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They found a place to have coffee, and Julia said, "You didn’t say, and I didn’t ask, but I’ll ask now It’s done, isn’t it?"

"It’s done"

"I want to hear, but I don’t want to hear now Okay?"

"Sure"

"Ithat off to one side, how much I miss her, but noe’re on dry land and we’ll be home in a couple of hours and it’s okay to letfierce"

"So do I"

"They were nice, weren’t they? Roy and Myrt"

"Very"

"And there was a lot to him besides the sta person in other respects, don’t you think?"

"Definitely"

"I wouldn’t ain I wonder if we ever will"

"We have their email"

"And they have ours, but did you see all the people exchanging eht? How et in touch?"

"We could o on a cruise with theh"

"Absolutely"

"And with no--"

"Work connected to it Again, absolutely"

"That ht be fun Okay, I think I’ll read the paper now There won’t be anything in the paper, will there? No, of course there won’t, it’s far too soon Honey? We’ll talk later"

"Okay"

"When I’ht"

Keller always liked the New Orleans airport, not least of all because it was na He didn’t knoho O’Hare was, but doubted he ever amounted to e County had naood, and there was Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, but Keller figured New Orleans had theht fros house Donny wasn’t home fro unwound in Keller the second he saw his daughter, soht He picked her up and nodded happily as she told his, some of which he could even understand

Claudia poured coffee and put out a plate of cookies, and Julia unzipped her bag and played Lady Bountiful, passing out presents for everybody Claudia got a blouse, which she professed to love, and for Donny Julia’d picked out a Hawaiian-style sport shirt with a desert island motif

"I don’t know if he’ll ever wear it," she said

Claudia said, "Are you kidding? He’ll love it, and you know it’s so he’d never pick out and buy for hi that ot, and seemed content And, as soon as they decently could, they packed up Jenny and headed for home

He’d found a sparesuccess in an a off after she’d expressed congratulations Now he busied himself with the week’s worth of mail There was a new list froal and Colonies, and while it was hardly a priority, he’d been a week away fro an 1899 set of four Lourenço Marques overprints when Julia came into the room He looked up and saw her face

"I found the story online," she said

"And?"

"It was sihtforward An American couple, Mr and Mrs Michael Carmody, were found in their cabin, the victims of a double homicide He’d been stabbed once, she’d been stabbed multiple times The cabin was ransacked, and the apparent motive was robbery The killer left behind an extra key card for the cabin, and one see from the desk"

Keller nodded That was the connection they were supposed to make

"The esting that a ht have been responsible"

"I can see how theydo Her hands were loosely clasped on the table in front of her, and she was looking down at them "I knew you had to do it that way Not the knife, I didn’t even think about how, but I knew you were going to kill them both"

"I didn’t really have much choice"

"No"

"The minute she walked in on me in their cabin, it was pretty much settled When I ht--"

"Two a like that When she said what she wanted, I thought about doing her right then and there Put her down fast and fling her overboard"

"And take care of hiure out a way What I decided was the best thing to do ait until the last night"

"And do theht about this "If you did what she thought you were going to do, made his death look like a heart attack--could you have done that?"

"I could have tried But a goodto be a star witness, and his two bodyguards had gone down the first day out of port"

"One of them died"

"I didn’t know that"

"It was in the article And the other one’s still in the hospital in Nassau Just a coincidence, as far as the early story is concerned, just a sign that this was a hard-luck cruise, because they don’t know there’s a connection between those two men and the Carmodys"

"They will"

"If he died and she didn’t, they’d question her"

"Right"