Read The Testament of James (Case Files of Matthew Hunter and Chantal Stevens) for Free Online Page B

tubby. The taller one carried a good-sized black leather purse over his shoulder, the accessory no modern second-story man should be caught without.
    “What have you done with my brother, you assholes?” asked the bigger Arab, whose beak of a nose reminded Chantal of Omar Sharif. He motioned with a flick of his blade. “ Dov’e’ mio fratello? ”
    The smaller of the two burglars, the fatter one with the lighter hair, started to answer, but stopped and looked at the floor when the taller one snarled “ Zitto, stronzo. ”
    Mr. Cuddles the cat was rubbing up against the legs of the older Arab who’d been doing all the talking. He looked down at the oversized creature on the floor and his expression was not one of warmth or affection. He snarled something in Arabic to his sidekick, presumably instructing the younger man to pick up the cat and throw him outside.
    Shifting his own, smaller but still deadly looking blade to his left hand, the second Arab stepped across, bent down, and picked up the 20-pound orange tiger as ordered, one-handed under the ribcage.
    There was a brief pause, as though Mr. Cuddles couldn’t believe this was happening.
    Finding himself suspended in mid-air by this complete stranger, who apparently intended to slice him down the middle with a particularly nasty looking kitchen implement, Mr. Cuddles made a high nasal noise, very piercing. Then it was as though the bundle of fur simply exploded, with a racket like someone starting a chainsaw. Hakim’s smaller buddy started to shriek. Mr. Cuddles caromed off the refrigerator and the stove, actually running horizontally, before he hit the floor and headed for the back stairs in an orange blur. The smaller Arab’s fighting knife slid across the floor and stopped at Matthew’s feet.
    The original set of black-clad burglars decided to make use of the moment of confusion to bolt through the outside door to the side yard. They made it out, though Hakim seemed to be considering launching his own knife at them, backhanded, carnival-style, when Matthew intervened.
    “Let them go,” he said. “Getting the police involved isn’t likely to help Rashid.”
    “Yes, run! Run, you Christian dogs!” Hakim responded, though he did lower his blade to his side. “You never did have stomach for a fight!”
    Once his weapon was down Chantal moved warily past beak-nose, remaining half turned so Rashid’s newly arrived brother was never completely out of her sight. She checked the side yard, sweeping her extended revolver side-to-side till she was convinced the immediate threat had moved on.
    Soon the four were seated at the kitchen table. Matthew had turned on the overhead light and come up with some hydrogen peroxide to pour on the bleeding cat tracks that Mr. Cuddles had left along the younger Egyptian’s arm. They frothed and bubbled nicely, at which point Chantal came up with a clean white towel he could hold against them. Even with his lost knife restored, the younger Egyptian looked suitably chastened.
    “Hakim. Haven’t seen you in years. This is another brother?”
    “Yes, my brother Patrick.”
    “Um . . . Patrick?”
    “Named for the priest who saved our mother,” Hakim explained. “A story for another time.” Patrick smiled but remained silent, possibly spoke no English. “Rashid never made it to you with the book? He came here because he said Mattieu was the one dealer we could trust, Mattieu always gives a fair price. A tough bargain sometimes, but he never lies to us. So where is he? He never arrived here? Have you seen the thousand-year-old book?”
    Matthew brought the al-Adar brothers up-to-date on what little he knew. Hakim, the oldest brother, responded by providing some history of the book which the second brother, Rashid, had brought with him from Egypt, a leather-bound book, twice the size of a modern book. It started out a charming enough tale of the reclusive great-uncle who had sold lesser treasures over the years to support