“Have you confirmed both—er—pieces were the same victim?”
“DNA evidence confirms this, yes. But we still don’t know who—”
I waved a hand to stop him. “What did the second note say? Do you remember? When did you find that one?”
“Hold up on the inquisition.” Neil took a breath. “The second package was left on the tire of his car in a parking garage. It was found Wednesday evening. Same day as the first one that was delivered.” Neil retrieved his camera and started sifting through images stored on the memory card.
“Did you guys request video surveillance from the garage?”
“Wow. I bet that never occurred to Winter.” Neil turned the camera screen toward me. “This was his second note.”
A picture of now-familiar handwriting on plain paper said:
You have forty-eight hours. Hope you’re satisfied.
A Collector.
At the bottom was a drawing—a clinical rendition of the lower portion of a human foot.
Okay. One thing. Well, two things.
Fuck.
First thing.
“Look at how the drawings correspond to the packages. It’s basically showing you what to expect. His first note had a drawing of an ear, but the delivery was toes. This second note has a drawing of toes. So I’m guessing the package left in the garage had a severed ear?”
Neil nodded. “Indeed.”
“It’s the same as with me.” I reached to grab the note on the tabletop, then thought twice of doing so without latex gloves. Instead, I hovered my hand over it. “This morning at the Emporium, I had a delivery of a human head and a drawing of an eyeball. Tonight at home, I received said eyeball and a drawing of… what are these, molars?” I squinted a little at the picture in question, then looked at Neil, watching the wheels in his head begin to turn. “I’m going to get at least one more delivery, don’t you agree? And I bet it’ll have teeth. If it has a sketch of a head, that’ll bring the packages full circle.”
“Frank only had two messages.”
“Yeah. It seems like the Collector is adjusting their approach. Maybe because Frank failed in retrieving the artifact in question….”
“Or because you’reyou,” Neil said. “And your brain doesn’t tick like most people’s.”
I scratched at my bristly chin. “That certainly gives more weight to the theory that it’s my reputation being targeted.”
Neil cocked his head. “Come again?”
I didn’t stop thinking out loud to explain to him what Calvin and I already feared to be the truth. “The first letter was an invitation to my curiosity. The second a temptation to my critical thinking.”
Neil raised an eyebrow. “And… the final message?”
“I suspect it’ll be similar—the countdown begins.”
“To find a skull,” Neil stated.
“Maybe.”
“What kind of skull?”
“I’m a snoop, not a clairvoyant,” I answered.
Calvin cleared his throat.
I turned around to see that not only had my handsome detective finished with his call to Quinn, but he’d likely been standing behind me and listening for a good minute. “Oh. Calvin. When did you get here?”
