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“The hotel is yours if you want it.”

Dean paused, one hand on the basement door, and turned to face Claire.“No, thank you. I don’t want it. You’ll be leaving?”

She nodded.“Soon. Tomorrow, probably. Austin says that someone’ll be along.”

“So you pretty much knew my answer before you asked?”

“Pretty much. But I still had to ask. How long…”

“I guess I’ll wait until that someone shows up and play it by ear.”

“Okay. Good. Um, Jacques is gone. He said to tell you goodbye and that you’d understand why he didn’t wait.”

“Sure.”

When the silence stretched beyond the allotted time for a response, Dean nodded, once, and went downstairs.

As the sound of his work boots faded into the distance, Claire pounded her forehead against the wall. That hadn’t gone well. There were a hundred things she wanted to say to Dean, starting with,Thanks for driving Diana to the train station, and moving on up to:Thanks for sacrificing yourself to save the world. Somewhere in the middle she’d try to fit inMaybe you and I…

“Maybe he and I what?” she asked herself walking back to the office and jerking her backpack down off the hook. “Could be friends? Could be more than friends?” Yanking the cables from her printer, she shoved them into the pack. “He’s an extraordinary guy. Not brilliant maybe, but good, kind, gorgeous, accepting…” The printer followed the cables. “…not to mention alive.”

Maybe she’d had that rare chance that few Keepers ever got and for whatever reason, pride or blatant stupidity, she’d blown it.

What happens now?

The site was sealed.

She was leaving.

He was leaving.

It was over.

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Folding a pair of jeans neatly along the crease, Dean set them into his hockey bag. He wanted to be ready to go as soon as possible after that someone arrived.

“Austin says that someone’ll be along.”

He’d never be able to look at a cat without wondering. As for the rest of it, well, he knew who he was again, so the rest of it didn’t matter.

A stack of white briefs, also neatly folded, tucked in beside the jeans.

There’d been a lot left unsaid upstairs in the hall. Claire’d been looking sort of aloof and unapproachable, but also twisting a lock of hair around one finger. Dean had to smile at the combination as he added all but one pair of socks to the bag.

Diana had given him continual advice on the way to the station. About half of it, he hadn’t understood.

It didn’t much matter.

Claire was leaving.

He was leaving.

At least she hadn’t offered to rearrange his memories. He’d have fought to remember the last eight weeks.

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“What in tarnation have you done to my hotel?”

Claire, who’d been waiting in the office, stared down at Augustus Smythe, opened and closed her mouth, and finally managed a stunned, “You?”

“Who else would be willing to run this rattrap?”

“But…”

“Used to be a hole to Hell in the basement. That sort of thing has to be monitored.” He shrugged out of his overcoat and tossed it up on the counter. “They say I’m retired, with full pension for years of service rendered, but I know better.” Bushy brows drawn in, he glared around at the renovations. “So you opened up the elevator; lose anyone?”

“No.”

“Tried it since the hole closed?”

“No, but…”

“Never mind. I’ll convince that harpy next door to go for a ride.” To Claire’s astonishment, he smoothed back his hair and grinned. After a moment, the grin rearranged itself into the customary scowl. “Well? Haven’t you got somewhere else to go?”

Now that he mentioned it, she had.

The summons grew stronger as she shrugged into her backpack and held open the cat carrier for Austin to climb in. Reaching for her suitcase, she stopped, straightened, and decided Jacques was right. There’d always be a reason to delay.

She reached for the suitcase again, shifted it to her left hand, and picked up the cat carrier with her right.“Tell Dean I said goodbye.”

And then she left, ignoring the muttered,“Idiot,” that could have come from either the Cousin or the cat.

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The summons drew her west. She passed the park, and the hospital, and the turnoff to a house Sir John A. MacDonald, Canada’s first Prime Minister had lived in briefly before he entered politics.

The definitive November wind, cold and damp, blew in off the lake, stiffening her fingers around the handles of her luggage. By the time she reached the lights at Sir John A. MacDonald Boulevard, she decided that the summons was taking her farther than she wanted to walk. Even in a bad mood and feeling vaguely guilty about pretty much everything.

“You need a lift?”

He wasn’t entirely unexpected.

Frowning, Claire turned to face the truck.“You don’t know where I’m going.”

Leaning across the front seat, braced against the edge of the open window, Dean shrugged.“So?”

“Just get in!” The cat carrier rocked in Claire’s grip as Austin shifted his weight. “I’m freezing my tail off out here.”

“You told him which way we’d be heading.”

“What part ofget in don’t you understand?” he snarled, poking a paw out through the wider weave in the front of the carrier.