Chimera by David Wellington

certain trait.
He showed Mom that if they had kids, there was a statistically significant
probability they would have red hair.”
    â€œI guess it worked,” Chapel said.
    She grabbed a strand of her hair and pulled it
around toward her eyes as if she were checking what color it was. Letting it go,
she said, “Too bad he couldn’t predict how they would actually get along. He
left us when I was a teenager. Most of what I remember of them is the two of
them shouting at each other.”
    â€œWhy did they split up?”
    â€œLike I said, people keep secrets from me. Mom
would never explain—she just said it was a disagreement over ethics. Which could
mean he slept around, or it could mean they differed on their views of stem cell
research. Either way I’d believe it. She made him sound like the worst man on
earth.”
    â€œWhat about you? Do you get along with him?”
    â€œI haven’t spoken to him in years,” she said. “And
then it was just on the phone.”
    Chapel tapped on the window with his real fingers.
This wasn’t going anywhere. He needed to get back on track. “Did your mother
have an interest in mythology?” he asked.
    â€œWhat on earth does that have to do with anything?”
She had taken a tissue from her purse and was angrily wiping the makeup from
around her eyes. When he didn’t reply, she threw herself back in the cab seat
and sighed. “No. I don’t remember her ever talking about mythology.”
    Chapel nodded. “Did she know any Greek people?
Maybe someone who would wish her harm?”
    â€œMaybe the guy who runs the diner where she got
breakfast.”
    â€œCute, but not helpful, Dr. Taggart.”
    She sneered at him. “I have no reason to be either,
so far. When are you going to start telling me what’s going on?”
    He could see in her eyes she was done answering
questions until he gave her something. He tried to think of the best way to be
evasive without sounding evasive. “The man who killed your mother had her name
and address. He also had your father’s.”
    She stared at him as if he’d told her he was an
alien and he’d just come from the moon. “My mother was assassinated?” she
asked.
    â€œI know that’s going to come as a shock—”
    â€œBut it’s been twenty years. Why now?”
    It was Chapel’s turn to be surprised. “I’m not sure
I follow. What happened twenty years ago that would make your mother a target
for assassination?”
    â€œI don’t know,” she told him. “She never told me
any details. I just know that she and my father both used to work for the CIA,
back when we lived up in the Catskills.”
    BROOKLYN, NEW
YORK: APRIL 12, T+8:48
    The Catskills. That was where the DoD
facility was located, the one where the detainees had been held. It couldn’t be
a coincidence. Chapel felt like he was looking at the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle,
and two of them had just fit together for the first time.
    â€œYou have no idea what they did for the CIA?”
    â€œNone,” Julia said. “They were both pretty good at
keeping their secrets. By the time I was old enough to ask—to even wonder about
what my parents did for a living—we had already moved to New York City and they
had moved on to other jobs. I may have asked about their time as spies once in a
while, but they would just tell me to mind my own business and I guess
eventually I got the point.”
    Spies—well, that was unlikely. Dr. Bryant hardly
fit the profile. But the CIA wasn’t just spies; it employed thousands of
civilians in all kinds of roles. All of whom were required by law never to talk
about what they did. Even mentioning they had worked for the CIA, even to their
own daughter, would be forbidden. “They actually said, ‘we used to work for the
CIA,’ just like that?”
    â€œNo, of course not. Nothing like