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I don’t know about you, but I’aping hole

Broken wood creaked and groaned again

She crawled through, trying to force her numbed mind to function

Dead, a man was dead Well, she had known that, had known it since she had heard the screa was true This man hadn’t killed his French coworker He had been in the corridor, chasing after her, just as he had said, when they both heard the screa around an excavation site she had been asked to leave

She would have to explain

What she didn’t understand herself

"Afrom her painfully "I can’t run away"

"Ayou can do," he reminded her "You here you shouldn’t have been at the tiain "Listen, I’randfather’s old Citroen sat in the lot by the cafe People were hter

She needed to see Jacques She could always go to the police

He must have read her mind He was about to speak when he stiffened suddenly, al

But he hadn’t

It was , like s fire

"Drive home," he said, his words suddenly tense "Go home If you don’t like what you see in the newspaper, you can run to the police tomorrow Tell the down the walk from the church to the street She ran after him "They had best find out who did this," she said firo as she passed him

"Tara"

She stopped and turned back

"Be careful Get in your car iht home, don’t pause for anyone

Don’t invite anyone into your house who is a stranger Don’t go out alone at night Do you understand?"

"Why?"

"Obviously, there is a ht have seen you" He walked past her She saw that his deterht bill to the village center, and she knew that there was, indeed, a police station there

She started across the street Suddenly, she panicked, wondering how she was going to drive home when she had lost her purse in the crypt, then realized that the keys to the car were in her pocket

But as she got into the Citroen and gunned the engine, she realized with a sinking heart that the police would know that she had been in the crypt They would find her purse

But as she was about to go back, a chill shot through her

Tara

He had called her by her real name when she had introduced herself to the professor with an alias she had pulled out of thin air

Her o to the police

She turned He had stopped, he was down the street staring at her Staring at her, or watching over her, like a strange sentinel?

She couldn’t go back Not now By toone to the police, and if he hadn’t, she would do so And she would be able to describe hih he had not co about it

This was illogical She should go to the police i inside her No Do as he says!

Shaking as she was, she pulled the car out onto the street, and headed for the chateau

She needed to talk to her grandfather

CHAPTER 3

There would be little that the police could do

As Brent Malone sat in a chair before the desk of Inspector Henri Javet, he answered every question with coht into the bizarre murder

He admired the detective, and the speed hich the man worked Within minutes, police officers had scoured the to careful not to coht be discovered by crime scene detectives and the forensic team Then, when the site had been roped off and officials set in place to do all that they could, the questioning had begun

And it hadn’t been difficult to tell the truth He and Jean-Luc had been closing down He was afraid that a tourist ht still have been on the pre visitor, he heard the screams The visitor had departed Professor Dubois had left by the excavation route, but after finding the remains of Jean-Luc, he had panicked hih the church door

Javet, a man with dark eyes, slick dark hair, and a build that spoke of ym, was amazed that Brent had been able to break down the door

"Adrenaline," Brent told hi his hands in a rueful explanation "I’ht other than to get out, and get to the police"