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It had been great The others had squealed with fear and delight

Except for Liam, of course She could remember the way he would scoff at her stories He o years older than she was, but in their small community they often wound up at the sarade school, they had battled

"Yeah, sure!" Liaot up The mummy is old and dead and rotten, and if you let randfather!" she’d dared him

"I’ll be happy to," he’d assured her But he never did He didn’t want to prove his words, because her stories ood stories, of course

He’d been so elusive; that little bit older, somehow, even for a boy, ether out on the beach at Fort Zachary Taylor, she told stories that were true about the aboriginal tribes her grand father had known, getting a little bit dra the fact that Cutter had barely escaped with his life--and his own head

Lia his eyes at her erow faster than boys But Liarown quickly, too, and by the time they had reached their early teens, he had stood at least an inch over her, and when she would talk, he would lean against a doorfra look on his face

But when her mother had died, he had been like the Rock of Gibraltar, telling her to go ahead and break dohen she had tried so hard not to cry in public, and he had held her while she had sobbed for an hour He had been her strength that night, s that it was all right that her ht to cry

And then…

Then she hadn’t seen hiain Her father took her away froht She had leftonly one suitcase, because her father had been in such a rush

She’d told no one goodbye

And noabout it had faded away She had enrolled in a California school She had acquired new friends She had played volleyball in the sand, and she had finally learned to surf in cold water Everything in their apartment was brand-new, and her father never even watched old movies

There had only been one time when she had asked hirandpa, or even gramps--he had always been Cutter to everyone And so she had asked her father, "Do you hate Cutter, Dad? Do you think that he hurt Mom somehow?"

He had hesitated, but then shook his head strenuously "No, no Cutter is a gooddifferent, ever"

"Then why did we run away froood man, and that’s that, and please, I don’t want to talk about it anymore"

And that had been it

Key West had faded away, like a scene out of a , and he had talked about Cutter again

Cutter wasn’t safe

She’d loved hiht about it now, and she knew that she had really loved him He’d had such a wonderful sense of adventure His eyes had been brilliant while he’d described the pyraypt and the temples in ancient Greece He talked about places like the Vatican, St Paul’s Cathedral, Westreat awe He’d talked about the catacorottos in Sicily

His talent as a storyteller had been aht No one had ever really knohen Cutter was telling the truth--and when he was spinning a very tall tale

She called Joe Richter, the attorney, to let him know that she would come in person, and then she called Avery Slater, her creative partner, to let hi and why And naturally, Avery appeared at her door within twenty minutes

He was seriously one of the e for one of her characters, Talon, an angel who had co ym, so he was lean and muscled, as well He had luxurious, thick, alht have adorned a Greek statue He was a skilled animator, her partner and one of her best friends She knew that people often thought they were a roay, not in the closet in the least, but so close friends

He burst into her hoht into the kitchen, opening the refrigerator and finding the chardonnay He poured hilass, didn’t offer her one and sed it down as if it ater, staring at her all the while

"You can’t just up and go to Key West," he told her, setting his glass down firoing down for a feeeks My grandfather died," she said

"Yes, yes, you told me that But you weren’t close--you hadn’t seen him in years," Avery reminded her

"I owe him a decent burial," she said

"Send money," he said He frowned "Oh, wait--will you inherit hed "I don’t know Maybe He had a number of artifacts, but I knew, even as a kid, that he’d willed a lot of his things to various htfully, Avery nodded "Yes, yes, a will Of course There you go There’s no need for you to go to Key West"

"Yes, there is"

"An attorney can arrange for a funeral"