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"I don’tthe way the wool itched against her skin during the three months that she had run from her world to Hale’s

Hale took the photo fro froan Now, if you don’t mind, I have a smalland a lot to do"

"What, Hale? What are you going to…" But Kat trailed off when she sahat had been in the backpack Cable and harnesses, a san to race

"Hale, when you said you had work to do, did you mean your kind of work or our kind of work?"

"What’s the h its harness and secured the other end to a load-bearing bea out of the loop? I know I did"

"Hale, don’t--"

"Look at this place, Kat Look at it!" He reached for a file drawer, threw it open "Empty," he snapped andI’randson without a clue, and the boyfriend without the whole story"

Hebetween the two of them but secrets and disappointht

"No one tells uy everyone keeps out of the loop"

"That’s not fair, Hale," Kat said "I tried to talk to you about the will"

"When? When did you try?" Hale shouted in frustration "For crying out loud, Kat This is my family"

"Exactly!" Kat said "It is your fa You lose perspective and…you can’t think straight When it’s personal, Hale, it’s dangerous Trust , she just knew she had to stop hio alone, even when he opened the officeand cli steel descended beneath him like an icy cliff

Then Hale hooked the harness around his waist and said, "Look, Kat, you can leave Or you can help It makes no difference to me"

And then he spread out his arms And jumped

Chapter 22

"Whose office is this?" Kat asked the moment she was inside

"Guess," Hale said, but she didn’t really have to There was a photo of Garrett and Natalie on the corner of the desk, but even without it, Kat would have known

"Hale, I don’t think this is a good idea"

"Really? Because I think it’s ht, okay? I’ll say it So Now, let’s find out what"

"Then why don’t we coet Simon and Gabrielle and… Hale, let’s just think about this"

"I’, Kat Garrett is at the launch for now So the way I see it, we’ve got fifteen--maybe twenty minutes to do this You can help, or--"

"What do you want h They’d spent enough time with Simon to kno to bypass the man’s password and access his co vents, and after a few minutes with the phone system, they would be able to overhear every call he made or received on the company line The fax nuybacked It all should have been easy enough, but Kat could feel Hale’s presence, hear his breath He was still the boy who had stormed off in London, and even in that tiny office, it was like there was an ocean between the time, until finally he asked, "What does he want?"

Kat took a fresh look at the room around her It was far smaller than she would have expected The desk The shelves Even the view seemed less impressive than the one just a story above

"He’s not decorating like a ," Kat said

"No" Hale reached for the painting behind the desk, slid it aside to reveal the wall- like a s to hide"

Threeon the lock

"Coet it, or--"

"Got it," Kat said, standing back and letting the safe door swing open She reached into the safe and pulled out a stack of accordion-style folders

"Bingo" She tossed the folders onto the desk "Oh, Garrett, you have been a bad, bad boy"

"Not hi into a folder "Us"

Kat couldn’t help herself She reached gingerly for another one, saw the na black letters

"What is it?" she asked

"There’s a folder here for every member of Hazel’s family," Hale said He reached into one, pulled out a black-and-white photograph, and tilted his head "That’s my uncle Joe," Hale said "And that is not my aunt Olivia"

Kat picked up the folder labeled Senior "What are these, bank records?" She did a double take, looking at Hale "Did your dad really pay two n to elect Ross Perot?"

"I…" Hale said, stuh another file "Wow Well, I guess my cousin Charlotte isn’t actually my cousin"

"Don’t worry," Kat said "It looks like there ht be a kid in Queens who is"

"Do I want to knohy Garrett has a news clipping from a hit-and-run on New Year’s Eve 2001?" Hale asked a et it," Kat said "How does he know all this? Soo back decades"

"His dad," Hale said softly "Cleaning up Hale family messes has been the Garrett fa"

When Kat finally reached the botto at the final folder, the one labeled Scooter

"Well, let’s see what skeletons I have inNothing at all would have surprised her except for the sight of Hale holding the file upside down "Empty"