“And why should you?” Olivia said. She leaned forward to put her beer bottle on the wicker table. Fiji had made sausage balls and a dip for the carrot sticks. It had been comforting to cook, and also pleasant to be close to the warm stove.

It had taken her all night and day to feel that she was the right temperature inside and out.

Bobo had offered to close the pawnshop to come to sit with her, in case the Egglestons showed up, but she had told him she had to be by herself sometime. And she doubted Price Eggleston would show, not with the story she could tell the police.

“Which I didn’t tell them,” she had pointed out to Bobo. “As they can be sure by now, since the cops haven’t shown up on their doorstep. So they won’t come after me again.”

“After all,” said a little voice from the basket under the counter, “I am here to save you again.”

“Thanks, Mr. Snuggly,” Fiji said for perhaps the twentieth time. “How’d that chicken go down?”

“You should cook chicken for me every day,” the cat said. “Now I’m going to sleep.”

“Thank God,” Bobo whispered.

“I heard that!” said Mr. Snuggly. “You just watch it, I’ll sit on your face someday when you’re . . .” and the cat fell asleep.

“He really makes me glad that most cats can’t talk,” Bobo said, which pretty much expressed the feelings of everyone gathered in the room.

“He has his moments,” Fiji said. She cast a fond look in the direction of the cat’s basket.

“Ahhh . . . none of us knew Mr. Snuggly was speech-capable,” Olivia said, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Well, he doesn’t talk very much. But once he gets going, he seems to want to get his two cents into every conversation.” Fiji shrugged apologetically.

“I heard that,” said the little voice sleepily, before trailing off into silence.

Fiji gave Olivia and Lemuel a very particular look. “Price Eggleston told me and his parents that he kidnapped me not only because he believes Bobo killed Aubrey, but also because two of the men they sent to beat Bobo up have vanished for good, and that Price Eggleston’s hunting lodge has burned down.”

Olivia looked away. Lemuel didn’t flinch. Bobo looked acutely uncomfortable.

“All right, don’t admit it,” Fiji said. She shrugged.

“But why you?” Olivia asked. “Why not one of the rest of us?”

“You remember Lisa Gray, Rev? The girl who got married over in your chapel not long ago?”

The Rev nodded.

“This Lisa told Price I was Bobo’s best friend,” Fiji told the group, “so he figured Bobo would cough up the mythical arms if I was grabbed.”

“How could he think I killed Aubrey?” Bobo said. “Price killed her, maybe because she wouldn’t betray me.”

“I don’t think so,” said the Rev.