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Theat his papers and didn’t answer her, so Berni looked at his desk She tried not to look startled, but his big desk enty-four-carat gold Many years ago Berni had developed an eye for jewelry that would have made any jeweler proud She could quickly and easily tell twelve-carat froenuine, pure twenty-four-carat

She reached out her hand to touch the desk but drew it back when the man looked up

“Bernadina,” he said

Berni winced She hadn’t heard the naht not to be “Berni,” she said “With an i”

She watched the man use an old-fashioned fountain pen to row annoyed “Look, I’ve had just about enough of this If this is some scheme you and Lance have cooked up, I—”

“You’re dead”

“—a to support him, and—”

“Died in your sleep last night Heart attack”

“—his harebrained schemes to—” She stopped and stared at the man “I what?”

“Died in your sleep last night, and now you’re in the Kitchen”

Berni stood there blinking at hiot about wrinkles and how unattractive a wo coyly and really laughed “Great one, buster,” she said, ?

?but it won’t work I know this is a trick to getmachines and—”

She stopped because thestamp from the desk, sht Froe, not how old she looked—wearing a long dress with lace at the elbows, looking as though she’d just stepped out of a play about Martha and George Washington

Berni’s only thought was that her beachboy had better be gone by the tiot back

“Come with me,” the woman said, and Berni followed her

The fog still surrounded them, but it parted as they walked After a while the woain n that said “Disbelief”

“I believe you need this,” the wo back

Reluctantly, Berni entered the fog on the other side of the arch

It was soer angry but were now filled onder and soes of her death, her funeral, had even watched the undertakers e her body