LITMIR.BIZ

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like stealthy whispers.

      She looked behind her to check that the street was still deserted. It was. They were far from the popular tourist haunts of downtown Santa Fe. There were no quaint adobe buildings or historic missions here, just modest shops, video places and liquor stores, all of them closed up hours ago. The only movement she could see came from dead leaves and bits of crumpled paper that skittered along the pavement.

      Most women would find the situation unsettling, to say the least. It was two in the morning and she was standing at the entrance to a dark alley with a thief. Yet Melina Becker had faced far worse to get a story. She slipped one arm through her purse strap to loop it around her neck and followed Fredo into the darkness. “Do you know where Titan is now? I heard he has a stronghold. When you called me you said you had information.”

      “All I have for you is a warning. You better stop what you’re doing.”

      She detected a rising note of anxiety in his voice. Her pulse sped up. She must be closer to paydirt than she had thought. “I can’t stop yet, Fredo. Couldn’t you give me something?”

      “You were decent to me once, Melina. That’s why I’m trying to do you a favor now. Why won’t you listen?”

      “I’ve put months into this story, and I do realize how dangerous Titan is. I promise he’ll never know you talked to me.”

      Fredo laughed, a high-pitched, nervous bark that echoed from the brick walls flanking them. “If you believe he won’t know, for sure you don’t know Titan at all. Ever since the feds raided his labs he’s more paranoid than ever. He scares me. I’m telling you, he flipped out.”

      “How? What do you mean?”

      “He was always weird, but now he’s over the edge. He’s got a stronghold, all right. It’s a regular fortress. He’s so paranoid now, he never leaves it.”

      “Where—”

      “Go back to New York. Get out of Santa Fe. Tonight. That’s what I’m doing.”

      Melina reached for his arm. “Just give me something, Fredo. Anything. Tell me where to look.”

      He turned away before she could touch him, tucking his chin farther into the collar of his jacket. “He’s in plain sight, but even if you look, you won’t see him. Honest to God, he thinks he’s some kind of magician.”

      “I don’t understand. What—”

      “I can’t go home, but you can.” He started walking toward the rectangle of faint light that marked the other end of the alley. “If you don’t, you’re going to get us both killed.”

      Melina hurried after him. Her boot heels resounded hollowly from the walls, making it sound as if she were being followed. She took a second to check over her shoulder, but the shadows appeared empty. When she looked for Fredo again, he was already several yards ahead of her. “Titan’s here in New Mexico, right?” she persisted, increasing her pace. “You can give me that much, can’t you?”

      Fredo broke into a jog. “Leave it alone.”

      “Wait!” Melina stopped short as she barely avoided running into a utility pole that rose close to one wall. “Fredo, please.”

      He dodged past the dark bulk of a garbage bin and left the alley at a run. The street he emerged on was narrower than the one at the other end. It was dimmer, too, lined with warehouses instead of stores. No light showed around the steel doors that were rolled down and locked for the night. Yet before Fredo was halfway across the street, his thin form was suddenly bathed in white.

      There was a series of muffled pops. He jerked and stumbled sideways. Dark splotches appeared on his jacket, spreading over the worn denim like giant drops of water.

      But it wasn’t raining. That wasn’t water. Melina skidded to a stop at the mouth of the alley and flattened herself against the side of the garbage bin.

      Fredo crumpled to the pavement. An engine roared from the darkness, and a yellow van barreled down the center of the street. Gunfire flashed from the open passenger window, illuminating a pale, heavy-joweled face. Fredo’s body continued to jerk. The van lurched. Its right wheels ran over him with a noise like splintering wood. Without slowing down, it reached the end of the block, turned the corner and disappeared.

      For an instant, Melina couldn’t move. She felt numb. The bag of chips that had passed for her dinner rose in her throat, making her gag, muffling her building scream. She staggered out of the alley, her legs boneless.

      Oh, no. Not Fredo. Poor, hard-luck Fredo. She had just been talking to him. He couldn’t be…

      You’re going to get us both killed.

      She moved beside him and dropped to her knees. He was dead still, lying on his back, his limbs bent in unnatural angles and his head twisted to the side. His eyes were open, unblinking and already starting to glaze. There was a pool of blood under his cheek. More blood gleamed in the moonlight from the dark holes and the zigzag pattern of lines that smeared the front of his jacket.

      The holes were bullet holes. The lines were tire tracks. Those sounds…Oh God! She swallowed hard. Her fingers shook as she extended her hand. She laid her palm on his chest. “Fredo, I’m sorry. I never meant—”

      At the noise of an engine, she twisted to look behind her. Headlights swept across the pavement. The yellow van was coming back.

      Melina’s mind was reeling from the brutality she had just witnessed. It took her a crucial second too long to process what was happening. By the time she sprang to her feet, the van was mere yards away, the glare of its headlights obscuring everything else.

      She tried to jump out of its path, but the soles of her boots slipped in Fredo’s blood and she fell. Sticky warmth seeped through her skirt to her knees.

      Oh, God. She was going to die. She didn’t want to die. Not now. Not when she was so close to getting everything she wanted—

      She grunted with the impact. But it wasn’t the impact of a one-ton vehicle. A hard, male body slammed into her side, knocking her out of the way an instant before the van surged past.

      Tires squealed. The van skidded into a U-turn at the end of the block.

      “Let’s go!”

      Melina looked up. The man who had tackled her was already on his feet. She had a quick impression of dark hair, broad shoulders and the scent of leather, but there wasn’t time to absorb more. He caught her under her arms and hauled her upright. “Come on!”

      She wasn’t sure she could have spoken if she’d wanted to. There was no need. Not if she wanted to survive. Hiking up her skirt, she ran with him into the alley.

      The van accelerated behind them, the engine whining with the strain. Mortar and fragments of brick sprayed the air as bullets struck the wall of the buildings on either side of them. The stranger grasped her wrist, spinning her to his chest. With one arm clamped around her waist, he lifted her from her feet and backed her behind the garbage bin at the alley’s entrance, using its bulk and his body to shield her from the bullets and the ricocheting debris. “Hang on,” he said.

      She struggled in his embrace. Why was he stopping here? They weren’t safe yet. The alley wasn’t that narrow. The van could squeeze past the bin and they would be caught. “No. We have to keep going.”

      He tensed, as if he were gathering his strength. A tremor went through his body, but otherwise he remained motionless.

      Tires screeched again, so close, Melina drew in the smell of exhaust and burnt rubber. The van’s headlights swung into the alley. She shoved at the man’s chest. “We can’t stop. They’ll—”

      Her words were drowned out by an explosion overhead. Melina stretched on her toes to peer past the stranger’s shoulder. Sparks showered downward from a transformer atop the utility pole she had almost run into when she’d chased Fredo. The air sizzled as something long and thin flicked

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