“I promise to never use my newfound power for evil.”
Mr. Rosen’s stare widened. “‘Newfound power’?”
Jack laughed. “I remember reading something like that in a comic book once.” “This isn’t a comic book. This is life. Do I have your word you wil not use what
you’ve learned here today for anything il egal?”
Jack held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
“You’re a Boy Scout?” Mr. Rosen said with a frown. “I had no idea.” “Only kidding.” Jack laughed. “About the Boy Scout part, I mean. But I won’t do
anything il egal. I promise.”
And he meant it … at the time.
For the next hour or so, Jack worked on various locks around the store. Mr.
Rosen had keys to al of those, so it wouldn’t matter if Jack couldn’t pick them. As he worked he heard classical music waft from the front. Somehow Mr. Rosen
had found an FM station out of Phil y that played only classical. Jack
wished he had one of those new Walkmans so he could listen to his own music,
but his dad had refused to buy him one.
Turned out Mr. Rosen hadn’t been quite right: Each new lock did not become
easier than the last. But as each fel victim to Jack’s array of picks and
tension wrenches, he felt a growing sense of knowing what he was doing. He
learned to refine his raking technique and how to use the finer picks to nudge the more stubborn pins into line.
He felt a rush every time one clicked open.
He was sitting on an old ladderback chair near the front of the store, working on
a padlock, when an announcer interrupted Mr. Rosen’s music to say
something about someone’s “sudden col apse.” He dropped the lock when he
heard him mention the name “Vasquez.”
He leaped to his feet. “What was that?”
Mr. Rosen looked up from his newspaper. “One of the state legislators col apsed
at some ribbon-cutting ceremony today.” He stared at Jack. “You’re al right? Like a ghost you look.”
“I-I think I might have seen him last night.”
Mr. Bainbridge’s words echoed through his head:
Wel , now he knew. He’d been worried that Mr. Brussard would be next, but it
hadn’t turned out that way.
What was happening? The most obvious explanation tied Jack’s innards into
knots.
According to Steve, Mr. Sumter had visited his father Monday night. Tuesday
morning he was dead.
On Tuesday night Mr. Haskins had visited Mr. B. Wednesday morning, Haskins
dropped dead.
Last night, Assemblyman Vasquez … and now he was dead.
Jack knew that at least two of the three men who’d visited Mr. Brussard had left
with a little red box. They’d been told it held something that would
protect them from the so-cal ed klazen.
Jack could come to only one conclusion. The klazen didn’t exist. He didn’t know
why or how, but he had an awful suspicion that whatever was in the boxes Steve’s father had given these men had kil ed them. And that would make Mr. Brussard a cold-blooded murderer.
“Steve’s father?” Weezy said, her voice hushed. “Ohmygod, I can’t believe it.” Jack shrugged. “Neither can I, but can you come up with any other explanation?” “Could be coincidence.”
Jack couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Whoa! The girl who finds
conspiracies everywhere says ‘coincidence’? Three visits, three days, three deaths?”
