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Page 270
And now he lay on the hard pavement of the garage, bloodied, surrounded by strangers and in the excruciating pain that radiated from his mind, enveloping her. At least she knew he was alivefor now.
"Come, dear." Hannah stood beside her, her face chalky, her hand trembling as she took Abby's arm. "Let's sit down. We're in the way."
In the way. What a terrible twist of fate it would be if Abby had ventured through time to warn Mike and had simply wound up in the way. She now understood his feeling of guilt about Dixie's death more than ever. The difference was that he had wanted Dixie out of his lifeand she, perhaps impossibly, wanted him in hers.
Shivering, and not entirely from the chilliness of the garage, she allowed herself to be led to a small stairway nearby, where Hannah and she sat on a hard step.
Abby had already been questioned by a kindly police officer who checked her for wounds, then seemed entirely befuddled by her gasping, pain-racked responses. Gritting her teeth, she had carefully related all that had happened that nighteverything except her knowledge that something had been about to happen to Mike, and her later sharing of his torture.
There were police cars all over. Lowell sat in the back of one near the Bronco. They had not yet taken him away. Abby glanced toward him. He sat erect, staring straight ahead over the top of his glasses, which had slid to the tip of his

 
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