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Riot took a drink. “Head was at the back door. Door standing open.”

Dad’s expression went distant. Remembering. “Facing out.”

“Yeah.”

“Face intact?” Sadie asked.

Riot looked at her. “Completely.”

Sunshine stared at both of them. “No.”

Dad looked over.

“No more,” she clarified. “We are not discussing severed heads at my dinner table.”

“Since when?” Dad asked.

“It’s my dinner table,” Marion said.

Sunshine pointed at her. “Do you want to discuss severed heads?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Then our dinner table.”

“Fair.”

Sadie looked disappointed.

Sunshine pointed at her. “You’re part of the problem.”

“I’ve been told that before.”

Riot went back to his steak.

So did Dad.

I tried to.

For some reason, the part that stayed with me wasn’t the dismemberment.

It was the arrangement.

Someone had gone to all that trouble, then left everything exactly where it could be found.

Sunshine looked around the table. “Someone tell me something normal.”

Ruckus lifted one hand. “A woman threw her husband’s baked potato at me at work today.”

Marion blinked. “Why?”

“I brought her fries.”

There was a beat.

“That seems counterintuitive,” Sadie said.

“They were supposed to be mashed potatoes.”