Page 16 of Hiss and Make Up
Sierra waved her phone. “I’d better get going. This sounds serious.” She hugged Liz. “Oh, almost forgot. I might need a number for a rescue group. We had a dog wandering around the park. Not sure if he left with a camper or not.”
“If you catch him, I’ve got a couple of people we can call.”
“Great. Thanks.”
Sierra left the room, closing the curtain behind her, and waved goodbye to New Guy at the front counter. Talking to Liz always had a calming effect on her, but this text erased all those good vibes.
She texted back while waiting for the Forerunner to warm up. She told Marc she was on her way and, against her better judgment, saved his name in her contacts.
4
Sierra slipped her arms into the long-sleeved shirt she kept in the car. Denise met her halfway and pointed to the deck box against the side of the house.
Marc stood a few feet away holding out his palm. “Ladies first.”
She resisted the urge to snap back at him. Barely. They had enough problems already. “Hey, Denise.”
“Sierra.”
It was about as warm a welcome as she’d ever gotten from Denise. And considering the circumstances, it might as well have been a full-blown bear hug. Sierra wasn’t sure what she’d ever done to piss Denise off, but the woman seemed to hate her ever since they were kids. She always assumed it was just an overprotective sibling thing. Being an only child, Sierra had no idea how that worked.
Sierra grabbed the lid with her right arm outstretched. She could take a quick peek and drop the lid if she had to before anything could escape.
She took a deep breath, flipped the lid up, and peered over the edge. Inside she found the same contents as the day before: garden tools, a short length of a coiled hose, kickballs, a bunch of plastic toys ... plus about half a dozen snakes intertwined in the mess.
After taking a quick mental picture, Sierra released the lid. She stared at the closed box and bit down on the inside of her cheek. From what she could see, they were all most likely a single non-venomous species. Her mind raced through a dozen possibilities, but none fit.
“Do you have a big pillowcase I could use?” she asked Denise. Since she’d come straight from Some Pig, Sierra didn’t get a chance to grab a cardboard carrier from the station. She’d forgotten to get a new one to keep in her car after finding that injured opossum near the gas station last week. She still had a plastic carrier in her car, but the wire door wouldn’t keep one of these contained.
Denise nodded and hurried into the house, letting the screen door slam behind her. Several yards away, Sierra spotted a decent sized stick near a water oak.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Marc asked, still frozen in his safe spot far from the action.
“Getting a stick.”
“Poking them to death sounds a little cruel, don’t you think?”
“I’m not poking them to death, you dork. I’m going to get one of them out of there.”
“Are you nuts?” His voice cracked.
“How else do you expect me to identify it?”
“I don’t know. Take a picture? Besides, you’re the expert. Don’t you know what they are?”
“I don’t think they’re from around here. And no, I’m not an expert. But I know someone who is.”
“Great, and does he also make house calls?”
“No, but I can bring him one.”
Sierra examined her stick—long enough to reach inside and strong enough to hold the weight of one snake. She couldn’t be sure how long these snakes were, not with all the junk in there, so she figured she’d better overestimate.
As soon as she returned to the deck box, Denise walked out with a king-sized pillowcase. Sierra pointed to Marc, still plastered in place. “One of you has to hold it open.”
She waited while they argued over who would perform the unpleasant task. Denise pulled the big sister and motherhood cards, so Marc lost.
He took a few steps forward, closed his eyes, and held the pillowcase open in front of him. Carefully, Sierra nudged one of the snakes onto the end of the stick, then lifted it out of the box. She held the stick steady with one hand and dropped the lid shut with the other. The snake hung loosely over the end of the stick. Sierra maneuvered at several different angles, trying to tilt both the tail and head into the pillowcase with no success.
