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The devil&039;s own-Laura Goodirl about Dinkytown-breezed into Dunn Brothers at two minutes after five She waved atlike a beast, I couldn&039;t help noticing-and then caasped by way of greeting, shaking ain "I&039;? I&039;m sorry"

"It&039;s fine, Laura By ht on time" She see to reassure her "Have a seat"

"Thanks My cocoa&039;s co"

"Don&039;t like the hard stuff, huh?" I asked, indicating my own doublechocolattespressowithextrafoam

"Oh, I try not to drink caffeine after lunchti for work"

"You&039;ve got a job, too?"

"Too? Oh, that&039;s right" She srin, it wasn&039;t a sly It was just a nice sht yesterday"

"Well, yeah," I ad I wasn&039;t"

"My father says liars are fated to believe their own lies, so it&039;s probably good you&039;re co clean"

"Yeah your father Uh, listen about that"

She leaned forward and took my hand in hers, then dropped it "Gosh, your hand is cold! You should have another hot drink"

"Sorry I have bad circulation"

"No, I&039;m sorry I hope I didn&039;t make you feel bad I shouldn&039;t have just blurted it out like that"

"Don&039;t worry about it, Laura" She was too good to be true! Minnesota nice was one thing, but Laura was in a class by herself "Listen"

She leaned forward, perfect gorgeous face lighting up "This is about my family, isn&039;t it? My birth fa"

I blinked in surprise "How&039;d you know?"

"Well" The counter guy brought her a white coffee cup the size ofhipped cream and swirled with chocolate syrup She sest cocoa in the world in her hands "I was thinking about you last night, after you left And you&039;re tall, like me-in fact you&039;re about an inch taller My whole life, I&039;ve never met a woman taller than ht-colored eyes and you were so "

"Oh, so you know you&039;re-that you were adopted?"

"Yes, of course Mama and Dad told me all about it, about how of all the babies in the world, they chose , clearly happy at the ht" God Uh-huh "Well, I recently-like, this Week-found out about you, and I did some detective Work" With vampires And a certain dark book bound in human skin No, not chemistry "And I tracked you down and-I don&039;t know" I really didn&039;t knohere I was going with this "I just wanted to ht?"

"Half sister," I hastened to correct I did not have a single drop of blood in coically, Laura was the Ant&039;s own blood daughter, but without the interference of Satan, she never would have been born It was enough to e for the Advil "We have the same father" And I&039;m so, so sorry about that, Laura

"Well, I&039;m just so pleased toher arms around ging ushed She was so close I could s in a coffee shop, I&039;d assu myself "It&039;s nice to meet you, too Has anyone ever told you, you smell like cookies?"

"I use vanilla extract instead of perfume It&039;s cheap, and they don&039;t test it on bunnies," she told me soberly

"Huh That&039;s kind of clever, actually"

"People tell me that a lot" She sipped her cocoa and continued, oblivious of her whipped cream mustache "I&039;m at the U on scholarship Hmm, what else should I tell you? What do you want to know?"

"What are your folks like?"

She wiped the cream aith the back of her hand, then wiped her hand on the napkin "They&039;re wonderful Dad is the minister at the Presbyterian church in Inver Grove-"

"Your dad&039;s a minister?" I tried to dial back ht the devil was supposed to be in the details "That&039;s-really cool"

"Uh-huh And Mama takes care of the house, and me She&039;s in school now, too! Now that I&039;ood tiether at the U! Oh, you have to come over! They would love to meet you"

"That would be"-extremely weird; incredibly uncoreat"

"What about you, Betsy? What do you do?"

As God was my witness, I had no idea what to say I just couldn&039;t blurt it all out to her She was such a sweetheart, I didn&039;t want to wreck her evening Day Month Life I resolved to take it one step at a tihtclub A bar, actually It&039;s called Scratch, and I own it"

"You own it?"

"Well, it was left to me By so I mean, that&039;s what I do" That didn&039;t sound suspicious, right?

"I&039;d love to see it so you by" Ha! The devil&039;s daughter, checking out htclub "You seeether about all this"

I had to admit, this was so not what I expected I expected threats,death threats Not a pleasant coffee in Dinkytown The Book had warned me about her but hadn&039;t mentioned what an innocent she&039;d be

"Maround," she was explaining