The Serpent's Kiss

23

Jill Church was pacing in front of the entrance to the Fisher Building when Michael pulled up. All the windows were open in the Honda, which immediately caught her attention. It was not a particularly warm day. It was, in fact, a little chilly. She shoved the thought to the back of her mind for a moment and climbed in.

“You made good time,” she said. “I’m really sorry about this, but I’m going to need your car.”

Michael shrugged, the perpetual scowl firmly plastered on his face. “Where’s your car?”

Jill settled back and buckled her seat belt, rolling up the window. “Can we close the windows?” she said. “Why are your windows open?”

Michael shrugged again and leaned over and cranked up his window. “Where to?”

“I’ll drop you back at school. Where’s Ray?”

Michael pulled forward into traffic on West Grand Boulevard. The gridlock had thinned over the last couple hours. Of course, more people were leaving the city now than going in.

“I let him out,” Michael said. He sniffed.

“Getting a cold?” Jill asked.

“What?”

“Sniffling?”

“No. Just… nothing. Where to?”

“Like I said, I’ll drop you back at school.”

“Okay. This about that Serpent thing?”

He took a turn from the Boulevard onto the northbound Lodge. “Don’t drive so fast,” Jill said.

“Mom, everybody’s going seventy.”

“Just go the speed limit. Can you get a ride home from school from somebody?”

He nodded. “What’s this all about?”

“I can’t talk about it, Michael.”

He took his eyes off the road to glare at her. “No shit,” he grumbled. “So what else is new?”

Jill clenched her fists in her lap and blinked away tears that welled in her eyes. “I don’t need this right now, Michael. I just need your car for the rest of the day.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Michael… you do understand that my job is important. Right?”

“Sure.”

She flinched at the lack of interest in his voice. “It’s not just that it’s what we live on,” she continued. “What I do. It’s important.”

Michael didn’t say anything. He got off the Lodge onto the Davison.

“You do understand that, right?”

“Uh-huh. So what’s wrong with your car? Break down?”

Jill said, “Um, another agent… borrowed it.”

Michael peered at her over his shoulder, then ducked back to watch the road. “What was wrong with his car?”

Jill kneaded her temples with her fingertips. “Michael, I really don’t want to discuss this right now, okay?”

“Why should this be any different,” Michael muttered.

They drove in silence as Michael maneuvered from the Davison to northbound I-75. Jill wrestled with her emotions. It was just policy. Don’t talk about active cases with civilians. And that meant her son. It had cropped up from time to time in the past, but not lately. Lately he hadn’t wanted to talk about anything. It was like sharing a house with a deaf-mute. A deaf-mute with an attitude. All of a sudden, today, he wanted to talk about her work.

Michael filled the silence by punching on his radio. A loud, belligerent voice filled the car interior:

Jill jabbed off the radio. “That’s… that’s…”

“Mom! I was listening—”

Jill’s cell phone rang. She held up a silencing hand to her son and put the phone to her ear. “Jill Church here.”

“Church, it’s Stillwater. I’ve got—”

”You are in such serious trouble! Where are you?”

“Church, would you—”

”You know that Matt Gray wants me to arrest you. Look, just tell me where you are. I’ll meet you, take you back to the Federal Building. If you want, I’ll take you to the airport and you can just fly back to—”

”Agent Church, shut the fuck up! Rebecca Harrington’s been murdered.”

It felt like her throat was swelling shut. “What? How—”

”I’m leaving, but if you want to take control of the scene, you’d better get over here.”

“Over where? Control of the… Stillwater, you have to stay there. This is in Ferndale, right?”

“Yes. She’s in her bedroom on the second floor of her house. You’re going to have to bring the local cops, the Ferndale PD, into this, but you’ve got to make them understand—”

”Are you out of your mind?! You stay there! You stay right there until I get there! Don’t contamin—”

He hung up on her.

With a frustrated shout she slammed her fist down on the dashboard of the Honda. “God dammit! God dammit!”

Michael’s eyes were wide. “Mom?”

She pressed her hand to her forehead, took a deep breath, let it out. “We’re going to Ferndale. We’re going to a murder scene. Right now.”

“Cool.”

“It’s not cool!” she snapped. “This isn’t a game, Michael!”

“I know.” He turned to look at her, ripping down the left lane of northbound I-75. “My father died as the result of a terrorist attack. Remember? I know it’s not a game.”