LITMIR.BIZ

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caught a glimpse of movement off to his left.

       It was probably just someone’s stray cat, judging from the barking dog next door, but he needed to make sure. Stopping, he reached into his pocket and pretended to be searching for his keys.

       Although he never turned his head, his focus was on the bushes by the house. Next door, the neighbor’s dog continued to growl and bark, its head popping up intermittently as it jumped up and down just beyond the block wall.

       A second later Gene saw the bushes beneath one of the windows sway slightly, odd because the breeze had died down after sunset. Uncertain of the threat, he took a few things out of his pocket, glanced down at his hand, then, as if he’d forgotten something, headed back to her door.

       Gene walked slowly, furtively, studying the ground to his left in the glow of the yellow porch light. The footprints on the sandy earth didn’t belong to an animal, and were too large to belong to Lori. If he’d had to take a guess, he would have said they belonged to a size ten or eleven boot—not his own size twelve.

       Gene knocked on her front door and Lori answered almost instantly. “Couldn’t stay away?” she said with a teasing smile.

       “What can I say? You’re great company,” he said, laughing, then leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Don’t react, just go call the police. You’ve got a trespasser out here beside the house.”

       Lori pulled him inside. “Come back in,” she said, shutting the door behind him.

       “Don’t worry,” he said quickly. “I’ve got this covered. I’m going to slip out your back door and go after the guy. Keep the kitchen lights off and call the police.”

       “Are you crazy? You don’t know what you might be up against. He could be armed! Wait here with me for the police.”

       “I’ll surprise him before he even knows I’m coming. Stay here.”

       Gene opened the door a crack and slipped outside. He knew how to move through the shadows without making a sound. Hosteen Silver had said that his ability was the natural result of always being in harmony with his surroundings. He wasn’t sure about that, but he knew he was a match for whoever was out there sneaking around.

       As Gene slipped around the far corner of the house he heard a low scraping sound. He waited, peering into the darkness, allowing his eyes to adjust. Despite the long gray shadows, he could see a shape huddled below the window directly ahead.

       Gene moved toward the man cautiously, scarcely breathing and carefully placing each footstep to avoid making any noise. In the muted half-light, he could see the figure ahead. From the sheen and flattened appearance of his face, it was obvious the person was wearing a stocking mask. He could see something in his gloved hand, too, some kind of tool. It was probably a screwdriver, undoubtedly intended to help the intruder pry the window open.

       Gene moved even closer, then stopped, hearing slow footsteps behind him. Nobody had ever been able to successfully sneak up on him—that was one skill he’d had as far back as he could remember. More than once, as a kid, that ability had helped him avoid getting beaten up by a bully.

       He flattened against the wall of the house, farther into the shadows. A second later, Lori appeared, crouched low and holding something in her hand.

       He grabbed her and covered her mouth with his hand as he pulled her toward him.

       She slammed her elbow into his gut.

       “Be still. It’s me,” he whispered.

       The intruder must have also heard, because quick footsteps sounded up ahead.

       Gene placed himself between her and the intruder just as something came flying in his direction. Gene blocked the object with his forearm, and it bounced off the house with a loud thud. It was the screwdriver.

       “Wait here,” Gene told Lori, then took off after the running man, who’d now ducked around to the front of the house.

       As Gene raced around the corner, the fleeing man stumbled over a lawn sprinkler and nearly lost his balance. Seeing Gene closing in, he grabbed a rake from the neighbor’s yard and hurled it at him.

       Gene dodged, but it slowed him down, and when he looked up, the man had reached a car parked on the opposite side of the street. Before Gene could narrow the distance separating them, the guy raced off and Gene had no chance to read the plates.

       Gene cursed as he stared at the fading taillights. If Lori hadn’t come outside and tipped the guy off, he would have had him for sure. He was crossing back across the street when Lori came out toward him, holding a mop handle in one hand and a flashlight in the other.

       “I wish you’d stayed inside,” Gene said, his voice calm now. It was no use getting riled up after the fact. “He heard you coming and spooked.”

       “I won’t abandon a friend and you were out here alone. I grabbed the closest thing I had to a weapon, and came to help you.”

       The tremor in her voice sliced through what was left of his anger. Although she’d been terrified, she’d risked her own safety to help him. The gesture was touching. With the exception of his foster family, no one had ever done that.

       Lori was unpredictable, but she had heart. As he looked at her, he felt the tug in his gut—and lower.

       “Give me the flashlight, then stay close behind me,” he said, forcing his thoughts back on to safer channels. “I want to take a look around, but I don’t want you out of my sight again.”

       “The police are on their way,” she said.

       “Good. Just give me some room. I want to figure out what he was up to out here,” he said, walking back to the house.

       Using the flashlight, and careful not to obliterate any footprints, he studied the gouges on the window.

       Next, he aimed the flashlight beam toward the ground and quickly located the screwdriver. Hoping there was still a chance of recovering the man’s fingerprints, he left it on the ground and backed away.

       “He tried to pry that window open,” he said, pointing. “What’s on the other side?”

       “My bedroom,” she whispered in a shaky voice.

      Chapter Four

      A tired-looking police officer, Sergeant Elroy Chavez, responded to the call ten minutes later. Gene filled him in.

       “You didn’t touch anything, right?” Sergeant Chavez asked.

       “No. I figured you’d want to check for prints, but I should warn you, the guy was wearing gloves,” Gene said.

       “You sure it was a man?” Chavez pressed.

       Gene nodded. “I saw his shape and the way he ran.”

       “It’s got to be Bud Harrington,” Lori said, looking at both men and trying hard to appear calm. Inside, she felt as if she were unraveling a little at a time. “The creep’s playing with my head, hoping to make me too scared to even go home.”

       She and Gene stayed well back as the sergeant collected whatever evidence he could find and took a few photos. “This is all I can do here right now.” Sergeant Chavez looked at her, then added, “I’d advise you to stay somewhere else for a few days, or find someone to keep watch. The few officers we have available are working double shifts and dealing with a lot of extra calls. On top of that, our detectives are up to their necks investigating an organized gang of identity thieves working our area. We’re overworked at every level, so response times are really slow. You’re just lucky the guy didn’t wait until you’d gone to sleep.”

       She swallowed hard. “I’ll get an alarm.”

       “If it’s personal, that might just make him angrier, and still not be enough in the long run,” Sergeant Chavez said. “We’ll have extra patrols in the area tonight, but

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