidewalk surveying the property.

“You looked it up,” she answered. “Young fellow, single … this appears to be in his price range. See the energy-efficient windows and solar panels, the electric car plugged into the garage?”

His eyes followed her hand as she motioned toward the items. “OK. I’ll knock on the door. You stay behind me in case he has a bad reaction to law enforcement. Not that you aren’t perfectly capable of subduing a suspect, but it’d cost a mint to get blood out of your nice suit, while mine came from Sears.”

Athena regarded him coolly. Nice save. “If you insist.” Not everything was worth fighting over.

Bach knocked firmly, badge in hand, ready to display it, while Athena peered over his shoulder. He’d had a smoke in his car, as the sharp odor clung to his cheap suit. A young man opened the door, curly acorn hair tousled above stubble halfway to a beard. He wore a rainbow tie-dyed T-shirt and sweats. His amber-brown eyes widened at the sight of the badge.

“May I help you?” he asked warily.

“Mr. Rivers?” Bach asked. “Cody Rivers?”

“That’s me.” The suspicion in his tone deepened. “What’s this about?”

Athena stepped up beside Bach, offering Cody a friendly expression. “Mr. Rivers, I’m ASAC Bouvier of the FBI, and this is Detective Bach of HPD. If it isn’t any trouble, we’d like to come in and ask you a few questions.”

His brows drew together. “You mean you want to accuse me of something?” He huffed and stepped away from the door, leaving it open. “Come in,” he grumbled. “But I reserve the right to remain silent.”

Bach held the door for Athena, and she followed Cody inside. Potted plants and herbs abounded, as did bold colors and mixed-media art. A vibrant stained-glass lamp sat on an end table made from an old barrel, along with an Alexa. “Decrease volume by fifty percent,” Cody ordered, and the ambient electronic music with a thrumming beat quieted. “Make yourselves at home. Whatever it is, I didn’t do it.”

“Mr. Rivers,” Athena said with curiosity, “why do you think we wish to blame you for something?”

“Because that’s what you people do.” He plopped into a patchwork-stuffed chair beneath wall shelves made from uniquely painted skateboards, a philodendron’s leafy vine dangling down to his shoulder. Book titles such as An Inconvenient Truth, Atomic Habits, The Sixth Extinction, and 1984 caught Athena’s eye. She sat on the sofa, strewn with Art Déco pillows, and listened as Bach took the lead. She appreciated that he didn’t crowd her.

“And what do you think is the reason for that?” Bach asked. He sounded a little smug, but even cops don’t enjoy having unfounded accusations hurled at them.

“Look, I lead a peaceful, ecology-minded group of young people who don’t just want to change the world—we hope to save it so maybe our grandchildren won’t end up in some dystopian nightmare. Do we draw attention to polluters? Hell, yes. Do we protest their greed and indifference? Somebody has to. Agitators, they call us. Freeloaders. Tree-huggers. All great social revolutionaries were despised and dismissed by the powerful elite they sought to expose. Now, why are you here?”

“The Green Resistance has protested against Gulf Allied Chemicals Company on various occasions, correct?” Athena began. “Disparaged them on talk radio and podcasts, sent them threatening messages?”

“Damn straight! That old plant is a disaster waiting to happen. They leak toxic chemicals into the soil that grows our food, the water table we drink from, and poison the fish we eat. They should have been shut down years ago, but the government is always overly lenient with billionaire CEOs and their companies, and overly harsh on anyone who stands up to them. It’s all part of the broken system. It’s like how everyone turned their backs on the AIDS epidemic. Until enough ‘important’ people die, nothing will change.”

“Is that what you had in mind?” Bach asked. “Make sure some important people die? Because the general manager of Gulf Allied Houston assures us he isn’t important enough to be targeted.”

Cody’s righteous indignation faded into confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“The attack on the Gulf Allied Chemicals plant yesterday.” Bach’s tone sharpened with the righteous anger Cody had carried a moment before. “Four people were killed, none of whom were billionaires. They were regular working-class men and women, just doing their jobs.”

“Attack?” Cody paled, his features tightening. “What kind of attack?”

“Don’t you watch the news?” Bach barked. “If the fire hadn’t been contained in time, toxic chemicals could have drifted over a quarter of the city. Why wait for pollution to destroy the Earth? You could have killed thousands in one blow.”

“I don’t watch the news,” he answered, as if nobody who was anybody engaged in such behavior. “It’s just full of lies and propaganda.”