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"I’ pot!"

He wasn’t amused He left her As he did so, she walked to the closet She was touched to see that Cutter had never gotten rid of her things She would have to do so now But she saw a set of clean sheets that had been sealed in a plastic zippered bag

A little tre that she and her father would return

She had the bed halfway remade when Liam returned to the room "Any evil weed s the clean sheets onto the bed "Where did you find these?"

"In the closet--the s," she told hi across the room at her "You have "

She sive ht?"

"Absolutely" They stared at one another for a minute She wondered if he reether She’d been in so much pain He’d been so coht have happened if she had stayed in Key West

They , and then, like soone another…

They could have been divorced already, she thought dryly

But she didn’t think so

So inside of her seemed to ache All the could-have-beens

"Co him back down the stairs When they came to the front door, they both hesitated aher good-night

But he didn’t He seeht, then Good night, kid"

He brushed her cheek She was suddenly te to hireat deal more now He was incredibly tall and well-built, and his eyes were hypnotic, blue like her own but different: ray She suddenly felt an odd jealousy, wondering what had transpired in his life over the years, omen he had known--and hoas possible that he was able to still be such a friend to her

He walked out the door

She made sure to lock it quickly behind him so he heard the clicks

She heard him walk across the porch, and then she didn’t hear his footsteps as he reached the overgron and driveway

For ahim to come back in She was teht…ask if he wasn’t the least teht And with the reertips upon thes that seemed so scary to others were not so to her She loved the reat stories, both those told to her by Cutter and those she ht of her dreaone, locked in its elegant sarcophagus That, she decided, o to a museum Cutter would have a particular museum listed, she was certain

It was actually three hours earlier in California, and she shouldn’t have been so tired But she was exhausted

She was going to go to bed and sleep, and in thewith it all

She started up the stairs and paused She silently cursed all the ruain, she had the odd sensation of being watched

With a shake of her head, she went up the steps and into her roo to undress

Cutter, forgive ed from his special place, that place that not even Cutter Merlin had known about

And he watched as the car drove away fro him

They didn’t know; they just didn’t know They didn’t see him, and they wouldn’t find him

They didn’t understand He was protected by the poithin They would never see hiht that he’d understood, but he never had, not until the very end

Cutter’s daughter… She’d known, and she’d seen And the granddaughter had the saht was lostto stay at the house He thought of all the things that he could do, but he knew that he would wait He had to wait Kelsey Donovan was the only one who could find the source of the power that he needed, the true relic and the true wealth

People looked at the house, and they shivered, and they thought of horror movies, Psycho, House on Haunted Hill…

And, yes, the house could seeht, but… Ah, yes Power It lay in wealth And in the ability to haunt and tease the reat as the mind!