“Just in case.”
“You’re acting like you might not get it back.”
“You think so?” she said without looking up.
When she was finished she snapped the cube back together, then wrapped it in a towel and put it in a shopping bag. She handed it to him.
“Don’t let it out of your sight.”
Jack shook his head as walked back downstairs. You’d think he was borrowing her first-born child.
7
After dinner, Jack took the bag of pistachios to his room but didn’t bother shel ing them right away. He needed to do something else first.
He put on Journey’s
peppers in a cereal bowl and crushed them into flakes. Then, making sure no one was in sight, he crossed to the hal bathroom and added an ounce or
two of tap water.
Back in his room he mixed everything wel , then set it aside and started shel ing the pistachios. He’d done about ten when he heard a knock. Knowing it
wasn’t Tom—he never knocked—Jack placed the latest issue of
“C’mon in.”
He turned down the music as Kate stepped through the door. Her gaze flicked to his desk where she spotted the pistachios.
She smiled. “Figure it’s safer to eat them in here, huh?”
“At least tonight. What’s up?”
Kate’s smile faded and she bit her lip. “I know I promised to find out for you, but I’m not sure I should tel you.”
“You mean about the murder ritual?” Jack felt his heart rate kick up. He’d been dying to hear this. “Go ahead. You can tel me.”
“It’s real y bizarre.”
Even better.
“Tel -me-tel -me-tel -me!”
“Okay. Wel … Jenny told me that it seems whoever kil ed the man cut off his forearms at the elbows and crudely sewed them into his armpits.”
Kate nodded. “Truth, I swear.”
Jack tried to envision it but had trouble. “Oh man, that’s so
“Alive when they did it?” Kate smiled as she gave him a gentle slap on the back of his head. “Mister Morbid … I knew you’d ask.”
“Wel ?”
“Was he alive when they cut off his forearms? No.”
That was a relief—in a way.
“But what does the arm thing mean?” He snapped his fingers as an idea hit. “Maybe it has something to do with stealing.”
“Traditional y thieves lose their right hand—and it’s not sewn into their armpit. I asked Jenny about it and she says the medical examiner’s going to
make some cal s, but he’s never heard of anything like it.”
“Maybe it had nothing to do with the diamond scam.” Jack lowered his voice into an imitation of Weezy’s
secret cult, living unseen in the Pinelands for thousands of years, kil ing and mutilating unwary victims who cross their path! Mwah-ha-ha-ha!”
She laughed and ruffled his brown hair. “Stop it. You read too many of the wrong books and watch too many crummy movies.”
The crummy part was sure true. He’d seen
Kate pointed to the pistachios. “May I have one?”
He cupped his palm around the pile and pushed it toward her.
And he meant it. Anything Kate wanted she could have, no questions asked.
She took just one, picking it up between a dainty thumb and forefinger. “This’l do.” She popped it into her mouth and stepped to the door. “You want this
closed?”
