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Rita continued to back her way down the fence.

The dog followed her on stiff legs, its angry black muzzle flecked with foam. She saw the red in its eyes, the teeth yellow and long.

“Go. Go. Go on, go away,” she commanded sharply but the dog snapped at her, made a lunge. She swung the bag against its head. The dog backed off a step and watched her. She couldn’t turn her back on it; slowly, losing precious seconds, she backed away.

She felt behind her for the catch on the gate.

The dog kept barking and other dogs in other yards took up the sound.

“Schatzi, Schatzi,” a German-accented voice called from the rear porch of the frame house. “Who is dot? Vot is it, Schatzi?”

At the sound of the voice, the dog turned and pricked up its ears.

Rita felt the catch at the back gate and shoved it open with a creak. The dog turned back. She slipped through and slammed it shut as the shepherd hurled itself at the wooden gate, gnashing its teeth, barking betrayal.

No alley this time, only a second yard leading to a new street.

Forms appeared at the side gate behind her. The dog ran to greet them barking.

Rita heard a shot; the barking stopped.

She felt the breath tearing from her lungs, felt the weight of the tote bag. They couldn’t get it now. After all that—

She ran along the darkened side street flanked by stately white frame houses and wide gravel driveways. The sky was black, without moon or stars; there was a smell of snow in the air.

Two more backyards, into a grassy alley full of garages and garbage cans. Rita was circling back now, around the residential area clinging to the old downtown section. She had parked three blocks from the newspaper building.

At the corner, under a street lamp, she paused for a moment. In the distance, she heard sirens but they did not seem to be coming any closer.

Dogs barked far away.

The tiny street lamps strung like pearls on the dark avenue made little stabs into the night. She hurried along. Porch lights were turned on; lamp lights in the windows; canned laughter roared from television sets.

Her car was at the end of the block under a street lamp. As she ran along the sidewalk, she fumbled in her pocket for the key.

“Miss Macklin.”

The voice was dead calm. Rita felt utter terror.

She turned and felt the arm on her shoulder, the fingers clamp into an unbreakable grip. It was he, the man who had chased her on the beach.

She hit him as hard as she could with her doubled fist. He seemed startled by the blow. Blood began to flow from a nostril. He wiped at his face with his free hand and saw the blood; annoyance crept over his dark features.

“We should have killed you in the first place,” he said and shoved the gun into her side. “You can give me the book now.”

She pushed against him and he slammed the gun very hard into her side. It knocked her breath away; for a moment she thought she would be sick.

Neither of them saw the second man.

Her assailant went down quietly on both knees as though he suddenly thought to pray. He stared at Rita with surprised eyes, his face gone white, his arms down at his sides. Then he keeled forward. Devereaux drew up, glanced down at the man he had just killed. Karras. The man from InterComBank.

Devereaux.… He shoved her ahead of him, back into the darkness where he had come from.

They moved softly down the alley. Sirens blared from the street they had just left.

His hand was as hard and cold as ice.

He pushed Rita into a white car on the next street.

“What the hell are you—”

“Just for once,” he said quietly, “listen. Get down on the floor of the car and pull that blanket over you. Stay on the floor. This is a net you swam into. And you’re the fish.”

“That man back there was the man from the beach. One of the men who chased me—”

“And the other is dead,” Devereaux said. He started the car and pulled slowly into the middle of the side street. For a moment, she heard nothing and then there were sirens again in the distance. She hugged the bag close to her under the blanket and closed her eyes.

“Shit,” Devereaux said.

She didn’t understand.

Red and blue Mars lights painted the interior of the car. Devereaux slowed, stopped.

“Yeah, okay,” the cop’s dull voice said. “You ain’t got no girls in that trunk, do ya?”

“Not tonight,” he said.

The cop laughed.

Devereaux accelerated, then drove slowly, made a turn, and then another.

“Do you know how to get out of here?” she asked from beneath the blanket.

“It was easier to get in.”

“My car is back there,” Rita said. “It doesn’t belong to me.”

“Yes. Rental car. Chevette. Illinois plates AV four five nine eight.”

“Oh,” was all she said.

Silence for more moments. “It’s hot under here,” she said. “When can I get up?”

“When we get out of the trap.” His voice was calm, nearly flat; she had dreamed of that voice.

“What if we don’t?”

Silence.

“We should go to the police—”

“The police want you. The Agency wants you. And InterComBank.”

“What’s that? I don’t — We should surrender—”

“Never give up, Rita,” Devereaux said. “Even when it seems the best thing.”

“How did you find me?”

“How could anyone miss you? You left a trail as wide as an interstate. Never go into espionage.”

“What did I do?”

“Everything wrong.”

“I mean, why are these people after me?”

“You took Tunney’s journal, from Mrs. Jones. And now you know what he knew.”

“Yes.”

“What was in the book?”

“Go to hell.”

Devereaux smiled. “That’s right, Rita. Don’t give up. Even when it seems like the best thing.”

“How did you know that man was killed? The other man?”

“Because I killed him.”

Again silence, but now it was horrible; she felt chilled just hearing his voice, though the heater blasted directly on her from beneath the dash. The car was large and powerful; she listened to the tires humming along the highway. He was picking up speed but when she peeked from beneath the blanket, she saw street lamps. Too close to the city still; to the trap.

“You can sit up now—”

She climbed into the seat beside him. The highway traffic was light. Big semitrailer trucks whooshed by, heading north, rocking the car on blasts of wind.

He said slowly, “Kaiser is dead.”

She stared into the darkness. Lights loomed, fell away; the big car was moving very fast now. The green lights of the instrument panel filled the interior with a strange glow. She looked at his face; it was pale, motionless, eyes fixed on the roadway.

“What happened?”

“He killed himself.”

She swallowed it in. She tried to consider it, chew on it in her mind, but the thought was larger than what her imagination could accept. She spoke instead: “When?”

“Monday night,” he said in the same flat voice. “They leaned on him; his son was arrested this afternoon. The son worked for InterComBank. He’s up for grand theft. The bank blackmailed Kaiser and that was why he warned you off the story. To protect you. He couldn’t tell you the truth, and he didn’t want you to get involved with them. I tell you this because you said you couldn’t trust Kaiser anymore; I didn’t want all your thoughts of him to be bad ones.” The edge of sarcasm cut her and she felt the wound.

She could not think of Kaiser as dead. The big man with the fat body and ink-stained fingers, enveloped in the perpetual wreath of cigarette smoke. She could not think of it. Her green eyes stared into the headlights coming up the two-lane highway that wound below Green Bay. The lights gave a pale quality to her face and framed her soft red hair; then the lights fell away and there was only darkness again, silence, the thought of Kaiser dead.