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“Me?” Chess stared at the box. “I didn’t send that.”
“You’re Chelsea Winters?” the delivery guy asked.
Donna confirmed, “She’s Chelsea Winters.”
“Maybe another Chelsea Winters sent it.” The delivery man’s tone was bored as he held out his clipboard to Donna. “Please sign here.”
Donna and Chess traded looks before Donna grabbed a pen from her desk and hastily scratched out her signature. A minute later, the delivery man left.
“You’re sure you didn’t send it,” Donna asked as she settled on her seat and set the box on her desk.
“I know your birthday,” Chess said while curiously watching Donna untie the bow. “Why would I send a gift on the wrong day?”
“Then who would send me something with your name.” Donna roughly tore off the wrapping paper to reveal the brown box beneath.
“It’s probably a prank. A very weird one.” With a frown, Chess offered, “Let’s hope that they at least got you something good.”
It wasn’t something good.
“Aaaaaah!” Chess screamed as soon as she saw what was in the box.Jesus Lord Almighty, I did not just see that.The horror that crawled through her senses was indescribable. She jumped backwards to get away from the foul contents of that box. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.”
“What are you screaming about?” Donna peered into the box to better see its contents. “It’s obviously fake.”
No! Nah! Uh-uh! Nope! Hell no!
Nothing about the severed hand in the box looked fake.
Even though the hand was in a ziplock bag, it still looked too human for Chess’s comfort. The skin was grayish-brown like that of a brown-skinned corpse. The hand had been severed at the wrist so several jagged bones jutted from that spot. The blood there had clotted, making for a very chilling and grotesque sight.
Chess didn’t wantanythingto do with it, so she took another step back.
“Let me see.” Donna grabbed the top of the zip lock bag and took the hand out of the box. As she did so, they both saw the label at the bottom of the bag.
The label only had one word written on it: Derrick.
It took a second for the real meaning of the label to sink in, but when it did, Chess screamed again. Donna dropped the bag and let out a bloodcurdling yelp of her own.
“Oh my God!” Donna screamed. “That- that’s Derrick’s hand.”
26
T
O SAY CHESS WAS SHAKEN would be an understatement. But who wouldn’t be? Tazeem couldn’t even imagine what kind of state he’d be in if he’d found what she had.
Detective Joe Ikuta, one of the officers who’d come to Synovent to investigate the presence of what appeared to be Derrick’s severed hand, asked, “So you’re saying you didn’t send the package?”
“No, I didn’t.” Though Chess’s tone was even, she was holding onto Tazeem’s hand like it was her lifeline.
Tazeem squeezed her hand in silent comfort.
Minutes after the gruesome discovery, several uniformed and plain-clothes police officers had swarmed the company. Chess had called Tazeem in a panic to tell him what had happened. And he’d immediately rushed over. He’d arrived at Synovent just as the cops were ushering Chess into her office so they could question her. The officers weren’t pleased when Tazeem insisted on being in the room with Chess, but it was either Tazeem or a lawyer so they’d surrendered.
At the moment, there were four people cloistered in Chess’s office; Chess, Tazeem, Detective Ikuta, and his partner, Detective Valerie Ortega.
“Is it really Derrick’s hand?” Chess asked.
“We can’t confirm or deny,” Ortega said. “But at the moment we’re working from the hypothetical that it is.”
