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He nodded toward the end of the street where the two little girls had come out of their state of shock, apparently, and were now racing back to their house

Even Remi, an expertbehind her target was Chad’s empty house She tossed the knife into the trunk, slammed the lid closed “Now that the fun’s over, I suppose we should get out of here before someone really does call the police”

“You call that fun?” Oliver asked

Chad’s mother planted her hands on her hips “Will so on?”

34

Mu to steal from Uncle Albert?”

Allegra’s heart clenched as she saw Trevor standing there, holding the journal She’d always known he was bright She’d just hoped that he wouldn’t figure out things so quickly Toat the two of the on as in Trevor’s hands

She tried to step between the two, but her ex snatched the journal and sla? Then co the book back as if to strike hiain

“Stop it!” Allegra said, grabbing the journal from Dex

“I’m okay, Mum” Trevor wouldn’t even look at her He reached up, touched his red cheek “It’s fine”

“See,” Dex said, taking the book fro it beneath his arerator “You coddle him too much”

“You promised you wouldn’t hurt him,” she said

Dex glared at her “Yeah, and you promised you’d keep him out of my business That didn’t happen, now did it?”

How had this all gone so wrong? Obviously, she should never have answered the door when Dex suddenly appeared on her porch a

few edto build a relationship with their son And she’d brushed off his absurd reasons why he was interested in the Gray Ghost and the Payton family history It wasn’t until Dex ca threatened by this Arthur Oren—insisting that if she called the police, the an to question hison, why he’d spent the next feeeks pretending to be the perfect father to Trevor, it was too late