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happened?”
    “It was gettin’ hot to the touch, like there was somethin’ inside.”
    Josee took it and ran her hands over the metal. The burnished surface seemed warmer than was natural.
    “See what I’m sayin’?” he said. “Bizarre, isn’t it? Like it’s—”
    “I told you not to—”
    “Like it’s alive.”
    She challenged him with a look and tapped her cigarette over the pit. “You’re not worried, are you?” By aiming the fear at him, she could pretend it wasn’t her own.
    “Josee, you’re the one who said it was sort of spooky, and you’re the one who knows this stuff, right? Like with my sculptures, you’ve always got the words that fit.”
    True, Scooter had always given her the liberty to christen his work. Now, in her hands, the canister begged to be christened as well. It weighed upon her, its corporeal need for attention draining her even as its title made itself known.
    In cauda venenum …
    The Latin words scrolled across Josee’s mind, remnants from some first-period lecture. As she plumbed her memory for a translation, fingertips of anxiety brushed her neck. Literally, it meant “In the tail is the poison.” Referring to a scorpion’s whiplike tail, the words were loosely paraphrased “Beware of what you cannot see.”
    She sniffed along the cylinder’s seam. “Whoa, hold on a sec. You smell that?” She thought she detected spiced cinnamon sticks. Or stove-cooked applesauce. Or the holiday potpourri the workers used to spread out at the group home the weeks before Christmas. She’d pronounced it “pot-pour-ee” just to bug them.
    That’s when it grabbed her.
    Pain seized her chest, squeezing until she dropped the cigarette. Her eyes bulged. She dry-heaved. Tears boiled along her eyelids, blurring the pine needles at her feet.
    “Babe, what’s wrong?”
    She coughed through a mouth full of cotton, spit into the coals. Spit again.
    “Tell me you’re kidding,” Scooter said. “This isn’t funny.”
    Josee gulped, rubbed her face and neck. Fever heat scorched her ears, and the shaft of pain that had spiked between her ribs felt permanently lodged there. She dropped her head between her knees and tried to see beyond the swirling flecks of light.
    “Was it the food last night?” Scooter grasped for an explanation. “You checked the dates, yeah? The fish wasn’t overdue, was it?”
    “Only a day.” Her voice was hoarse. “But it’s not that.”
    “Should’ve known better and just left the fillets where they were.”
    “You did your best, Scoot. Not your fault. It’s that … that freakin’ canister.” As though identifying the problem was a remedy of sorts, she felt warmthsettle over and coat her with a sense of protection. Oxygen rushed back into her lungs, and her eyes began to clear.
    The canister … 
Oh, no! Where’d it go?
    Josee scanned the carpet of roots, leaves, and twigs. She must’ve dropped the thing when the pain grabbed her. There—it had made a half circle around the firepit and bumped into Scooter’s feet.
    He scooped it up. “See, what’d I tell you? This thing’s hotter than sin.”
    “No, don’t! Put that down!”

4
The Opening
    Turquoise eyes watched him from a five-by-seven framed picture. Chaffed by this manipulation, Marsh dropped the photo facedown on the vanity countertop. Kara should’ve known better than to try such a tactic. Asinine, that’s what it was.
    “Maybe I went too far,” she had admitted. “I hoped only that it might touch something inside you. Thought it might find a soft spot.”
    “You thought wrong.”
    Though he’d been tempted to slam the master-bedroom door, he had let it click into place instead. Restrained anger. Always more effective. He’d discovered that certain business maneuvers paid dividends here on the domestic front. Of course, when Kara had pulled on jeans and a sweater and threatened to leave, he hadn’t taken her seriously. She’d insisted that his mood would not contaminate