be.
After checking to make sure Tom was stil around, Jack retrieved his doctored pistachios from his room. Back in the kitchen, he made a show of pouring
a few dozen nuts onto the counter from the untreated bag. Keeping the spicy ones separate, he shel ed five of those first.
From the corner of his eye he saw Tom walk past the doorway, slowing as he looked into the kitchen.
Perfect.
He shel ed two of the regular nuts and ate them.
Kate finished loading the dishwasher and leaned against the counter.
“Mind if I snag a couple?” she said, pointing to the pile.
“Not those,” Jack whispered without moving his lips.
Her eyes widened. “You mean …?”
Nodding, he quickly shel ed a couple of regular nuts and slid them toward her. As Tom passed again, Jack pretended to take them from the pile and
hand them to her.
“Here you go,” he said in a louder voice.
Kate popped them into her mouth and smiled. “I was going to go read, but maybe I’l hang around awhile.”
She opened the paper and began to flip through it.
“Oh, look,” she said. “Here’s a picture of that assemblyman just minutes before he died. What a shame.”
Jack resisted snatching the paper from her. Instead he hurried around the counter and stared over her shoulder.
The grainy photo showed a grinning Assemblyman Vasquez holding a large pair of scissors poised to cut a wide ribbon outside a shopping mal . Yeah,
he was the guy in Steve’s house last night.
“Wel , I’l be,” Kate said. She tapped a figure in the smal crowd behind Vasquez. “Look who’s there: Bert Chal is, our trusty insurance man.”
Jack stifled a gasp as he recognized him. Hadn’t Mr. B said he was in L.A. at some convention? A strange comment came back to him:
Worried him how?
Had he been there to warn Vasquez … or was he the problem?
Just then Jack spotted Tom peeking around the edge of the doorframe. He lowered his voice again.
“I think the show’s about to start.”
As Jack resumed his seat on the far side of the counter, Kate wandered back to the sink and pretended to be busy.
With Tom watching, Jack shel ed five more hot ones, al of which he added to the pile. That done, he made a show of opening one untreated nut and
popping it in his mouth. Then a second. Then he quickly shel ed the rest of the doctored nuts and added them to the pile.
Tom, apparently unable to hold out any longer, glided into the kitchen and slid the nuts off the counter into his palm.
“Gotcha!”
“Hey!” Jack cried. “Better not. Those are hot.”
“Not this time. I saw you and Kate eating them.”
“I’m warning you,” Jack said.
Kate chimed in. “Better think twice, Tom.”
“Oh, right,” he said with a laugh. “Like you don’t back up Miracle Boy every chance you get.”
Kate shrugged. “Your funeral.”
Tom waved and headed for the back door. “These’l taste great on the way to Phil y.”
Jack lowered his voice and did his Wil y Wonka thing again. “Stop. Don’t. Come back.”
But Tom didn’t—at least not right away. As the screen door slammed behind him, Kate grinned at Jack and began a countdown.
“Five … four …”
Jack joined her.
