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Page 411

| with his stuffed toy. The buggy was now close enough for him to make out the facial features of the man driving it. He stiffened and looked from the man's thin, pale face to his crippled and twisted body, then to the wheelchair in which he sat where usually there was a buggy seat. |

| "I have no idea who that is," Sasha said, looking guardedly up at Ashton, realizing that his breathing was now coming in short intervals. She turned cold inside when she discovered his jaw tight and alarm and hate in his violet eyes. |

| And he had grown quite pale. |

| "Ashton, you look as though you've seen a ghost," Sasha said, inhaling a quivering breath when Ashton looked icily down at her, then slowly back at the approaching horse and buggy. |

| "I think I have," Ashton finally said, resting a hand on one of his holstered revolvers. "Damn it, how did he find out where I live? Why has he come? And why alone?" |

| "Who?" Sasha said, raking her fingers frustratedly through her hair. "Who is that, Ashton? Tell me. How do you know him?" |

| Ashton glared at the man as he wheeled his horse and buggy to a halt at the foot of the steps to the porch. "Sweet darlin', that crippled and twisted man is none other than Superintendent Silas Howland," he said, his voice drawn. "I had hoped that he had forgotten about me. Seems he never will." |

| "Superintendent Howland?" Sasha gasped, placing a hand to her throat. "Oh Lord, Ashton, has he come to arrest you?" |

| "He no longer has the power to arrest me or anyone," Ashton assured her. "There's only one |

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