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There was no fierce rebuttal, tidy omission, or clever forestalling, and no loose adaptation. The unabbreviated truth spilled from Parker's lips all at once, like a dam bursting open, or a severe wound, Jarod mused, with the occasional impassioned spurt that indicated Parker was struggling to maintain equanimity.

Jarod was much too afraid that he'd fracture the tenuous acquiescence to stem the flow, ask Parker to slow down, repeat herself. He jogged steadily to match her pace, and quietly absorbed each gruesome detail.

The missing young intern, Broots' suspicions, Parker's insistence that Broots reconnoiter on his own, Lyle's house of horrors with a twist surprise that was, strangely, no surprise.

Bobby, after all, considered himself an outdoors-man, and outdoors-men hunt and kill, and consume flesh, and many of them, arrogant with pride and recounting their tales, display the kills, trophies—or parts of them—in their homes. Bobby had done the same. Bobby's prey, however, was neither moose nor deer.

The head mounted on the door of Lyle's kill room was human. Two torsos, reclining like sphinxes, and positioned, sentinelesque, on either side of the door, were human. Long dead; human, nevertheless.

The missing young intern, Haliah, no longer missing, was also quite human. "Broots found her dangling from a steel frame in the center of that shed," Parker hastily informed Jarod. The Pretender's mind promptly joined Broots and Haliah, and immediately saw that beneath Haliah's feet was a long, wide black polyethylene stock tank whose purpose became clear when he drew close to determine whether or not Haliah had a pulse. Both Broots (and Jarod presently) immediately deduced she was dead; her heart, horrifically out of place, seemed to stared up at them from the tank.

Her body, however, appeared, impossibly, unmarred.

There was no typical sternum-to-crotch hunter's cut, no incision at all, none that were visible; he, therefore, posited that the heart, blood, and intestines couldn't belong to Haliah. Despite the evident depravity surrounding him, his mind decisively rejected the reality that his eyes presented him. Hope, cruel and fleeting, flickered brightly. He covered his mouth and nose with a shirt sleeve and leaned closer, intending to ascertain a pulse, but abruptly halted his movements. Jarod was close enough now to see what Broots had seen, the pink stains on the insides of Haliah's thighs, and near enough, too, to hear the intermittent dripping.

Both Jarod's brain and body recoiled from the truth; he stumbled to an abrupt halt and inhaled a sharp breath. He knew Broots had tried to do the same, breathe through the upsurge of nausea, ignore the savagery. Instead, Broots had fallen to his knees and clutched his chest, and had neatly swallowed his vomit.

Jarod observed forlornly as Parker continued her pace, never slowing; improbably, neither her voice nor feet had faltered. He feared he wouldn't see Parker again when he lost sight of her, and vividly imagined her driving away. But when he reached the dock Parker was there, pale and pacing.

"This isn't your fault," Jarod said.

"I'm never talking about this again," Parker quietly growled.

Jarod knew, instinctively, that Parker had only talked about it once, and he'd had to push her all the way up against the proverbial wall to compel her to do it. He was astonished and perturbed that she had sat across from him with such immense barbarity and carnage gnawing away at her, consuming her, and had deliberately chosen silence, and after finally voicing the truth, adamantly refused to discuss it further. Jarod, however, didn't argue; Parker wasn't obligated to talk about it, no more than Jarod was obligated not to talk about it.

"This isn't your fault," Jarod repeated.

"That isn't the way it works," Jarod said sympathetically, and observed as she reached the dock's end, and swiveled.

"The way what works?" Parker asked.

"My brain," Jarod answered softly. "Tell me something: why didn't you come to me with this before now?"

"If you were capable of a clean break, not looking back," Parker explained, advancing swiftly, and abruptly swiveling. "I wanted you to go, be free. I thought I could tip off the police, or snitch to the Director, but Lyle owns the Blue Cove PD, and he has the Director eating out of his hand- literally; I found them, last month, in flagrante delicto, with fruit and escargot. And putting a bullet in baby brother's brain, as much as I'd love to do it, wouldn't have any impact on Broots' contract."

"Not to mention," Jarod called softly, "you aren't a murderer."

"I suppose there's that, too," Parker reluctantly agreed, reaching the end once more, and unsteadily returning.

"Do you need to take another minute?" Jarod asked, collecting the cups and saucers.

"No."

Jarod observed Parker closely, and with an expression both cynical and sympathetic, asked, "Are you certain?"

Parker stiffened, and answered with a noncommittal shrug, "Let's just do this, okay."

With a nod of affirmation Jarod said, "Refresh my memory, will you? Is Lyle's building gas or electric?"

"Why," Parker asked, her incertitude, momentarily, supplanted by curiosity.

"Because," Jarod answered darkly, "I think it's time someone blew up Bobby's playhouse."