Page 85 of Fire Dancer

“Dammit…” I kneeled down and peered into the back corner it landed in.

Reaching it meant moving one big box, then another.

“I’ll be right back with some tape,” Wendy said, stepping away.

The note was still out of reach, so I shifted another box, then froze at a familiarclink.

I sat back on my haunches and stared. Except for the dull whirr of the refrigerator’s cooler, silence reigned.

I glanced at the open door, then back at the box. Ten loud thumps of my heart later, I pulled the box closer.

Ten more thumps. Two more glances at the door. A couple more screwdriver twists to my determination. Finally, I easedthe box open and tipped it toward the light. My shadow fell over the contents, but I already knew what was in there.

Vials. Dozens and dozens of vials.

I plucked one out, pinching it with the tips of my fingers, more like a dead mouse than a piece of glass I’d shaped with my own hands.

With one important difference. I’d delivered them empty. Now, the vial was full of sluggish red liquid.

My stomach lurched as I held the vial up to the light.

Neat, rounded script graced the label, recording a name, a date, and a symbol.

Saanvi, it read, with last week’s date and the sketch of a tiger.

I gulped and plucked out another.

Rob,that one said. Same date, different sketch. A lion.

A good thing I’d been too keyed up to eat earlier. I might have spewed my lunch over the vials.

Becca,the next one said. I didn’t understand what the fishtail sketch indicated until I thought of the plus-sized beauty who’d been lounging in the hot tub that day I’d catered to the “escorts.”

Then it clicked. Becca, the mermaid relic.

My blood went cold, and not from the refrigerator.

Evidence. Sort of. Maybe.

I pulled out my phone and snapped several pictures, zooming in on some labels as well as getting an overhead shot of the entire box. I’d delivered the vials in recycled “peanut” packaging, but now, they were stacked in neat racks like so many test tubes in a mad scientist’s lab.

Or neat racks like the ones Nancy used for hors d’oeuvres, just as clearly labeled as these.

My stomach twisted the other way, forming a pretzel. Partly from the blood, partly from the fear that pictures of vials might not cut it as evidence. But I sure as hell wasn’t sticking one of those vials down my bra to smuggle out of there.

I settled for grabbing two and working them gingerly into my pocket.

And, boy, was that gross. The vials were just cool glass, but my skin crawled as I pictured blood dripping down my pant leg. Double gross — and how the hell would I explain a stain likethat?

“Okay, next try.” Wendy stomped back into the cooler.

I shoved the box back into place, wincing at the clinks that ensued.

“You want a wine label for that?” Wendy asked.

My throat was too dry to gulp. “No. The box is labeled.”

It wasn’t, but I was desperate to get out of there. So desperate, I rushed into the kitchen — directly into a hulking, familiar body.