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"I’m sorry about all this," Rob said "And especially sorry he hurt you That was-unspeakable" His eyes were dark, dark gold

"It doesn’t matter" Kaitlyn was still cold-and drawn to Rob’s warht be no tomorrowbut he couldn’t know that She reached for him and he took her in his arms

Their first kiss was a little desperate, on both sides Then Rob calmed down, and his tranquility spread to Kait Oh, nice Warolden haze

It was harder now to cloak her thoughts from hioing to be separated for the first ti to hi about how rave hiht?" he whispered He held her face between his hands, searching her eyes

"Yes I just-want to be close" She couldn’t get close enough

You’ve changedme that boys aren’t all pond scum You’ve made me different, made me look at the broader picture Given me vision

Oh, Rob, I love you

"I love you, Kait," he whispered back

And thather control; he was reading her thoughts Reluctantly Kaitlyn pulled back

"You said it yourself We’re going to need our sleep," she told hi "See you toood, Rob, she thought as the door closed behind him And so protective of me You wouldn’t let me do it

There was a ht it to find their way back to Marisol’s house She put it in her duffel bag with the rest of her worldly possessions-a change of clothes bought with the Fellowship’s money and her art kit-and pulled a pair of underwear over it Maybe there was a way to leave the bag in the bathroo

"Need so?" Anna’s voice said from behind her Guilt stricken, Kaitlyn froze in place

Blank your ht red-handed, thinking about things that wouldAnd everything tonight depended on Anna not suspecting

"Just trying to figure out what to wear toe-through "Not that I haveto feel like Thoreau"

"With his one old suit?" Anna laughed, and Kaitlyn felt the knot in her stomach ease "Well, I’ if she knehat an eency it was Why don’t you look in the closet?" Anna was going to the closet herself as she spoke "Whew! This girl liked clothes I bet we can both find soht, as Anna pulled out a long slim cotton-knit dress and said, "This looks like you, Kait" I love you and Lewis almost as much as I

do Rob You’re all so decent-and that’s why he’s going to beat you if you’re not careful

She forced her mind away from that and looked around the room Marisol’s room was like Marisol herself-an unpredictable any desk, with its silky-ruddy finish scratched and stained, as if it had been given by a loving grand perfu out of a hain Mary

A pair of expensive sunglasses were lying half under the bed’s dust ruffle Kait picked theold earpiece back into shape

"How about this?" Anna was saying, and Kait whistled It was a very sexy, very fe to just below the hips then flaring to a sheer chiffon skirt Tiny gold clasps held the cap sleeves A radical dress, black, that would make the wearer look slim as a statue

"For you?" Kait said

"No, you, duues" Anna started to put the dress back

"Come to think of it, you don’t need anyafter you already"

"This kind of dressthe hanger Spandex and chiffon wouldn’t wrinkle, and she would need all the weapons she could gather if her plan went through

An outfit like thisGabriel was item number one on her date book

She folded the dress s her head

Is this reallythis? Kait wondered Kaitlyn

Brady Fairchild, who used to think Levi’s jeans were high fashion? But if she was going to be Mata Hari, she hly

What she said was, "Anna? Do you think about boys?"

"H into the closet

"I mean, you seem so wise about them You always seeo after thehed "Well, we’ve been pretty busy lately with other things"

Kaitlyn looked at her curiously "Have you ever had one you really liked?"

There was the barest instant of hesitation before Anna answered She was looking at another dress, fingering soed "Yeah, I guess I found so for once"

"What happened?"

"Well-notcuriously, realized with surprise that Anna’s thoughts were veiled It was like seeing lights behind a paper wall-she could sense color but not shape Is that whatlooks like? she wondered, and barely had the wits to ask, "Why not?"

"Oh-it would never have worked out He was together with sohts of veiling had led to thoughts of what she was veiling, and Kaitlyn was by now utterly distracted She hardly knehat she was saying, one for it I’ll bet you could have taken hirinned ruefully and shook her head "I would never do that It would be wrong" She put the sequinned dress back in the closet "Now, bed," she said fir: I’m casual, I’m calm, I’m confident She hurried to the bathroo flannel nightgown she’d gotten at Anna’s house

She’d acquired it on the trip up to Canada, because they hadn’t stopped by Anna’s hoet Sound on the way back down They’d accepted money and a 1956 Chevy Bel Air from the Fellowship and taken Route 101 all the way down the coast, driving all day for three days, avoiding Anna’s parents

Avoiding any parents-they hadn’t contacted Lewis’s in San Francisco or Rob’s in North Carolina or Kaitlyn’s father in Ohio They’d agreed on this early as a necessity; parents would only get worried and angry and would never, never agree to their kids doing what had to be done

But froone to the police anyway They’d had proof of what Mr Z was up to-files Rob had stolen fro Mr Z’s experiroup of studentsbut obviously even proof wasn’t enough Mr Z had the police sewn up

No one frohed and pulled the coversbeside her in Marisol’s bed; listening to Anna’s breathing,Anna’s presence in the web

When she was certain Anna was asleep, she quietly slipped out fro out to see Rob, she projected, not loud enough to wake the other girl, but loud enough, she hoped, to wiggle into Anna’s subconscious That way, if Anna noticed her ht assu room and not worry

Kait tiptoed to the bathroo She stripped off the flannel nightgown and craner sunglasses Then she crept down the hallway and noiselessly let herself out the back door

There was no ht sky Oakland was too big a city for the of hohfare, the sky would be pitch-black, huge, and serene

No tiirl

Back in Thoroughfare, she would have been terrified of walking around a strange city at night-not to e city, at least thirty or forty miles away But she was a different Kaitlyn than she’d been back in Thoroughfare She’d dealt with things then that Kaitlyn had never dreamed of, she’d traveled all the way to Canada without any adult to help, and she’d learned to rely on her own resources Now she had no choice She couldn’t wait until et away from the others in the daytime She didn’t have et across the bay to San Carlos; she just had to find it

With an al coolheadedness, she set out to find the way

This wasn’t a bad area of town, and she found a phone booth with an undaed phone book She looked up Public Transportation in the local area pages-thank heaven, it said that most of the buses ran twenty-four hours a day She could even see the basic route she’d have to take: up to San Francisco to get across the water, then south down to San Carlos

But no to find a bus that was running at this hour? Well, first thing was to find the bus line

Wincing a little, she tore the AC Transitto do, but this was an eated her way to MacArthur Street, where the ht