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"No You only mishandled it so badly that you had to take it Make it work Get some ice cream and strawberries She’s a wo with her that a good screon’t fix"

Expression ugly, Allen ended the call and shoved his phone away "Still think I don’t knohat I’?" he said bitterly "Bill trustsit when I’m the one with the riskier, harder task here Got it?"

Silas looked beyond him and into their past "How much of that was a lie?"

Allen picked up the cat food "If you’re asking if I’ with her, I’ that it ive ers found the gun in his pocket, and he jerked back "She’s too close to a MEP If this doesn’t break in teeks, I pull her out I don’t care if the alliance shuns her, ignores her, or puts a hit on her," he said as Allen frowned, knowing the threat was real "Teeks"

Turning, Silas stomped away into the rain

CHAPTER

THIRTY-TWO

Allen’s apart in her side of the closet, both aif Allen was color-blind So had failed tostyle Maybe he was just eclectic in his taste

Sighing, Peri sat on the leather otto fireplace, Carnac on her lap as she watched an insurance couy on TV catching the kitchen drapes on fire when the hoht with a ht of the consequences Maybe she needed to be ed as her nail hit it, and the cat ju He was jittery fro been jammed in a box for the trip over here It was either that, or the garish,to him, too

Most of her stuff was still at her old apartrab her toothbrush and her cat, and go home The more time she put between her and the doubts that Silas had instilled, the more foolish and unlikely they see at her box of talis herself

Maybe this is the first stages of MEP

As if her thoughts had sti up a stuffed doll wearing a kiet this?"

"Like I know?" She stood and brushed cat hair fros in that box held any realAllen claimented the me around in the Allen had cleared the shelf above the TV for her to display them, but she didn’t have the heart for it He’d only just left, and she was restless The cat box had one out for so when she opened the fridge; she wasn’t going to turn into Allen’s ht of three pouches of cat food stopped her cold "I thought …," shearound her feet in the throes of starvation "I’m sorry, Carnac It was here all the ti roo a scrap of woven cloth thatput the pouches in there, and she grabbed one, opening a cupboard to find a saucer The lapse wasn’t like her, and uneasy, she put the reed

"Give me a sec," she protested as she tore one open The cat jumped onto the counter before she could put the bowl on the floor, and she laughed "Good grief, you’re not starving," she said as she put first the bowl, then the cat on the floor Carnac hunched into it, ignoring her last fondle behind his ears as she arranged the collar so the hourglass pattern was obvious

They broughtbeside the couch, and then she re to finish the scarf this weekend "Why did I put the cat food in the fridge?" she said as she plopped on the couch

Jack walked between her and the fireplace, startling her "How else would you get Allen out of the apart" He shuffled in her box of talis Jack’s idea better than the thought that she was so stressed she was gaslighting herself "Yeah?" she ed Maybe she should stop talking to Jack Jack, can you still hearher "Co Bill’s wife picked up at a yard sale?"

"Oh My God Talk about pegging your ugly ly comfortable with the hallucination Silas had said Jack betrayed her, but how could she be angry at a hallucination? What bothered herthe seashell with the mermaid stuck to it It was still in the box, and she didn’t want to knohat kind ofto try to reconcile the difference