Page 54 of Floodgates

“No,” I said, rubbing his knee, soothing him. “It’s really not.”

“But why a rabbit?” Evan pressed him.

“’Cause in the old days, a dead rabbit meant you were pregnant, right? That’s how they checked; it was called the rabbit test,” I explained to my brother.

“Wait, so that actually meant something in Fatal Attraction? I thought it was just about the kid’s pet gettin’ iced.”

“Can you let this go?” I was trying really hard not to laugh for Cord’s sake.

“Did the rabbits only die if a woman was pregnant?” Evan was like a dog with a bone; he had to know the why of things.

“No. All the rabbits died because to check to see if a woman was pregnant, the rabbit had to be opened up so the doctor could examine its ovaries after they injected it with a pregnant woman’s urine.”

“Gross that you know that,” he said frankly, “and why couldn’t they just put the bunny back together when they were done?”

“That’s a lot of expense for a rabbit, right?”

“Are you kidding?” Evan was clearly revolted.

“I didn’t say I thought it was,” I said, defending myself, and then I coughed to cover the chuckling. “You know I would have saved every single one of them. I’m just telling you, that’s what they did.”

“That’s horrible.” He looked aghast.

“But a lot of advances in modern medicine happened that way.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Ev—”

“Are you two done?” Cord snarled loudly at us, clearly annoyed that we’d been ignoring him. “Because a dead rabbit in a box just got collected as evidence, and neither one of you is concerned about the big picture!”

“So who sent the guy?” I asked, back on task.

“He doesn’t know. He says he got a text on his phone, which led him to a locker in a bus station with the box and a thousand dollars in cash.”

“And the phone the text came from?”

“No doubt a burner,” Cord informed me.

“And are there maybe cameras in the bus station?”

“It depends on which bus station, but it’s doubtful that even if they have some that they would be focused on the lockers.”

“Okay.” I took a breath. “So some psycho paid this guy to bring a dead rabbit over here, and since he doesn’t even know who it was, it’s a dead end.”

“Yeah.”

“So, really, he wasn’t here to kill me or Alex.”

“No. He’s just a delivery boy.”

His answer made me feel better even though the fear lingered. “You really do look like crap. You should go home and sleep,” I told him seriously.

“No, I’ve got clothes in my truck, and your dad’s gonna lemme crash here tonight so I don’t have to make the drive back to the city.”

I thought of something then. “Is it a bad sign that Alex sleeps with his gun?”

“I sleep with my gun.”