The anger had faded from Mike’s face. “Your old man was a tough son of a bitch,” he said as if it were somehow relevant to the current conversation.
Jericho bit back the retort about his old man being a fucking loser. It seemed like he was doing okay in this exchange, so now he needed to keep his mouth shut and not mess it up.
After another moment, Mike reached into his pocket and pulled out the phone. He tossed it across the hood of the car, and Jericho managed to drop the keys on the hood and catch the phone with his left hand, keeping his right near his gun. But Mike made no hostile move, and Jericho stuffed the phone in his own pocket, reclaimed the keys, and tossed them across to Mike.
He stepped away from the car as Mike climbed in, sketched a jaunty salute in Kayla’s direction, and then pulled away.
Jericho and Kayla watched him leave, and then she said, “You want to tell me what the hell is going on?” in a tone that made it clearnowas not going to be an acceptable answer.
“I’ll have to explain it to the feds too. Want to just hold off on the explanation until we get back and talk to them?”
“No,” she said with a fierce glare. “I think I can decide whether to fire my under-sheriff without needing any input from the DEA, thank you. Once I’ve determined whether you’re still employed by my department, then you can give your statement to the feds.”
“Oh,” he said, and decided it would be best not to ask her if they could go get some lunch before they talked.
