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"Yes, darling, I came as soon as I could," he said, and if aped at hiymnast and took my free hand, the one without the IV line He raised it to his lips and kissed it, and I felt the stud in his tongue graze ers Then he held ?" he asked, as if there were no one else in the rooe

"Not too well," I said weakly Unfortunately, I was aluess Tolliver told you about the concussion? And the broken arentlemen are here to talk to you when you’re so ill?"

"They don’t believe anything I say," I told him pitifully

Manfred turned to thearding e dollop of distaste Klavin pushed his glasses up on his nose as if that would make Manfred look better, and Stuart’s lips pursed like he’d just bitten a lemon

"And you would be?" Stuart said

"I would be Manfred Bernardo, Harper’s dear friend," he said, and I heldthe impulse to yank my hand from Manfred’s, I squeezed his bottom hand as hard as I could

"Where are you from, Mr Bernardo?" Klavin asked

"I’m from Tennessee," he said "I came as soon as I could" Manfred bent to drop a kiss on htened, he said, "I’entlemen" He looked froht face

"She seelanced at each other

"I think not," Manfred said He was over twenty years younger than Klavin, and smaller than Stuart - Manfred was maybe five foot nine, and slender - but somewhere under all that tattooed and pierced skin was an air of authority and a rigid backbone

I closed my eyes I really was exhausted, and I was also not too awfully far fro out loud

"We’ll leave you two to catch up," Klavin said, not sounding happy at all "But we’re coain"

"We’ll see you then," Manfred said courteously

Feet shufflingthe door opening to ad of those noises as the SBI agents carefully pulled the door shut behind theht and blue and hot

"Nuh-uh, buddy, not so fast," I said He withdrew to a safer distance "How’d you corandmother okay?"

Xylda Bernardo was an old fraud of a psychic who nonetheless had a streak of actual talent The last time I’d seen her had been in Meh then,her to Me tabs on her while she talked to us

"She’s at thewith ot the last motel room left in Doraville, and maybe the last one in a fifteen-ot a more comfortable room at a bed and breakfast, and Grando into the office in a hurry Every now and then, she corew so"

"I’, but that was a stupid question Did it really make a difference? I knew death quite well, and I’d seen it stamped on Xylda’s face

"She doesn’t want to be in a hospital," Manfred said "She doesn’t want to spend the money, and she hates the ambience"

I nodded I could understand that I wasn’t happy about being in one,out of this one in one piece

"She’s napping now," Manfred said "So I thought I’d drive over to check out how you were doing, and I found the Dynaht they’d listen to me if I said I was your boyfriend Gives me a little more authority"

I decided to let that issue ride for thehere in the first place?"

"Granded, but he believed in her, all right

"Wouldn’t she be uilty to think about the aging and ill Xylda Bernardo dragging herself and her grandson to this little town in the ht I needed her

"Yes, but then she’d be thinking about dying She said to come - we came"

"And you knehere ere?"

"I wish I could say Grandmother had seen it in a vision, but there’s a website that tracks you"

"What?" I probably looked as duot a website devoted to you and your doings People es of you"

I didn’t feel any smarter "Why?"

"You’re one of those people who attracts a following," Manfred said "They want to knohere you are and what you’ve found"

"That’s just weird" I sied "What we do is weird, too"

"So it’s on the Internet? That I’m in Doraville, North Carolina?" I wondered if Tolliver knew about , too I wondered why he hadn’t told me

Manfred nodded "There are a couple of pictures of you taken here in Doraville, probably with a cell phone," he said, and I was floored all over again

"I can hardly believe that," I said, and shook my head Ouch