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"A pleasure, ma’am Can I treat you to an ice cream?"

"Oh, no, I have e plastic tumbler It was very pale iced tea

"You know, I’d like some iced tea, if you don’t mind," Quinlan said

Sherry Vorhees winked at him "Sorry, sir, but you don’t want my kind of iced tea, and we don’t have any of the other kind"

"Just ice creae and Harve? You don’t reo? In a Winnebago?"

Sherry thought he was handsolishman who’d played in two Jaer, a lot taller She really liked that dimple in his chin She’d alondered how men shaved in those tiny little holes And now this lovelyright in front of her licking his peach ice cream cone

"A lot of folk come to The Cove for the World’s Greatest Ice Crea at hiowhy, at e I can barely remember what I cooked Hal for dinner last Tuesday"

"Well, you think about it, please, Mrs Vorhees I’ at Thelled A ed woypsy, a red scarf tied around her head, thick wool socks and Birken-stocks on her feet She earing a long skirt that looked organic and a dark-red wool jacket Her eyes were dark and very beautiful She had to be the youngest citizen in the town

"Hello, Sherry," she said "I’ll relieve you now"

"Thanks, Amabel Oh, this is James Quinlan Mr Quinlan, this is Aeles, Amabel He’s here to try to find out what happened to an old couple who h The Cove to buy ice creae"

Aypsy eyebrows at hi, just looked at him, completely at ease

So this was the aunt How fortunate that she was here and not at home, where he hoped to find Sally Brainerd Amabel Perdy, an artist, an old hippie, a former schoolteacher He knew she was a , had been o His art had never ao James also kne that she’d turned down Purn Davies He noted she didn’t look anything like her niece

"I don’t ree," A out, okay?"

She was the best liar yet He tamped down his dratted curiosity It didn’tthat mattered