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“Oh, I won’t bother you, Toby,” she insisted

“If I don’t pick up, it means I can’t,” I said

“Toby?”

“Yes”

“I want you to know sohten you”

“Of course What?”

“I love you,” she said

I let out a long sigh “Alad to hear that,” I whispered “Because my heart is in your hands”

I clicked off

I was acutely happy and acutely distressed She loved me And I loved her, and then all the other dark truths intruded, faster than I could na Lucky the Fox had ever obtained a sample of DNA, but now Lucky the Fox and Toby O’Dare were known to be one and the saht Man, and there was DNA of Toby O’Dare’s family in a file in New Orleans And I had foolishly told The Right Man that I had come from New Orleans

“There are things you have to do,” Shht I couldn’t do anything about this DNA question, and indeed, ithow my various hits had been accoht to do promptly

I checked out of the inn and drove to Los Angeles

My apartment was as I’d left it, with the doors wide open to the patio, and the jacaranda blossoms still littered the quiet street below

I dressed in soe where I’d kept uises and my other materials for soowned, I destroyed things

Now, I had never brewed my poisonous concoctions from so-called “controlled substances” Just about every lethal cocktail I’d ever devised had been fros or flowers and herbs available everywhere I’d used es any diabetic can buy without difficulty Nevertheless the assee constituted a kind of evidence and I felt much better when every last bottle had been ee burned Ashes went down the drains And a great deal of water went after them

I wiped down the trucks very carefully, and then drove theeles where I left theistration were a dead end, so I had no fears there I walked for about six blocks after leaving the last truck, speculating that all of theht have already been stolen, and I took a cab back to the vicinity of the garage

The place was now empty I left the doors opened and unlocked

Within a matter of hours ho shelter or whatever valuables they erprints and their DNA would soon be everywhere, and that was a fitting end, as it had been in the past, for any such garage that Lucky the Fox had used

I drove ho that Liona and Toby were a little , really But I was doing what I could to protect Lucky the Fox fro them

The anxiety I felt was considerable and inevitable I realized that no matter what happened withToby O’Dare in the world, and Toby O’Dare had never really existed before as he did now I felt naked and vulnerable, and I didn’t like it In fact, I was surprised how much I didn’t like it