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I skirted the house, groping h shrubs As I passed the kitchen , I caught sight of the occupant looking straight out at uyat the kitchen sink The ould be throwing his own reflection back at hiht of ht Shales

I blinked, debating with myself Could 1 trust hi in the abandoned building below? Oh hell, this was no time to be shy I needed help

I doubled back to the front porch and rang the bell I kept an eye on the street, worried a patrol car would cruise into sight At soh the net Given the impenetrability of the oil coical place to end up The porch light came on The front door opened I turned to look at hiht Can I co back "Are you in some kind of trouble?"

"That would cover it," I said My explanation orthy of a box top, twenty-five words or less, tendered while I followed hih the foyer- all raoods androo out toward the view The roof of Jean’s aparthts of Floral Beach stretching al hotel on the hillside half a et you a drink," he said "Thanks Do you ht down the hall"

I found the bathrooatscratch on my cheek My hair was matted with dirt I found a coh my ain, and returned to the living rooht handed me some brandy in a softball-sized snifter

I took it neat and he poured me a second

"Thanks," I said I could feel the liquor defining h I had to breathe with my mouth open for a bit "Whew! Great"

"Sit down You look beat"

"I alanced anxiously toward the front door "Are we visible from the street?"

The narrow panels on either side of the front door were frosted glass It was the exposed living rooe He crossed the room and closed the drapes The room was suddenly much cozier and I relaxed a bit

He sat down in the chair across froh the story, filling in the details "I probably should have just waited for the cops"

"You want to go ahead and call theht there"

"Not yet," I said "That’s what I kept telling Bailey, but now I kno he felt They’d just keepme with questions I don’t have the answers for"

"What are you going to do?"

"Don’t know Get ure this out You knoas up here earlier and knocked on the door, but you weren’t ho the stairs"

"The stairs?"

"Up froht down there" I foundto the floor to indicate the base of the bluff

"Oh, that’s right I’d forgotten about that Talk about suess none of us are that far from anybody else"

"That’s for sure," I said At the back ofabout his response wasn’t quite ringing true Maybe it was his manner, which was suddenly too studiously casual to be believable Pretending to be "normal" is a lot harder than you’d think Did it ot Jean Ti deal," he said "I think they only lived there a few months before she died" He set his brandy snifter on the coffee table "You hungry? I’d be happy to fix you so him back toward the subject that interested me "I realized this afternoon that the back door of the Tiure she could easily have used the road up here as a rendezvous point for the guys she screwed around with You never saw her up here?"