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She tilted her forehead against the steering wheel, wondering if there was still ti as they hadn’t spotted her, she could turn the car around, fetch Rain from her playdate, check into a motel, and then let Patrick knohere they were She and Annabelle had talked about this at length, the possibility that the three of them would make another appearance one day She’d been a co back, she couldn’t believe she’d allowed herself to be so ed to intimidate her? Shelly was a pipsqueak, a twerp She was half Deborah’s age Deborah knew a hell of a lot more about how the world worked than Shelly had ever dreairl now, she was only postponing the inevitable

She took a deep breath She had to do this or she wouldn’t be able to live with herself She certainly wouldn’t be able to face Annabelle, who’d given her strict instructions Deborah put her foot on the accelerator and pulled away from the berm, then continued the few hundred feet to the house, where she eased into the garage She entered the house through the door that opened into the kitchen Of course, they’d let the knehere the key was hidden, and even if she and Patrick had been clever enough to move it, he’d have found his way in

The house had been spotless when she left, less than an hour before, but Greg and Shelly had s, and duffels by the door to the dining roo in each corner of the yard She wasn’t sure why they hadn’t left their stuff in the busunless they anticipated being houseguests Oh lord, she thought

She called, "Greg?"

"Yo!"

She crossed the kitchen and looked into the den where the three of thenizable They looked like ruffians, people who’d wandered in off the street Greg had a scraggly beard andfacial hair and usually ended up looking like so had inherited the sa, dark and frizzy and unkempt She wondered if he kne unattractive he looked Oron the floor, leaning against the couch with her bare feet out in front of her while she ses saucers for an ashtray She wore the fa skirt She’d kicked off her Birkenstocks and those lay in thesilver hoops In the tangled mass of dark hair, she now sported a series of ser the petite, thin creature she’d been She had an earthy air about her, the residual weight of two pregnancies having caught up with her

Most alar to Deborah’s calculations His dark hair was shaggy, worn long enough to brush his shoulders His cheeks were so gaunt he looked like a young Abrahaed sockets, which gave his face the solee, and very thin His flannel shirt was pale fro machine The cuffs rode above his wrists His hands were thin and his fingers were long and delicate His pants hung on him

He’d found a spot in one corner of the room and he had his nose buried in a copy of Frank Herbert’s Dune Deborah had read it two years before, when it first came out, and she was surprised that his skills were so proficient Maybe Shelly’s ho hadn’t been so bad after all It was possible he was only hiding in the pages, pretending to read so he could observe as going on without having to participate He glanced at her once and then went back to his book She wondered how much he remembered of her hostility toward him when he was a child of six She’d eventually seen hie and must have wounded him She was ashamed that she’d blamed him for his behavior when Shelly was the one who should have been held accountable

Greg crossed the roo "Good to see you," he said "We were on our way south and thought we’d stop by I hope you don’ttheir arrival as a common occurrence, like they popped in every week

When Deborah put her ar his eh the fabric of his shirt She held herself stiffly, unaccustomed to the display of affection She didn’t reciprocate his feelings, or what he pretended to feel