Running in the Dark Read Online Free Page A

darted, which had me looking around. The redheaded sucker was gone, the mullet man was gulping from a tankard, and a group of ten had just squeezed in through the front door. Tilde leaned closer. “It took me four weeks to finish that route before sunrise. You’re here less than two, and come in hours early. There are no shortcuts in this business. Where were you before? What happened to bring you here?”
    She sounded sympathetic, probably projecting on me whatever issues had caused her to move from Sweden to Chile, but I wasn’t about to spill. Despite being spread around the world in the cities closest to the poles, the courier community is small. It wouldn’t take much for someone with connections to form the educated—and correct—guess that I’d come from Alaska. And there was only one messenger unaccounted for up there.
    My old alias—Mary Pike—had, for all intents and purposes, died in the Last Frontier. Two people knew where I was and that I was still alive. Malcolm and Master Bronson. A nasty sucker named Richard Abel knew that I was alive, but I fervently hoped that he didn’t know where I was.
    Richard had been the violent left hand of the attempted vampire coup in Anchorage. I’d had a run-in with him while he was sliming around. I’m all for adventure, but the experience hadn’t been pleasant. To get away from him, I’d run, sacrificing my ties with the courier shop that had plucked me off the streets and turned me into a productive member of society. Innsbruck and Oester, In and Out to the runners, I&O to everybody else. I smiled every time I thought about them.
    Richard had a thing for explosives and persistence. Without Malcolm’s help and a whole lot of luck, I would have ended up a cautionary news story. Eventually Mal tracked me to Hawaii, bringing with him suspicion, news of bloodshed back home and, finally, an understanding between us. Unfortunately, Richard had followed him. We’d gotten away, far away, and I’d started working as Aerin Crane, hiding my real name—Sydney Kildare. But Richard Abel was still out there, somewhere.
    The thought of him, on top of the news of the dead girls, had my pulse jumping. But I wasn’t about to start telling sob stories, not even to a sister runner. Secrets, once spoken, can’t be bottled back up.
    “I’ve just always loved to drive,” I said lamely.
    “And how do you like the route?” Her expression was strangely intense. I smiled carefully. Admitting it was a shitty run was the same as admitting I could appreciate a better one.
    “I could do without the unmarked roads. Have a good night, Tilde.” I took two quick steps, caught a wave of drinkers headed toward a big table past the bar, and rolled out the back door. It thumped closed, shutting off the sound of revelry and replacing it with early-morning silence.
    I skirted a large trash bin, giving it a wide berth in case someone was lurking behind it, and scanned the street before stepping out of the alley. The door to the back thumped again and I resisted the urge to look over my shoulder. Tilde had been on edge, and paranoia begets paranoia. Just because someone left the bar right after me didn’t have to mean they were going to follow me.
    It didn’t have to, but in this instance it did. I jogged across the street, tilting my head toward the closed storefronts, as if window-shopping. A man stepped out of the alley, barely checking for traffic before crossing the street. He was medium height, narrow shouldered inside a trench coat, wearing an angular hat, pulled low. It was possible he wasn’t following me, but after two random turns I doubted it. I increased my pace, starting to breathe hard as I kept one eye on him, the other watching for a taxi. He kept up for a couple of minutes before he started lagging. There was an odd shuffling motion to his stride, and he soon gave up and turned onto a side street. Maybe he was hoping to snatch my purse. More likely he’d heard that couriers