Merri Lee studied the page with the newest notes. “What you predicted is disturbing, but I think you’re really tuning into the cards. This looks more like the images you relayed previously to reveal a prophecy.”

“It does?” Meg looked at her notes in surprise.

“Sure. You’ve even grouped them. If I was going to do one of our story cards based on these images, there was a death and police were called, which ended with someone going to jail.”

“Which is good.”

“Yes,” Merri Lee agreed. “But something about the person going to jail is going to create danger. And because of the danger, you—because you would see yourself in a mirror—are going to be in a woods for some reason and find a grave.” She frowned at the notes. “What are you going to tell Simon or Henry?”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

Merri Lee tapped the word “danger” with her finger.

“That doesn’t apply until the first set of images happens,” Meg argued. But she looked at Merri Lee and knew her friend was also thinking about the closed Market Square and Kowalski patrolling the area around the Courtyard’s business district.

She put the notebook back in the drawer. “If something happens and Vlad or Henry—or anyone else—needs to know, then one of us will tell him.”

Merri Lee looked like she wanted to argue, but she nodded and said, “I’d better get back. If I happen to hear anything, I’ll let you know.”

Meg nodded. “I’ll do the same.”

After Merri Lee went back to work, Meg spent the next hour waiting for deliveries, waiting for mail, waiting for something to do to keep from fretting while she waited for whatever was going to happen.

• • •

He was done waiting for those shitheads to call and tell him where to meet them for his share of the haul.

Jimmy sat in A Little Bite, drinking coffee and stewing about the lack of quality help to be found in Lakeside. If he’d still been in Toland and put together a job like this, his crew wouldn’t have tried to jerk him around. After all, he’d put together the deal—and if they believed his cop brother was a little bent and sufficiently under his control that they might have an accident the next time they were in jail, so much the better. But he hadn’t been around Lakeside long enough to have a rep, and CJ wasn’t working much of anything that didn’t involve the freaks, so he wasn’t known to the city’s more enterprising citizens.

Jimmy sat and stewed, unwilling to go back to the apartment and listen to Sandee bitch and whine, along with the brats whining that there was nothing to do. Shit, Fanny was so bored she wanted to go with Lizzy to that room everyone was pretending was a real school. But if Fanny was allowed to go, then Clarence would want to go because he wouldn’t want to be excluded, and Clarence more than Fanny had been banned from the Courtyard. As if those freaks had any right to ban a real human from anything. But you couldn’t say shit like that, not since the Humans First and Last movement fell.

He sat and stewed until the sawhorses were removed from the archways and the Market Square was once again open for business. Then he sauntered to the butcher shop.

The glass case was so clean, even his mother wouldn’t find fault. It was also completely empty.

“Morning,” Jimmy said when the brown-feathered freak walked out of the big refrigerator. “I was hoping to get a couple more slices of that meatloaf. The kids really liked it.”

“Got nothing,” the male replied. “We got cleaned out last night.”

So those bastards had managed to do the job.

Jimmy put on his down-on-his-luck expression. “That’s too bad. But, really, you got nothing? I wouldn’t be asking but . . . the little ones.”

The male shook his head.

Furious but knowing better than to show it, Jimmy headed for the door. As he reached for the handle, the male said, “Wait.”

He went back to the glass case. The male didn’t look happy and kept glancing at the door, as if he needed to make sure no one would see him.

“After this happened, a delivery of special meat came in. We don’t usually sell it to humans, but you need to bring something back for your mate and young, right? I’ve got one piece left—part of a foreleg. It should be enough to feed the four of you.”

“How much?” Jimmy asked.

“Ten dollars.”

He thought about trying to bargain for a better price but realized that was pointless. If this was the only piece of meat available, the male could sell it for twice that price to the next person who walked into the shop. Which meant Jimmy could sell it for at least that much outside the Courtyard. “Sold.”

“Being the last piece, it’s already wrapped,” the male said. “I’ll get it for you.” He was back in less than a minute with what looked like a long roast wrapped in heavy butcher’s paper and tied with string.

Jimmy eyed the package. “You sure there’s enough meat on that?”

“Plenty. Lean meat too. Hardly any fat.”

Jimmy paid for the roast and left the shop, feeling triumphant that nobody else would have meat tonight. Not that bitch Eve Denby or the bitches who were sleeping with the cops. Maybe he’d be a generous son and invite Mama over for dinner. Maybe he could talk her into doing the cooking so the meat wouldn’t end up overcooked or too tough to chew.

Seeing Kowalski walking toward him, he held up the roast in triumph. “You’re too late. I bought the last piece of special meat.”