A jolt of panic coursed through Jack. He didn’t have time to put the box back in the humidor. Didn’t even have time to relock the cabinet. He pushed the
door closed and ran in a crouch. He’d just rounded the corner into the stairwel when the door opened.
He stood there panting like he’d just sprinted a three-minute mile.
Too close.
He heard Mr. Brussard saying, “You’ve just got to stay calm, Bert. Everything wil be—”
“Calm? How can I stay calm after al that’s happened? I go to the West Coast for a week and come back to find everything gone to hel !”
But he hadn’t been on the West Coast, Jack knew. Why was he lying?
“After two years,” he added, “with my nerves final y calming down, this happens!”
Two years … Anton Boruff had been murdered two years ago … “The important thing is to realize that this wil al blow over.”
“Wil it? I’ve heard that the Council is sending someone to take charge of our Lodge.”
As they moved into the den their voices faded and Jack didn’t have the nerve to try the bathroom trick again. So he tiptoed downstairs and checked
Steve. Stil out.
He looked down at the little box in his sweaty palm. How was he going to get it back in the humidor before Mr. Brussard realized it was gone?
But before he worried about that, he had to see what it held. He lifted the lid gingerly, cautiously, half afraid something would jump out at him. But
instead of some exotic insect or mysterious amulet, he found a smal , round, white object.
A pil .
He picked it up and inspected it but could find no markings to give him a hint of what it contained. But he had a suspicion it might not be good for
anyone’s health. Steve’s father had given three of these to three men, and al were dead the fol owing day.
Questions swirled.
Could it be some kind of poison, something untraceable that only the Lodge knew about?
He should take it to the police and tel them his suspicions, convince them to analyze it. That seemed the most logical and direct course, but would they
believe him? Or would they react like Weezy and think of him as a Hardy Boy wannabe?
But what if he was wrong? What if it was something harmless, supposed to ward off the klazen but didn’t. He’d have hurt the reputation of an innocent
man, a man who’d jumped into the lake to save him because he thought he was drowning.
Jack couldn’t help feeling in Mr. B’s debt. After al , what was Chal is’s role in al this?
But he couldn’t ignore what he’d seen and heard. If Steve’s father was guilty, Jack had to find a way to let him hang himself.
He looked at Steve, then looked at the pil lying in its box, and had an idea.
But he’d have to set the stage careful y to make this work.
“Listen, Bert, I’ve found a way to protect us from the klazen.”
Jack stood outside the den, listening. He’d been about to walk in but had
stopped just around the corner.
“I don’t need protection from some mythical threat, I need—”
“Vasquez, Haskins, and Sumter might disagree as to how mythical it is. If I could
have got to them in time they’d stil be alive.”
A lie. He’d given them each a pil .
That clinched it for Jack.
He’s guilty, he thought. But I’m the only one who knows.
In the next few minutes he hoped to change that.
“You know what?” Chal is said. “I almost wish I were with them. This is eating
me alive. We shouldn’t have taken matters into our own hands like that. We—”
Mr. Brussard cut him off, saying, “What’s done is done. We’ve got to deal with
now. Let me show you what I’ve got. I—hey. This is supposed to be
locked.”
Uh-oh. Time to make his move. Jack quickly stepped into the den. Mr. Brussard
was squatting by the liquor cabinet; Chal is, a thin, twitchy man, stood nearby.
“Mister Brussard?”
