INSIDE THE PACKAGE was a fine crystal ball, a set of tarot cards with a thick book of explanations, and a second deck of cards the like of which most people have heard but few have actually seen. These were the square, circle, wiggly line cards used in parapsychic research.
There was the damning evidence of a packing slip with my name clearly printed on it, and a rubber stamp notation that the merchandise order had been accompanied by a prepaid postal note.
The timing was perfect. The problem of keeping that package on schedule all the way from its point of origin to its devastating delivery must have taxed Wood’s faculties, but he’d done it.
Chief Weston’s choler rose visibly, and in a voice loud enough to be heard in Asbury Park, he yelled: “Schnell, did you—buy—this?”
I was trapped.
