{"section": "", "text": "embargo, Inglaterra y Francia no fueron a la guerra para iniciar el proceso. Confiaban en la investigación, incluyendo un tira y afloja que se produjo en Inglaterra en 1845 respecto al barco de vapor con hélice impulsora y el de ruedas de paleta. Otras investigaciones similares, espoleadas por el temor ante potenciales enemigos, dieron como resultado (junto con los avances en el conocimiento útil durante la revolución industrial) mejores pistolas, artillería y fortificaciones, todo ello en medio de lo que, para Europa, fue una época de paz.\n\nAntes de ver cómo se llevó a cabo esta investigación y desarrollo, pensemos en cómo puede calcularse en nuestro modelo junto con el mayor acervo de conocimiento útil. Como sabemos, el aumento de este conocimiento (especialmente la nueva ciencia y los avances en la ingeniería derivados de la revolución industrial) flexibilizó los límites del aprendizaje por la práctica y magnificó las innovaciones producidas por dicho aprendizaje. Y presumiblemente haría lo mismo con la investigación. Pero ¿cómo vincular con precisión la investigación con la innovación militar? En el modelo original, la innovación se debía al gasto militar, y esta es la razón por la cual la investigación solo era posible en tiempos de guerra, puesto que en época de paz los dirigentes no gastaban nada en ella, al menos en el modelo. Pero con el tipo de paz armada que prevaleció en el siglo XIX, los dirigentes políticos seguían dedicando recursos a lo militar aunque no estuvieran inmersos en ninguna lucha. Una posibilidad sería dejar que todo el gasto militar en la paz armada generase innovaciones, al igual que en el modelo original. En este caso, la innovación se aceleraría en el siglo XIX, porque los gastos militares aumentaban y el efecto del gasto se vería reforzado con todo el conocimiento útil.\n\nEste supuesto, no obstante, puede parecer demasiado optimista, porque en realidad solo una parte del gasto militar iba a la investigación. Una alternativa sería suponer que solo el dinero destinado a la investigación genera mejoras en la tecnología militar. Aunque solo representaría una fracción del gasto militar total, la innovación aún sería posible, y cuanto mayor fuese la fracción más innovación se produciría. Al propio tiempo, los avances del conocimiento compensarían el hecho de que, en realidad, solo una parte del gasto militar contribuía a avanzar la tecnología de la pólvora.\n\n¿Qué nos llevarían a esperar estas dos alternativas de la innovación militar en el siglo XIX? Si solo el gasto en la investigación hace todo el trabajo y prescindimos de todos los demás conocimientos nuevos, entonces no serían de prever muchas innovaciones, pues el dinero dedicado a la investigación, en sí mismo, no era una partida grande del presupuesto total de defensa en el siglo XIX. Pero si lo que importa es el total del gasto de defensa, entonces el siglo XIX debió presenciar más avances que en el pasado, porque los gastos militares aumentaron a un nivel sin precedentes en la década de 1860 (Tabla 6.4) y siguieron aumentando hasta quintuplicarse al principio de la primera guerra mundial. Probablemente la realidad se encuentra en alguna zona intermedia entre estos dos extremos: parte del dinero que se dedicó a otras partidas que no eran la investigación seguramente mejoró la tecnología de la pólvora, de manera que cabría esperar cierta innovación. Y lo que es aún más importante, el nuevo conocimiento magnificaría los efectos del gasto e impediría que las innovaciones se redujeran. En tal caso, la paz armada en el siglo XIX contribuiría más a mejorar la tecnología de la pólvora que la guerra incesante de los inicios de la era moderna.\n\nSi el nuevo modelo fuese", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 397}
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{"section": "", "text": "1976). _Royal Taxation in Fourteenth-Century France: The Captivity and Ransom of John II, 1356-1370_. Filadelfia, American Philosophical Society.\n\nHenrich, J. (2004). \"Cultural Group Selection, Coevolutionary Processes and Large-Scale Cooperation.\" _Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization_ 53: 3-35.\n\nHenrich, J., y R. Boyd (2001). \"Why People Punish Defectors: Weak Conformist Transmission Can Stabilize Costly Enforcement of Norms in Cooperative Dilemmas.\" _Journal of Theoretical Biology_ 208(1): 79-89.\n\nHerrmann, B., C. Thoni _et al_. (2008). \"Antisocial Punishment across Societies.\" _Science_ 319(5868): 1362-1367.\n\nHeywood, C. (2002). \"Notes on the Production of Fifteenth-Century Ottoman Cannon.\" _Writing Ottoman History: Documents and Interpretations_. Ed. C. Heywood. Aldershot, UK/Burlington, VT, Ashgate, 1-22.\n\nHillmann, H., y C. Gathmann (2011). \"Overseas Trade and the Decline of Privateering.\" _Journal of Economic History_ 71(3): 730-761.\n\nHobbes, T. (1651). _Leviathan or the Matter, Forme and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil_. London, Andrew Crooke. (Traducción al castellano, _Leviatán: O la material, forma y poder de un estado eclesiástico y civil_ , Madrid, Alianza, 2009.)\n\nHochschild, A. (1999). _King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa_. Nueva York, Houghton Mifflin.\n\nHoffman, P. E. (1980). _The Spanish Crown and the Defense of the Caribbean, 1535-1585: Precedent, Patrimonialism, and Royal Parsimony_. Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press.\n\nHoffman, P. T. (1984). _Church and Community in the Diocese of Lyon, 1500-1789_. New Haven, CT, Yale University Press.\n\n— (1996). _Growth in a Traditional Society_. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press.\n\n— (2006). \"Why Is It That Europeans Ended Up Conquering the Rest of the Globe? Prices, the Military Revolution, and Western Europe's Comparative Advantage in Violence.\"Global Price and Income History Working Paper 3. University of California, Davis.\n\n— (2011). \"Prices, the Military Revolution, and Western Europe's Comparative Advantage in Violence.\" _Economic History Review_ 64(S1): 39-59.\n\nHoffman, P. T., y K. Norberg, eds. (1994). _Fiscal Crises, Liberty, and Representative Government,1450-1789_. Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press.\n\nHoffman, P. T., G. Postel-Vinay _et al_. (2000). _Priceless Markets: The Political Economy of Credit in Paris, 1660-1870_. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.\n\n— (2007). _Surviving Large Losses: Fiscal Crises, the Middle Class, and the Development of Capital Markets_. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.\n\nHoffman, P. T., y J.-L. Rosenthal (1997). \"The Political Economy of Warfare and Taxation in Early Modern Europe: Historical Lessons for Economic Development.\" _The Frontiers of the New Institutional Economics_. Ed. J. N. Drobak y J.V.C.N. Nye. San Diego, Academic Press, 31-55.\n\n—", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 399}
{"section": "", "text": ". Kuran 2011. La propia corporación era un accidente; en su origen fue creada por la iglesia occidental para gestionar instituciones religiosas perdurables en una época en la que las potencias políticas de Europa occidental eran débiles. Las corporaciones pudieron no haber surgido nunca en Europa occidental si la iglesia no hubiera sido políticamente independiente o si en la Europa medieval se hubieran forjado estados poderosos. Sobre este importante punto, véase Goldstone 2012.\n\n. Subrahmanyam 1993, 64-66, 238-244; McCormick 2001, 584-587, 708-716; Freedman 2008, 140-145; Wey-Gómez 2008; Disney 2010.\n\n. Chan 1998, 232-236, 275, 302-303; Gungwu 1998, 319-326; Dreyer 2007. Sobre los bienes exóticos y que las pruebas de estos no impresionaron a los emperadores, véase Dreyer, pp. 157-163, que menciona la reacción del emperador Xuande al recibir el tributo tras el viaje final: «No sentimos ningún deseo por los bienes de regiones distantes, pero somos conscientes de que [se nos han ofrecido] con toda sinceridad». La indiferente reacción del emperador ante los bienes exóticos simplemente pudo haber reflejado la actitud que supuestamente el Hijo del Cielo tenía que manifestar cuando se le ofrecían presentes extranjeros.\n\n. Chaunu 1951; Diamond y Keegan 1984; Keegan y Diamond 1987; Headrick 2010, 39-41.\n\n. Pueden encontrarse ejemplos especialmente creíbles en Morris 2010, 3-6, y en Tetlock, Lebow _et al_. 2006, que también exponen cómo se deben juzgar los contrafácticos. Naturalmente, hace mucho tiempo que los historiadores de la economía emplean los contrafácticos.\n\n. Subrahmanyam 2001, 359-377; Tetlock, Lebow _et al_. 2006, 375-377. Un problema del argumento (como Subrahmanyam reconoce) es que Nadir hubiera tenido que apoderarse del sistema fiscal mongol que ya había empezado a escapar del control central. Permanecer en India también habría roto la costumbre de Nadir de saquear los lugares que había conquistado y volver a casa a continuación.\n\n. Roy 2011b, 93, 105, 128-130, 170.\n\n. Aunque Carlos el Gordo reunificó brevemente el imperio carolingio en 884, este muy pronto volvió a desmoronarse. Aquí estoy en deuda con Warren Brown y con Ian Morris por sus útiles comentarios. Morris se plantea si el imperio romano hubiera podido sobrevivir intacto después de la reunificación de Justiniano en el siglo VI, pero este resultado, como él señala, era improbable: Morris 2010, 343-349.\n\n. Para ejemplos elocuentes, véase Tetlock, Lebow _et al_. 2006, 1-3, 206-231, 241-276; Morris 2010, 1-5. El volumen de Tetlock tiene un ejemplo, de Robin D. S. Yates, relacionado con lo que hubiera pasado si los Qin no hubieran unificado China.\n\n. En su convincente contrafáctico de la dinast", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 400}
{"section": "", "text": "Tetlock, Lebow _et al_. 2006, 255-256, Kenneth Pomeranz estudia la posibilidad de transportar el carbón. Habían lugares, como la llanura del delta del Yangtsé, en los que la energía hidráulica no podría proporcionar mucha energía. Si se industrializasen, podrían contar con el carbón importado.\n\n. Aun así, naturalmente el resultado podía haber sido diferente. Sin los mongoles, la plaga quizá no hubiera alcanzado Europa occidental. Entonces Inglaterra no hubiera tenido nuevas pañerías y quizá tampoco una revolución industrial.\n\n. Véase Schroeder 1994, vii-ix, 391-395, 574-581, 799-803, y los comentarios sobre la Tabla 6.3 más adelante.\n\n. Headrick 2010.\n\n. Schroeder 1994, ix, 578-581, 799-803; Bell 2007, 232, 237, 307-309.\n\n. Dincecco 2009; 2011.\n\n. Los recursos movilizados _Z = P/C_ , donde _P_ es el valor del premio y _C = c_ 1\\+ _c_ 2es el coste total en el modelo del apéndice A.\n\n. Mokyr 2002.\n\n. La cifra del 84% incluye la propia Europa, y el porcentaje se ha calculado con relación a la zona terrestre del mundo a excepción de la Antártida. Para los detalles, véase el capítulo 1.\n\n. El gobierno de Estados Unidos subvencionó el desarrollo de los elementos de recambio en la fabricación de las armas, ya que estos podían ser sustituidos en el campo de batalla: Smith 1977. También hubo innovaciones militares aún más importantes que añadir a la lista: la pólvora sin humo, que permite que un soldado de infantería vea su blanco pero no revela su posición; las primeras comunicaciones electrónicas, desde el telégrafo hasta los teléfonos de campaña, etcétera: Dupuy 1984, 213, 296-297.\n\n. El aumento medio de la productividad laboral de la economía estadounidense en su conjunto fue de un 2,14 % entre 1959 y 2006: Jorgenson, Ho _et al_. 2008, Tabla 1.\n\n. Stevenson 2005, 149.\n\n. Showalter 1976, 76-96, 105-113, 121-130; Dupuy 1985, 8-10; Clodfelter 2002, 205-207.\n\n. Baxter 1993, 69-70; Clodfelter 2002, 200.\n\n. Clodfelter 2002, 255; Headrick 2010, 170, 177, 199-206, 257-292; Hall y Bernard 2013, 374-450. Los españoles, por ejemplo, vieron que las armas de fuego de finales del siglo XVIII resultaban inútiles contra los comanches que atacaban las zonas septentrionales de su imperio americano: Hämäläinen 2008, 131-133. Entonces los españoles recurrieron a ofrecer comercio a cambio de treguas, como hicieron los chinos en sus tratos con los nómadas.\n\n. Schroeder 1994, vii-ix, 391-3", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 401}
{"section": "", "text": ". Findlay y O'Rourke 2007, 388-402; Solar 2013.\n\n. Para Inglaterra y Francia, que eran las principales potencias coloniales, los años por siglo que dedicaron al combate descendieron mucho después de 1815 (en un 37 % y un 45 %, respectivamente), si tenemos en cuenta las guerras coloniales. Sin guerras coloniales, los descensos respectivos eran de un 77% y un 75%, lo que se acerca al promedio en la Tabla 6.3. En cuanto al tiempo empleado luchando en guerras civiles o en disturbios, este no aumentó espectacularmente en los años 1816-1913, al menos según las fuentes usadas para elaborar la Tabla 6.3, aunque sigue siendo importante.\n\n. No obstante, los gobernantes no pueden cambiar de opinión mientras están en el poder. Obviamente, esto es una gran simplificación, pero es útil.\n\n. La ampliación del modelo aquí y en el apéndice E es una adaptación a partir de Garfinkel y Skaperdas 2007, que contiene variaciones más realistas; véase también McBride y Skaperdas 2007.\n\n. Dincecco 2009; 2011.\n\n. Onorato, Scheve _et al_. 2014.\n\n. El gasto en la guerra o en la paz armada sería _dP/C_ , donde _C_ es el coste total, _P_ es el premio y _d_ (0 < _d_ < 1) es el daño producido por la guerra. Sin la gloria, _P_ sería menor, y el daño _d_ reduciría aún más el numerador de la fracción. El menor coste total de _C_ hubiera tenido el efecto contrario. Para más detalles, véase el apéndice E.\n\n. Las cifras excluyen la deuda militar porque los documentos del siglo XIX no especifican qué fracción de los pagos de la deuda correspondía a guerras anteriores. Si damos por supuesto que todos los pagos de la deuda en la década de 1780 correspondían a guerras pasadas pero ninguno después (un supuesto extremo), entonces el gasto militar en dicha década aumentaría hasta 2,196 millones de gramos de plata en Inglaterra y 2,118 millones de gramos de plata en Francia. Entre 1855-1864, el gasto militar aún superaría con mucho estos niveles en ambos países.\n\n. Eloranta 2007.\n\n. La tasa del 1,7 % anual corresponde a una regresión del logaritmo del gasto militar (medido en gramos de oro) concreto y la medida de muertes en combate divididas por la población para controlar el aumento del gasto durante las guerras. La regresión se ha efectuado con las seis grandes potencias europeas (Alemania, el Imperio Austrohúngaro, Francia, Inglaterra, Italia y Rusia) entre 1816 y 1913 empleando datos de la base de datos de potencial material Correlates of War 4.0 en http://www.correlatesofwar. org (a la que se accedió el 6 de abril de 2012), descrita en Singer, Bremer _et al_. 1972; Singer 1987. Los resultados de la regresión pueden consultarse al autor. Dicha regresión incluye también los efectos fijos y los controles para medir la democracia y para la fracción de la población en las ciudades (como representación del crecimiento económico). Dado que estos dos últimos controles eliminan los efectos de las instituciones representativas y del crecimiento económico, el índice del 1,7 % anual es, probablemente, una estim", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 402}
{"section": "", "text": ". Véase el apéndice E para el efecto de los avances en el conocimiento y del aumento de los gastos de investigación cuando únicamente son estos los que generan innovaciones.\n\n. Podemos obtener una estimación aproximada de cuál era la fracción calculando la parte del gasto militar que se destinaba a adquirir nuevos barcos, armas y pertrechos militares. Si todas estas adquisiciones habían sido mejoradas por la investigación, y si la investigación constituía la mayor parte de su coste, entonces el gasto empleado en ellas contendrá gran parte del gasto empleado en investigación, y también equivaldrá al gasto en investigación si definimos a esta como la compra de nueva tecnología. En cualquier caso, aunque efectuemos dicho cálculo, la estimación que obtendremos de los gastos de investigación será baja. En Francia, por ejemplo, solo fue el 6 % del presupuesto total de defensa en los años 1820-1864. Corvisier, Blanchard _et al_. 1997, vol. 2: 428.\n\n. Véase Eloranta 2007 y las regresiones que hemos comentado anteriormente.\n\n. Sobre este párrafo y el siguiente, véase Baxter 1933; Lautenschläger 1983; Van Creveld 1989, 223; Corvisier, Blanchard _et al_. 1997, vol. 2: 483-501; Lambert 1998; Eloranta 2007. Lambert es la fuente principal en lo referente a la reacción inglesa a los acorazados franceses.\n\n. Van Creveld 1989, 220-221.\n\n. Goodman 1988.\n\n. Véase capítulo 2. Los tratantes de esclavos también revistieron sus embarcaciones con cobre, según expone Stanley Engerman en una comunicación personal.\n\n. Blane 1785; Rodger 2004, 281, 307-308, 399-400.\n\n. Robins y Euler 1783; Steele 1994; Alder 1997, 90-107. En la traducción francesa de la obra de Robins con comentarios de Euler (pp. 114, 380-381, 427), el péndulo balístico se limita a comprobar proyectiles con una masa inferior a cuatro onzas, de manera que las velocidades de las balas de cañón tenía que estimarse teóricamente.\n\n. Ames y Rosenberg 1968; Smith 1977.\n\n. Showalter 1976; _Neue Deutsche Biographie_ 1982, sv «Krupp, Alfred», vol. 13: 130-135; Corvisier, Blanchard _et al_. 1997, vol. 2: 498; Mokyr 2003, sv «Arms Industry», vol. 1: 159-167.\n\n. Trebilcock 1973.\n\n. Baxter 1933, 98-133, 165-181; Lambert 1998.\n\n. Estados Unidos es uno de los principales ejemplos de cómo las mejoras del transporte, como el canal de Erie, hicieron posible la creación de grandes mercados: Sokoloff 1988; Romer 1996.\n\n. _Encyclopedia Britannica_ 1911, sv «Armour Plates», 2: 578-582: Trebilcock 1973; Johnson 1988; Mokyr 2003, sv. «Arms Industry», vol. 1: 159-167.\n\n. Baxter 1993, 4, ", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 403}
{"section": "", "text": ". Los contrafácticos expuestos en este párrafo y en el anterior se basan en el modelo de Allen 2009, 130-131, y en los datos empleados en Allen 2003. Primero he resuelto el sistema de ecuaciones lineales en el modelo de Allen mediante una forma reducida que expresa las variables endógenas en términos de las exógenas. Entonces, los contrafácticos estiman el impacto de los cambios en 1800 en una de las variables exógenas clave, el comercio internacional per cápita. Para Inglaterra se han estimado dos contrafácticos: uno supone que en 1800 Inglaterra había perdido todo su comercio con Asia y las Indias Occidentales; el otro que el comercio británico en 1800 había quedado reducido al nivel de 1750-1751. En ambos escenarios, yo he supuesto que el comercio de esclavos y que el comercio británico con Estados Unidos en 1800 permanecía igual. El contrafáctico francés suponía que en 1800 Francia tenía tanto comercio como Inglaterra.\n\n. O'Brien 2006.\n\n. Acemoglu 2002. En el modelo de Acemoglu (véase p. 803), con el trabajo y el capital como los únicos factores de producción y eliminando el capital complementario y las innovaciones, la escasez del trabajo impulsaría las innovaciones solo si la elasticidad de la sustitución entre trabajo y capital fuese suficientemente baja. Véanse también sus resultados más generales en Acemoglu 2010, donde las notas que añaden el trabajo especializado a los factores de producción pueden cambiar significativamente las cosas. Véase también las importantes críticas realizadas por McCloskey 2010, 186-192, 346-348.\n\n. Sobre el argumento y las pruebas aquí expuestas, véase Kelly, Mokyr _et al_. 2012. Los esfuerzos de los ingleses para evitar que los trabajadores emigrasen a Francia —y para atraer de nuevo a los que se habían ido al extranjero— apoyan su conclusión: Harris 1998, 2, 9-12, 28-29. También lo corroboran las pruebas (y un argumento similar) en Jacob 2014.\n\n. Acemoglu, Johnson _et al_. 2005. En sus regresiones, la guerra no tiene ningún efecto directo sobre la urbanización (su representación en el PIB per cápita), cuando se tienen en cuenta el comercio y las instituciones. Sus resultados siguen siendo prácticamente iguales si Inglaterra y Holanda desaparecieran de la muestra, lo cual sugiere, por tanto, que los resultados son aplicables a Inglaterra en concreto.\n\n. El modelo empírico analizado por Acemoglu, Johnson _et al_. tiene en cuenta exclusivamente el control parlamentario del rey o del príncipe, pero no la responsabilidad ministerial o disponer de un sistema fiscal y legal uniforme. Pero existen abundantes pruebas de que el sistema legal y fiscal uniforme también contribuyó al crecimiento; sobre todo, permitió que los individuos privados reordenasen los derechos de propiedad o emprendieran mejoras en las infraestructuras. Véase Bogart y Richardson 2011.\n\n. Para un ejemplo del tipo de argumento weberiano del cual discrepo —si bien se trata de un argumento muy elocuente—, véase Landes 1999.\n\n. Garfinkel y Skaperdas 2007.\n\n. La expresión a la izquierda del signo de desigualdad es simplemente:\n\n_ln_ [ _p/_ (( _w_ 0^ _", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 404}
{"section": "", "text": "Primero el despertador había sonado a la hora que había querido. Lo que le llevó a darse una ducha rápida. Desayunó deprisa —si a un café recalentado se le podía llamar desayuno—, se vistió con unos vaqueros y una camiseta amarilla vieja, muy vieja —tenía más de un enganchón— y cuando estaba a punto de salir por la puerta, una llamada la retuvo. Era Beatriz, su amiga y dueña de la cafetería _El Hogar de Bea_ , situada en la plaza del pueblo donde vivía, y aunque también vendía algo de bollería en su establecimiento, no existía competencia alguna entre ellas. En _Sweet_ , Emily preparaba tartas y algún que otro postre de encargo, además de compaginar esa actividad con la escuela-taller y en cambio, Bea lo que ofrecía a su clientela era algún pequeño acompañamiento para el café o para cualquier otra bebida. Eran amigas desde la infancia y siempre que alguna de las dos tenía un problema estaban ahí para ayudarse y en este caso, Bea era quien le iba a hacer el favor de entregar los últimos encargos a sus clientes. De los cursos ya se había ocupado ella, al recolocar a sus alumnos en otros días.\n\n—Menos mal que te pillo.\n\nFue el saludo que recibió nada más descolgar el teléfono.\n\n—Bea, ¿sucede algo? —Emily preguntó cuando identificó la voz de su amiga.\n\n—No, no te preocupes —dijo—. Solo te llamaba para que supieras que me ha surgido un imprevisto...\n\n—Ya está. Está decidido —interrumpió la pastelera—. Me quedo. No voy a esa dichosa boda...\n\n—Ehh... Más despacio, Em. Es un imprevisto con el que no contaba, pero todo en esta vida tiene solución... menos la muerte y eso algunos podrían rebatírtelo —indicó Bea—. El caso es que Álex va a ir a _Sweet_ y necesitaba que me confirmaras que la llave de emergencia que tienes debajo del poyete de la ventana sigue allí.\n\nAlejandra o Álex, como quería que la llamaran, era una pelirroja a la que le gustaban las motos y que se había unido a su grupo de amistades recientemente. Y aunque la conocía desde hacía poco, gracias a que la dueña de _El Hogar_ las presentó, habían simpatizado enseguida.\n\nEmily resopló y apagó las luces de su casa.\n\n—Sí. Están allí —confirmó resignada mientras asía las llaves—. Bea, de verdad que si te estoy complicando las cosas puedo quedarme y decirle a mi hermana que no he podido escaparme.\n\n—Em, cariño. Todo va a ir bien —la tranquilizó—. Vete a esa boda. Haz muchas fotos que queremos conocer al misterioso novio y vuelve cuando quieras.\n\nDespués de eso, las dos mujeres se despidieron. Em cogió el coche, un Fiat 1 amarillo que tenía más años que el abuelo de Heidi y se dirigió hacia «el pueblo ese que está perdido de la mano de Dios».\n\nEn cuanto se sumergió en la carretera y se alejó de las últimas ciudades que conformaban la Comunidad de Madrid, tuvo que parar de golpe el vehículo. La cola de coches que había por delante de ella se movía a la velocidad de las tortugas, si se movía, porque Emily ya dudaba que cambiara de marcha en la palanca de cambios.\n\nIba a llegar tardísimo.\n\nPuso la radio, en una cadena donde los clásicos de los ochent", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 405}
{"section": "", "text": "Él fijó su mirada azul en los ojos negros de ella mientras sus respiraciones se enredaban.\n\n—Suéltame Saúl —ordenó.\n\n—No —susurró con voz grave.\n\n—Eve estará preocupada.\n\n—Después de cómo te has comportado esta noche, lo que menos estará tu hermana es preocupada por ti —se rió.\n\nElla le miró mostrando todo el odio que sentía hacia él en sus ojos.\n\n—Yo no he sido la única —le escupió.\n\nSaúl posó la mirada en cada rasgo de su rostro, deteniéndose por unos breves segundos en los finos labios de ella que en ese momento se mordisqueaba el inferior.\n\n—Sigues mordiéndote los labios cuando estás nerviosa —señaló.\n\nEm, viéndose pillada in fraganti, dejó lo que hacía y se enfrentó a su captor.\n\n—No estoy nerviosa, yo...\n\nPero no pudo terminar lo que iba a decir.\n\nLa boca masculina se cernió sobre la de ella. Atrapó el labio inferior, dejó que su lengua sanara los pequeños arañazos que se había infringido y la deslizó con suavidad por la boca hasta que consiguió, con una dulce caricia, que Emily le permitiera adentrarse en su húmeda cavidad, arrancándole un gemido de bienvenida. El beso fue lento y suave, todo lo contrario de lo que podría esperar después de la discusión que habían mantenido. Las manos de él se asentaron en su cintura. Las manos de ella se enredaron en el cabello moreno.\n\nUn nuevo beso. Una nueva caricia. Un nuevo suspiro...\n\nUn acto que terminó tan rápido como empezó cuando Saúl decidió que ya la había saboreado lo suficiente.\n\nSe apartó de ella, no sin antes regalarle un nuevo roce con sus labios, y la miró a los ojos.\n\n—Buenas noches —se despidió y desapareció en la oscuridad de la noche.\n\nEmily no supo reaccionar. Su cara reflejaba la confusión que vivía en esos momentos. Parpadeó varias veces y fijó la vista por donde se había marchado Saúl.\n\n—Este tío aún sabe cómo besar. —Suspiró y entró en la casa.\n\n# Capítulo 5\n\n—Buenos días —saludó a su hermana en cuanto entró en la cocina al día siguiente.\n\n—Buenos días, tía —le respondió su sobrino al mismo tiempo que su madre gruñía.\n\n«La mañana no se presentaba muy halagüeña —pensó Em mientras se hacía con una magdalena que había sobre la mesa y se sentaba en la silla de madera».\n\n—Eve...\n\n—Ahora no —la cortó en tono seco.\n\n—Pero...\n\n—¡Em! —le llamó la atención sin mirarla.\n\nTía y sobrino compartieron miradas. Oliver agarró la última magdalena que quedaba, le guiñó un ojo a Emily, movió la boca deseándole suerte y se marchó.\n\n—Será cobarde, me deja sola con...\n\n—No es cobarde. Es un chico listo —dijo Eve mientras se secaba las manos con un paño y miraba a su hermana.\n\nElla bufó, se encogió como pudo en la silla y dejó su vista fija en la tarea de quitar el papel al bollo que tenía entre sus manos. No se atrevía a mirar a Eve a los ojos cuando estaba en ese estado de ánimo; podía llegar a ser como Atila, el rey de los hunos.\n\nEscuchó como apartaba la silla", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 406}
{"section": "", "text": "Sus uñas se clavaron en la espalda de él.\n\n—Saúl...\n\nUna nueva estocada. Un nuevo jadeo.\n\n—Em, contéstame —la conminó.\n\nFijó su mirada en la de Saúl, calibrando si volverle a mentir o no.\n\n—Saúl, yo...\n\nUna nueva embestida acalló sus protestas.\n\n—Emily, es fácil —la instó mientras posaba sus labios levemente sobre los de ella, dejando que sintiera su aliento sin terminar de besarla—. Dime la verdad —sentenció seguido de una nueva estocada.\n\nSuspiró y cerró los ojos.\n\n—¡Sí! —claudicó.\n\nSu confesión fue sellada por un beso voraz, seguido del movimiento de caderas de Saúl, acompasando su ritmo, dejando que Emily sintiera en toda su plenitud su pene mientras este recibía el calor que emanaba de su interior.\n\nLas manos de Em descendieron a lo largo de toda su espalda hasta asentarse sobre el trasero de Saúl donde le instó para que acelerara el ritmo; en esta ocasión, con esa muda demanda, sí consiguió su objetivo.\n\nLos movimientos de la pareja fueron a más. El cuerpo de Emily se encorvaba con cada acometida de Saúl. Los jadeos aumentaron de volumen, solo acallados por algún beso esporádico que se regalaban. Sus miradas se entrelazaron, sus suspiros se enredaron y cuando Em pensó que no iba a poder seguir el ritmo de su amante, el clímax la sorprendió con una fuerte acometida llevándola más allá de los sueños.\n\nHabían pasado solo unos minutos cuando Emily sintió como Saúl se movía y se quitaba de encima de ella. La respiración de la pareja ya se había normalizado, el latir de sus corazones había descendido en ritmo aunque en su cabeza aún bullían miles de pensamientos inconexos. Le había confesado que le había extrañado, que le había añorado después de tantos años de separación, después del tiempo que llevaban sin verse, después de que él fuera el que rompió con ella...\n\nY se lo había dejado a huevo. ¡Joder! ¡Joder! ¡Joder!\n\n—Será mejor que te vayas —le dijo mientras recogía su ropa y se vestía—. Eve u Oliver pueden aparecer en cualquier momento y no me gustaría que te vieran aquí —explicó con tono seco.\n\nSaúl se puso los pantalones y recogió la camiseta del suelo.\n\n— Emily, tenemos que hablar —le reclamó observando sus movimientos.\n\nElla no le miró, no podía enfrentarle porque si no sabría que no tenía fuerzas para alejarse de él.\n\n—No tenemos nada que decirnos —escupió y se dirigió hacia la cocina, pero sus pasos se detuvieron cuando Saúl la agarró del brazo.\n\n—Em, no nos hagas esto... —rogó.\n\n—¿El qué? —le encaró con ira.\n\nSaúl la dejó libre en cuanto vio el dolor que residía en sus ojos negros.\n\n—¿El qué, Saúl? —repitió ella— Yo no fui quien quiso dejarlo en su día, yo no fui quien dijo que quería conocer más gente y cuando por fin parecía que te había olvidado aparece el contrato. —Dejó caer sus brazos inertes— Has vuelto mi vida del revés.\n\n—Em...\n\nLevantó su mano para impedir que se le acercara.\n\n—Si me querías lejos... —le miró—. ¿Por qué avalaste el préstamo del banco? ¿Y cómo? Saúl", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 407}
{"section": "", "text": "—Saúl, no sabes el tiempo que pasé preguntándome qué había hecho mal, qué había de malo en mí para que...\n\n—Shsh... —siseó él, acallando sus palabras posando los dedos sobre su boca—. No eras tú. Era yo —dudó en cómo hacérselo entender—. Mi vida era sencilla. Era un simple pastor que cuidaba del ganado de otro. No tenía nada que ofrecerte.\n\nEmily agarró sus manos y llamó su atención tirando de ellas.\n\n—Saúl, tú lo eras todo para mí —confesó—. Lo habría dejado todo por ti.\n\nÉl le dio un dulce beso y le regaló una triste sonrisa.\n\n—Por eso, Emily —dijo—. Por eso tuve que hacer lo que hice. —Ella le miró sin comprender—. No podía arrastrarte a un pueblo perdido, en la España profunda, donde lo más reseñable era el grupo de música que podía contratar el ayuntamiento cada año por las fiestas. Te hubieras hartado de ello... de mí, al poco tiempo.\n\nEmily le dio un nuevo ósculo mientras intentaba hacer desaparecer las arrugas de preocupación de su rostro.\n\n—Yo te quería y me hubiera dado igual que me llevaras a Nueva York, a París o a «este pueblo que está perdido de la mano de Dios».\n\nEl recuerdo de cómo llamaba Emily al pueblo de sus abuelos, donde se encontraban en esos momentos, les hizo reír.\n\n—¿Y ahora? —interrogó.\n\nElla dudó por la pregunta.\n\n—¿Y ahora qué?\n\nSaúl le robó un nuevo beso y la miró a los ojos.\n\n—¿Me quieres? —susurró.\n\nEmily fijó su vista en los ojos azules, aquellos en los que se podía observar, si prestabas un poco de atención, todos los sentimientos que bullían en el interior de su dueño y lo que vio en ese momento le llevó a tomar una decisión.\n\n—Sí —afirmó.\n\nAnte esa contestación, Saúl se quedó inmóvil, no supo cómo reaccionar.\n\n—¿Saúl? ¿Estás bien? —se preocupó.\n\nÉl asintió con la cabeza.\n\n—¿Me has escuchado? —insistió—. Te he dicho que sí. Te quiero.\n\nSaúl sintió la garganta seca, tragó como pudo y la miró.\n\n—Emily, no sabes el tiempo que he esperado escuchar esas palabras.\n\n—¿Y ahora? —le conminó.\n\nSe apartó unos pocos pasos de ella y le dio la espalda.\n\n—Tengo miedo.\n\nEmily fue detrás de él y atrapó su mano para retenerle.\n\n—¿A qué?\n\nSaúl expulsó el aire que retenía.\n\n—A defraudarte. A no ser suficiente para ti. A...\n\nPero no pudo continuar. Emily le dio un beso silenciando su discurso, evitando que los nervios le traicionaran y dijera algo de lo que pudiera arrepentirse después.\n\n—Shsh... —siseó y volvió a besarle—. Tú solo hazme feliz —le anunció.\n\nEn los ojos azules brillaron estrellas, atrapó el rostro de su amada y le prometió:\n\n—Siempre, siempre. —Depositó pequeños besos a lo largo de su rostro—. Siempre.\n\nEm comenzó a reírse.\n\n—Pues si quieres cumplir tu promesa...\n\n—Dime —exigió con apremio.\n\n—Hazme el amor —", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 408}
{"section": "", "text": "último que vio, cuando abandonaron el bar, fue a Santiago y a Eve muy acaramelados.\n\nSe acercó a Saúl y le dio un beso.\n\n—Y ahora, ¿qué? —le preguntó mirándole a los ojos.\n\nÉl la agarró de la cadera y la acercó más a su cuerpo dejando en constancia lo que pensaba su entrepierna de lo que podían hacer en ese momento.\n\n—¿A qué te refieres? —le instó.\n\nEmily se rió con tontuna —sí, estaba enamorada—. Le dio un nuevo ósculo y le acarició la mejilla donde la barba comenzaba a nacer.\n\n—Tú... en Barcelona, yo... —Por unos segundos dudó de que hubiera malinterpretado la declaración de la pasada noche.\n\nSaúl atrapó su rostro y la miró a los ojos. Le dio un pícaro beso en la punta de la nariz y le ofreció una sonrisa seductora.\n\n—Em, después de tanto tiempo... —Un nuevo beso—. Que hemos tardado en reencontrarnos, no pienso dejarte escapar.\n\n—Sí, pero... —No llegó a dar su opinión. Saúl le dio otro ósculo acallando sus protestas.\n\n—Ya veremos cómo hacerlo —le explicó—. Yo puedo trasladarme a Madrid o tú puedes... —La cara de Emily le indicó que no le gustaba lo que iba a decir, por lo que decidió callar—. Yo puedo trasladarme a Madrid —sentenció.\n\nLa sonrisa de agradecimiento que le regaló fue suficiente para Saúl, para comprender que no podría alejarla de sus amigos, de su familia... de _Sweet_.\n\nEm se aupó y le robó un nuevo beso, atrapando su labio inferior para a continuación saborear el superior.\n\nSaúl gimió, agarró su trasero y la pegó a sus caderas.\n\n—Si sigues por ese camino no llegaremos a la boda —susurró.\n\nFue como un jarro de agua fría.\n\n—¡La boda! —Se despidió de él con prisas, sin apenas darle tiempo a decirle adiós, y desapareció por la puerta.\n\nLa risa masculina la acompañó hasta que llegó a la calle.\n\nEchó a correr, intentando llegar lo antes posible a su casa y rezando para que Eve no se hubiera levantado todavía de la cama.\n\nSe iba a celebrar la boda de su hermana, de Eve, y aunque todavía no se lo creía, estaba contenta porque la veía feliz junto a Santiago. Pero lo que menos podía creer es que Saúl y ella volvieran a estar juntos... Saúl...\n\nEntró en la casa, llamando a su hermana y a Oliver a gritos, pero no recibió respuesta alguna, y en su rostro asomó la diversión.\n\nNo había nadie.\n\nOliver seguiría en casa de sus amigos, con los que había pasado la noche, y su hermana...\n\n—Eve, Eve... —Se tiró sobre el sofá cansada, tras la carrera—. Eso de que la novia no debe pasar la noche de antes de la boda con el novio... creo que... no va contigo. —Se rió.\n\nObservó lo que le rodeaba con nuevos ojos y un conejito rosa, apoyado en la estantería, le llamó la atención.\n\n—Creo que tú y yo nos vamos a ver mucho a partir de ahora —le dijo al peluche regalándole una sonrisa soñadora.\n\nFIN\n\n# Agradecimientos\n\nEstoy rodeada de gente maravillosa, personas que me animan cada día a que escriba, a que deje volar mi imaginación y", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 409}
{"section": "", "text": "is at this point that Kant performs his final escape act, namely the justification of the crucial principles of Substance and Cause, which he derives from the \"I think\" that, as we have seen, was the starting point of the whole contraption.\n\n#### _Afterword on reciprocal action_\n\nGiven that we discussed the \"I think,\" Substance, and Cause at length in the previous chapter, I would like to close the rundown of our camera's features with a word about the curious principle of Reciprocal Action. Kant takes it that in order to be able to look at our desk, we need what Einstein spent the whole of the second part of his life looking for in vain, namely a Theory of Everything. This would bring out not just causal relations but also the states of equilibrium in which action and reaction are equal and opposite, as in houses of cards, tables set for dinner, or bikes propped up against the wall.\n\nIt would be hard to find an instance of the confusion between ontology and epistemology spelled out so heroically. It is right to remember that the principle that Kant is appealing to is Newton's third law of motion, that to each action there corresponds an equal and opposite reaction. This may also be expressed as the principle that the reciprocal action between two bodies is always equal. But as we experience the world, it is easy to think that the absence of such a relation of dependence is the rule rather than the exception. Does it seem as if the pencil is interacting with the table? And if you say that it does, are you sure that you are not exaggerating, that you are really describing your experience?\n\n## 10\n\n## From phenomena to screwdrivers\n\n### The deduction as naturalization\n\nThe challenge to describe experience as accurately as possible suggests a final theme. We have reviewed the two epistemological theses and the five ontological ones and set out both the statics and the dynamics of the transcendental logic. It is now time to look at Kant's manner of proceeding and, in particular, at the invention of which he was proudest, namely the Transcendental Deduction. And we should bear in mind that where he uses the contemporary juridical term \"deduction\" to refer to the justification of a claim's legitimacy, what he is up to corresponds to what modern philosophical jargon would call \"naturalization,\" by which is meant the articulation of cultural undertakings in terms of the natural resources they call on.\n\nFrom another point of view, one might ask why Kant had to appeal to physics, which set in motion the clumsy mechanism of the deduction. But we already know the answer: because physics presented the only response then available to the skeptical consequence of empiricism. If he had had, for instance, Darwinian theory at his disposal, then it would have been enough to say that we are as we are because we evolved in a world that is as it is. Though a response of this sort might seem Panglossian in implicitly supposing that our world is the best of all possible, there would have been no need for a transcendental deduction; some reference to motor skills and bodily schemes as results of natural selection would have done the trick. Such schemes are hardly strong epistemology insofar as we share them with other animals, but they would have supplied a low-level account of our responses to stimuli from the external world in place of the dressed-up parade of constructive principles. And they would have left open the possibility of a background realism in place of a transcendentalism: the world has and imposes its laws, and living creatures adapt to them if and when they can.\n\nBut this was not obvious to Kant. Nevertheless, over time, his outlook became ever more sophisticated. In the _Critique of Pure Reason_ , we are faced with a strong deduction or naturalization in which the conceptual schemes and our perceptual apparatus make possible both scientific knowledge and natural experience. They do so by determining the _form_ of the objects we encounter, which are, therefore, phenomena (things for us) and not things in themselves. In the two later _Critiques_ , this setup undergoes a transformation, as we may briefly see.\n\n### The _Critique of Practical Reason_\n\nIn the _Critique of Practical Reason_ , Kant makes a much weaker-sounding claim, which effectively sets the problem of the deduction aside. Putting faith rather than knowledge at center stage, Kant outlines a world in which the intellect not only does not lay down the law to", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 410}
{"section": "", "text": "inong, _On the Theory of Objects_ (1904), trans. I. Levi, D. B. Terrell, and R. M. Chisholm, in R. M. Chisholm (ed.), _Realism and the Background of Phenomenology_ (New York: The Free Press, 1960).\n\n. J. R. Searle, _The Construction of Social Reality_ (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1995), p. 3.\n\n. G. Frege, \"Thoughts\" (1918), trans. P.T. Geach and R. H. Stoothof, in Frege, _Logical Investigations_ (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1977), pp. 1–30.\n\n. G. Berkeley, _Principles_ , cit. The argument is very subtle and can easily lead to skeptical outcomes, as can be seen in the very first lines of Giovanni Gentile's _Teoria generale dello spirito come atto puro_ (1916), in G. Gentile, _Opere filosofiche,_ ed. E. Garin (Milan: Garzanti, 1991), p. 459: \"From the beginning of the eighteenth century, with the doctrine of George Berkeley, the following idea comes to the fore: that reality cannot be thought except in relation to the activity of thinking, on which grounds it is thinkable, and in relation to which it is not just a possible object, but the real or actual object of knowledge. The mode of conceiving of a reality is in the first instance the mind in which this reality is represented; therefore the concept of material reality is absurd.\"\n\n. B 274–5.\n\n. A 190ff./B 236ff.\n\n. This line of thought was already proposed as part of his anti-empiricist polemic by Thomas Reid in _Inquiry into the Human Mind_ (1764), cit.\n\n. The splendid thing is that Kant discusses the case, along with the question of the incongruent opposites, in the _Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science_ , cit., but without seeming to see the problematic consequences of either for his own theory.\n\n. I. Kant, _Critique of Practical Reason_ , cit., I, I, I, §7, trans. cit., pp. 120–1.\n\n. This seems to be the presupposition of Steven Spielberg's _Minority Report_ (2002). And from it we can draw some embarrassing consequences, such as Kant's firm support for the death penalty on the grounds roughly that, if one is innocent, it is not so bad (because one is at peace with one's conscience), whereas it is absolutely just for the guilty (who, being wicked, will give more weight to life than to honor); see _The Metaphysic of Morals_ , trans. M. J. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), \"Doctrine of Right,\" 49 E. It is worth citing what Kant says at length:\n\nSupposing that—to take the case of the latest Scottish rebellion, in which many (such as _Balmerino_ and others) believed themselves, by taking part in it, to be doing their duty towards the House of _Stuart_ , while others acted only out of personal considerations—the House of Lords had decided that each should have the freedom to choose between death and forced labour; I say that the man of honour would prefer death, while the low man would choose forced labour, because this is how the nature of the human spirit behaves. And this is because the former is acquainted with something that he esteems and appreciates more even that life itself, namely _honour_ , while the latter will always regard life, even full of shame, as preferable to not being alive at all [...] Now, the former man is incontestably less deserving of punishment than the latter, so that, by inflicting death equally on both, they are not punished at all proportionately, the former lightly, according to his lights, and the latter, also according to his way of thinking, harshly. If, conversely, both were sentenced to forced labour, the former would be punished too severely and the latter too softly for his lowness. _Death_ , therefore, is also in this case, where many criminals are", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 411}
{"section": "", "text": "principles of pure intellect, ,\n\npsychology, , , –, , , , , , –, , , , 116n20\n\nPutnam, H., 128n3\n\nPuttrich, L.,\n\nQuine, W.V.O., , 116n22\n\nrationalism, –, –, –, –, , , , 109n24, 125n11\n\nReagan, R.,\n\nrealism, empirical, , , , , , , , , –,\n\nreciprocal action, , , –, 126n21\n\nReid, T., 109n28, 118n18, 123n10, 128n14\n\nReinach, A., 127n4\n\nrelativism, ,\n\nRembrandt, 118n19\n\nrepresentation, , , , , , –, , –, , 121n19, 124n1\n\nRiconda, G., 107n1\n\nRobespierre, M., 111n2\n\nRorty, R., 127n2\n\nRossi, P., 108n7\n\nRubens, P.P., 118n19\n\nRussell, B., 114n32, 117n7\n\nSacco, R., 107n2\n\nSavardi, U., 118n15\n\nScheler, M.F., 129n18\n\nSchiller, F.,\n\nSchopenhauer, A., , , 115n5, 123n11, 128n6\n\nscience (contrasted with experience), , , , –, , –, –, , , –, 124n\n\nScribano, E., 115n4\n\nSearle, J.R., , 118n17, 118n19, 128n9\n\nself, , , , , –, , , 122n9\n\nskepticism, , , ,\n\nSmith, B., 114n35\n\nsocial objects, ,\n\nspace, , , , , , –, , –, , –, –, –, , , , , –, –1n10, 114n37, 116n20, 121n3, 122n6, 126n28\n\nSpelke, E.S., 119n9\n\nSpielberg, S, 128n17\n\nStattler, B., 107n 4\n\nStrawson, P.F., –, , , , , 110n3, 114n41, 116n20, 121n2, 124n18, 125n7, 125n14\n\nSuárez, F., , ,  111n9\n\nsubject (of experience), , , , , , , , , –, , , , , , , –,\n\nsubjectivity, , , , , , , , 118n19\n\nsubstance, , , , , –, , , , , , , , , –, –, , –, –, 111n12, 114n49, 117n13, 121n19, 124n15\n\nSuperman,\n\nSwedenborg, E.,\n\nsynthetic _a priori_ , , –, 126n21\n\nTaddio, L., 333 _n_ 40\n\nTalleyrand (C.M. de Talleyrand-Périgord),\n\nteleology, , , , 127n6\n\nTetens, J.N., , 115n2\n\nthalers (100), , –, , , 111n10\n\nthing in itself (noumenon), –, , , , ,\n\n\"thoughts without content are empty,\" ,\n\ntime, , , , , –, –, , –, , , –, , –, , –, , , , 110n10, 112n16,", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 412}
{"section": "", "text": "no matter what happens, don't make that deal. Shane wouldn't want it, and you'd live to regret it. You'd live a long time, and you'd hate every horrible second of it.'\" Hess shook his head and took a deep breath. \"Right. That's the end of the line for you tonight. You're going home, I'm seeing you safe inside, and I'm going home to hide in a closet until this blows over. I suggest you do the same.'\"\n\n\"But Shane—'\"\n\n\"Shane's dead,'\" Hess said, so quietly and matter-of factly that she thought he meant it, that somehow someone had slipped in and killed him and she hadn't even known...but then he went on. \"You can't save him. Nobody can save him now. Just let go and watch yourself, Claire. That's all you can do. You've pissed off both Amelie and Oliver in one night. Enough already. A little common sense would be welcome from you right about now.'\"\n\nShe sat in dull, grim silence the rest of the way home.\n\nHess was as good as his word. He walked her from the car up the steps, watched her open the front door, and nodded wearily as she stepped inside. \"Lock it,'\" he said. \"And for God's sake, go get some rest.'\"\n\nMichael was right there, warm and comforting, when she closed the door. He was holding his guitar by the neck, so he'd clearly been playing; his eyes were red-rimmed, his face tense. \"Well?'\" he asked.\n\n\"Hello, Claire, how are you?'\" Claire asked the air. \"No death threats, right? Thanks for going out in the dark to bargain with two of the scariest people on earth.'\"\n\nHe at least had the good manners to look embarrassed about it. \"Sorry. You okay?'\"\n\n\"Duh. No fang marks, anyway.'\" She shuddered. \"I do not like those people.'\"\n\n\"Vampires?'\"\n\n\"Vampires.'\"\n\n\"Technically, not people, but then, neither am I, now that I think about it. So never mind.'\" Michael put an arm around her and steered her toward the living room, where he sat her down, put a blanket around her shoulders. \"I'm guessing it didn't go well.'\"\n\n\"It didn't go at all,'\" she said. She'd been depressed on the ride home, but having to actually report on her failure was a whole new level of suck. \"They're not letting him go.'\"\n\nMichael didn't say anything, but the light died in his eyes. He went down on one knee next to her and fussed with the blanket, tucking it tighter around her. \"Claire. Are you okay? You're shaking.'\"\n\n\"They're cold, you know,'\" she said. \"They make me cold, too.'\"\n\nHe nodded slowly. \"You did what you could. Rest.'\"\n\n\"What about Eve? Is she still here?'\"\n\nHe glanced up at the ceiling, as if he could see through it. Maybe he could. Claire really didn't know what Michael could and couldn't do; after all, he'd been dead a couple of times already. Wouldn't do to underestimate somebody like that. \"She's asleep,'\" he said. \"I—talked to her. She understands. She won't do anything stupid.'\" He didn't look at Claire when he said that, and she wondered what kind of talking that might have been.\n\nHer mother had always said, when in doubt, ask. \"Was it the kind of talk where you gave her something to live for? Like maybe, um, you?'\"\n\n\"Did I—what the hell are you talking about?'\"\n\n\"I just thought maybe you and her—'\"\n\n\"Claire, Jesus!'\" Michael said. She'd actually made him flinch. Wow. That was new. \"You think banging me is going to make her forget about charging out to commit cold-blooded vampire slaying? I don't know what kind of standards you have on sex, but those are pretty high. Besides, whatever's between me and Eve—well, it's between me and Eve.'\" Until she tells me about it later, Claire thought. \"Anyway, that's not what I meant. I—persuaded her. That's all.'\"\n\nPersuaded. Right. The mood Eve had been", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 413}
{"section": "", "text": "She pretended to be worse off than she really was (although truthfully, she was pretty bad) and, mumbling, let her eyes drift half-closed.\n\n\"That's it,'\" the coffee bar jerk said. \"She's out. Get her on the bed.'\"\n\nShe'd never really done this before, but she was imagining hard how Eve would have handled it. She let the bat kind of wobble and fall to rest in her lap, aligned with her leg, as if it had gotten too heavy to hold up. (Not quite. Just nearly.)\n\nAnd when Ian walked up to grab her, she brought the bat straight up with as much force as she could manage. It smacked him right where it would hurt the most, and Ian crumpled with a high-pitched, breathless scream, huddled in on himself.\n\nClaire forced her legs to hold her, and slid back up to a standing position. She was leaning for support, and lucky to be in a corner, where the two angled walls let her look like she wasn't about to topple over. Her arms were shaking, and the guys would have seen that if she'd tried to raise the bat, so she tapped it casually against her leg. \"Who wants some?'\" she asked. \"I won't hurt you. Much.'\"\n\nIt was all show, and they only had to wait. Coffee Bar Jerk knew that, all too well, and she could feel the drug—what the hell was it?—stealing away her concentration, her strength, making her slow and stupid and all-too-easy prey.\n\nShane, she thought, and forced herself to stand upright just a little longer. Shane needs me. I'm not letting this happen.\n\n\"You're bluffing,'\" Coffee Bar Jerk said, and came around the bed. Claire took a swing at him, missed, and smacked the bat into the wood so hard it rattled her teeth.\n\nHe grabbed the bat on the backswing and easily twisted it out of her grip. He tossed it to one of the other two guys, who caught it one-handed. \"That,'\" he said, \"was really stupid. This could have been real nice and easy, you know that, right?'\"\n\n\"I have Amelie's Protection,'\" Claire said.\n\nHe grabbed her by the throat of her sheer black skull-printed shirt, and dragged her forward. Her legs folded when she tried to pull away.\n\n\"I don't care,'\" he said. \"I'm not from this stupid town. None of us are. Monica said that was the way to go, to get around the dumbass rules, whatever they are. Whoever Amelie is, she can kiss my ass. After you're done doing it.'\"\n\nThe door to the hall gave a dry, metallic pop, and swung slowly open. Claire blinked and tried to focus her eyes, because there was someone standing there. No, two someones. One had red hair. Wasn't there something about red hair...? Oh yeah. Sam had red hair. Sam the vampire. Sam I Am. Michael's grandpa, wasn't that just too weird?\n\nThe door no longer had a knob on the outside. The one on the inside fell out with a dull thud to the carpet and rolled under the bed.\n\n\"Claire!'\" Oh, that was Eve. \"Oh my God...'\"\n\n\"Excuse me,'\" Sam said, \"but what did you say about Amelie?'\"\n\nCoffee Bar Jerk let go of Claire's top, and she slid back down the wall. She fumbled around for something to use for a weapon, but all she came up with was another set of filthy socks that had missed the laundry. For some reason, that seemed funny. She giggled and rested her head against the wall to let her neck relax. Her neck was working too hard.\n\n\"I said that Amelie can kiss my ass, Red. And what are you going to do about it? Stare me to death?'\"\n\nSam just stood there. Claire couldn't see anything about him change, but it was like the room just went...cold. \"You really don't want to do this,'\" Sam said. \"Eve, go get your friend.'\"\n\n\"Yeah, Eve, come on in, we've got a nice big bed!'\" Ian giggled. \"I hear you know how to have a real good time.'\" He tossed the bloody sock he'd been pressing to his nose down on the floor and got ready to grab Eve if", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 414}
{"section": "", "text": "Um, he said the town was sending help...?'\"\n\n\"Richard Morrell,'\" Michael said. \"Monica's cop brother. And he's bringing Hess and Lowe with him.'\"\n\n\"That's it?'\" Claire squeaked. Because there were a lot of bikers. Like, a lot. Not to mention Shane's dad, who frankly scared her worse than most of the vampires just because he didn't seem to have any rules.\n\nFunny, the vampires seemed to be all about rules. Who knew?\n\n\"I'm going to want you both to stay here,'\" Michael said.\n\n\"No,'\" Eve said flatly. Claire echoed it.\n\n\"Seriously, you need to stay. This is going to get dangerous.'\"\n\n\"Dangerous? Dude, they killed kids. On campus!'\" Eve shot back. \"We were there! Don't you get it? We're not safe here, and maybe we can help you. At the very least, we can grab Monica and hustle her skanky ass back to her dad while all you brave, strong menfolk hold off the bad guys. Right?'\"\n\n\"Not Claire, then.'\"\n\n\"Claire,'\" Claire said, \"decides for herself. In case you forgot.'\"\n\n\"Claire doesn't decide when it's something like this, because Claire is sixteen and Michael doesn't want to be explaining her tragic accidental death to her parents. So, no.'\"\n\n\"What're you going to do?'\" Eve asked, and cocked her head to one side. \"Lock her in her room?'\"\n\nHe looked from one of them to the other, his frown deepening. \"Oh, crap. What is this, Girl Solidarity?'\"\n\n\"Bet your ass,'\" Eve said. \"Somebody's got to keep you in line.'\" Her smile faded, because that was true now, not just a funny idea. Michael cleared his throat.\n\n\"Did you hear that?'\"\n\n\"What?'\"\n\n\"A car. Brakes. Outside.'\"\n\n\"Great,'\" Eve said. \"Vampire hearing, too. I'm never going to be able to keep a secret around here. Bad enough when you were a ghost...'\" She was doing a good job of looking like she wasn't freaked-out, but Claire thought she was. So did Michael, apparently, because he reached out and touched her cheek—just one small gesture, but it said a lot.\n\n\"Stay here,'\" he said.\n\nHe should have known they wouldn't—not completely, anyway. Claire and Eve followed him partway down the hall, enough to watch him unlock the front door and swing it open.\n\nRichard Morrell stood on the doorstep in his police uniform. Next to him were Detectives Hess and Lowe, both looking even more exhausted than normal.\n\n\"Michael,'\" Richard said, and nodded to him.\n\nHe tried to move across the threshold, and was stopped cold. Hess and Lowe exchanged a curious look and tried to come across, as well. Nothing.\n\n\"Come in,'\" Michael said, and stepped back. This time, all three men could enter.\n\nRichard was looking at Michael closely. \"You're kidding,'\" he said. \"You've got to be kidding. All this time, and she picks you?'\"\n\nHess and Lowe exchanged looks, a second behind the curve, and both appeared startled.\n\n\"Yeah,'\" Michael said. \"What about it?'\"\n\nRichard smiled, all teeth. \"Nothing, man. Congratulations, and all that. You're going to be the talk of the town. Get used to it.'\"\n\nMichael shut the door behind them. \"Whatever. How much time do we have to get to Shane?'\"\n\n\"Not much,'\" Hess said. \"And the thing is, we don't have anyplace to start. No leads.'\"\n\n\"Well, we've got one. We know the van went through the Underground,'\" Richard said. \"We've got an eyewitness. Right?'\" He looked straight at Claire, who nodded. \"We pulled all the surveillance tapes, and we tracked the van in and out of the Underground half a dozen times, but it finally disappeared. Problem is, one white van looks a lot like other white vans, especially on Night Sight surveillance cameras.'\"\n\n\"We know that Shane's dad had maps of Morganville. Shane provided them.", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 415}
{"section": "", "text": "read them, frowning, trying to understand what they meant, and some of the language leaped out at her.\n\nI, Claire Elizabeth Danvers, swear my life, my blood, and my service to the Founder, now and for my lifetime, that the Founder may command me in all things.\n\nIt was the same thing Oliver had said, back at the hospital, when he'd been trying to make her...\n\n...make her his slave.\n\nClaire dropped the paper like it had caught on fire. No, she couldn't do that. She couldn't.\n\nOr your friends will pay the price.\n\nClaire swallowed, stuffed the contract back into the envelope, and shoved it in her pocket just as Eve came around the corner and said, \"Roses! Jeez, who died?'\"\n\n\"Nobody,'\" Claire said hoarsely. \"They're for you. From Michael.'\"\n\nMichael looked surprised, but his back was to Eve, and if he had any sense at all, he'd play along.\n\nClaire went upstairs to take a shower.\n\nBeing clean made it better. Not a whole lot better, but some. She sat for a while, staring at the white envelope with her name on it, wishing she could talk to Shane about it, or Eve, or Michael, but not daring to do any of that because this was her choice. Not theirs. And she knew what they'd say, anyway.\n\nNot enough no in the world, that's what they'd say.\n\nIt was after dark when Shane finally knocked on her door. She opened it and stood there looking at him. Just looking, because somehow she didn't think she'd ever see enough of him. He looked tired, and rumpled, and sleep creased.\n\nAnd he was so beautiful she felt her heart break into a million little sharp-edged pieces.\n\nHe shifted uncertainly. \"Can I come in? Or do you just want me to—?'\" He pointed back down the hall. She stepped back and let him inside, then shut the door behind him. \"I freaked about Michael.'\"\n\n\"Yeah, you think?'\"\n\n\"Why didn't you tell me?'\"\n\n\"Well, it didn't exactly seem like the right time,'\" she said tiredly, and sat down on the bed, back to the head-board. \"Come on, Shane. We were running for our lives.'\"\n\nHe granted that argument with a shrug. \"How did this happen?'\"\n\n\"You mean, who? Amelie. She was here, and Michael asked.'\" Claire looked at him for a long second before she added the coup de graĉe. \"He asked because he wanted to be able to leave the house.'\"\n\nShane looked stricken. He lowered himself down on the corner of the bed, staring at her with those wounded, vulnerable eyes. The ones that made her heart break all over again. \"No,'\" he said. \"Not because of me. Tell me it wasn't—'\"\n\n\"He said it wasn't. Not, you know, completely, anyway. He had to do this, Shane. He couldn't live like this, not forever.'\"\n\nShane looked away. \"Christ. I mean, he knows how I feel about vampires. Now I'm living with one. Now I'm best friends with one. That's not good.'\"\n\n\"Doesn't have to be bad, either,'\" she said. \"Shane—don't be angry, okay? He did what he thought he had to do.'\"\n\n\"Don't we all?'\" He flopped back on the bed, hands under his head. Staring up at the ceiling. \"Long day.'\"\n\n\"Yeah.'\"\n\n\"So,'\" he said. \"You got plans for tonight? Because suddenly I'm free.'\"\n\nHe made her laugh, even though she thought she didn't have any of that left. Shane rolled up on one elbow, and the gentleness in the way he smiled at her made her breath catch in her throat.\n\nHe reached out and tugged at her hair, smiling. \"You're all wild today,'\" he said. \"Hero.'\"\n\n\"Me? No way.'\"\n\n\"Yeah, you. You saved lives, Claire. Granted, some people I'd just as soon see gone, but...still. I think you even saved my dad. If he'd blown up that building, killed all those people...he couldn't have walked away from it. I couldn't have let him.'\" They", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 416}
{"section": "", "text": "'s the plan, hero? Want to watch a movie?'\"\n\nShe felt odd. Crazy and strange and full of uncertainty. \"No.'\"\n\n\"Kill some video zombies?'\"\n\n\"No.'\"\n\n\"If we get down to canasta, I'm jumping...off...the...what are you doing?'\"\n\nShe stretched out across the bed on her side, facing him. \"Nothing. What do you want to do?'\"\n\n\"Oh, let's not go there.'\"\n\n\"Why not?'\"\n\n\"Don't you have school tomorrow?'\"\n\nShe kissed him. It wasn't an innocent kiss—anything but. She felt like those roses downstairs, dark and red and full of passion, and it was new to her, so new, but she couldn't stop the feeling that she had to do this, now, because she'd almost lost him, and—\n\nShane leaned his forehead against hers and broke the kiss with a gasp, like a drowning man. \"Hang on,'\" he said. \"Slow down. I'm not going anywhere. You know that, right? You don't have to put out to keep me here. Well, as long as you eventually—'\"\n\n\"Shut up.'\"\n\nHe did, mainly by pressing his lips back to hers. A slower kiss this time, warm and then hot. She thought she'd never get enough of the taste of him; it just jolted through her like raw current and lit her up inside. Lit her up in ways she knew weren't good, or at least weren't completely legal.\n\n\"Want to play baseball?'\" she asked. Shane's eyes opened, and he stopped stroking her hair.\n\n\"What?'\"\n\n\"First base,'\" she said. \"You're already there.'\"\n\n\"I'm not running the bases.'\"\n\n\"Well, you could at least steal second.'\"\n\n\"Jeez, Claire. I used to distract myself with sports stats at times like these, but now you've gone and ruined it.'\" Another damp, hot kiss, and his hands trailed down her neck, featherlight. Over her shoulders, brushing skin her thin jersey nightshirt left bare. Down...\n\n\"Dammit.'\" He rolled over on his back, breathing hard, staring at the ceiling again.\n\n\"What?'\" she asked. \"Shane?'\"\n\n\"You could have died,'\" he said. \"You're sixteen, Claire.'\"\n\n\"Nearly seventeen.'\" She moved up against his side, cuddling close.\n\n\"Yeah, that makes it all better. Look—'\"\n\n\"You want to wait?'\"\n\n\"Yeah,'\" he said. \"Well, obviously, not my first choice, but I'm all about second thoughts right now. But the thing is...I don't want to leave you.'\" His arm was around her, and there was nothing in the world to her but the warmth of his body against her, and his whisper, and the utterly vulnerable need in his eyes. \"But it's not going to be easy for me to say no. So help me out here.'\"\n\nHer heart was pounding. \"You want to stay?'\"\n\n\"Yes. I—'\" He opened his mouth, then closed it, then tried again. \"I need to stay. I need you.'\"\n\nShe kissed him, very gently. \"Then stay.'\"\n\n\"Okay, but so far as baseball goes, second base is as far as I go.'\"\n\n\"You're sure about that?'\"\n\n\"I swear.'\"\n\nAnd somehow, he kept his word, no matter how hard she tried to convince him.\n\nShane was still asleep, curled in a heap among the pillows, snoring lightly. She'd gotten his shirt off at some point, and Claire lay in the soft glow of the rising sun, watching the light gleaming on the strong muscles of his back. She wanted to touch him...but she didn't want him to wake up. He needed to sleep, and she had something she had to do.\n\nSomething he wasn't going to like.\n\nClaire eased out of bed, moving very carefully, and found her blue jeans crumpled on the floor. The envelope was still in the back pocket. She opened it and slipped out the stiff, formal paper, unfolded it, and read the note again.\n\nShe put the contract on the desk, looked at Shane, and thought about the risk of losing him. Of Eve and Michael, too.\n\nI, Claire Elizabeth Danvers, swear my life, my", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 417}
{"section": "", "text": "was a good conversationalist, a good listener. I've never told anyone so much about myself on the first date. And the crazy part is that I was so interested in him that I forgot to care about the contest. I just wanted to get to know him better. So when he turned out to be the guy, I felt even worse.\"\n\n\"We don't know anything, though, do we? Maybe Miguel was the guy, maybe that letter is another misleading detail, to protect the real millionaire. Maybe there's no money at all. Maybe the whole thing was a scam.\"\n\n\"I wasn't scammed—I'm sure of it. I absolutely didn't release any private information.\"\n\n\"Okay, then a fake. For God-knows-what reason. Maybe he gets off on jerking women around like this.\"\n\n\"Could be,\" Suze said. \"But did you see my earrings?\" She was wearing the diamond daggers now, and she'd gotten used to the sparkle. It was time she left Craig behind. \"If it's a scam, it's a pretty elaborate, expensive one. I just didn't win. It happens. It wasn't a complete waste of time. I needed to...I needed to let go a little, you know?\"\n\nMeredith raised her wineglass to Suze's. \"Let's toast to that,\" she said. \"I'm glad you said it, not me.\"\n\nThe next morning Suze was in a meeting, listening to two men pitch their nonprofit: the California Schoolroom. It was an idea she liked—an online clearinghouse where charter schools could pool and redistribute resources—but she knew the executives at Redfield Partners would never go for it. Every time Suze had tried to get them to invest in educational ventures, they'd said no. Still, she was interested enough to hear the pitch.\n\nIn the middle of the meeting Meredith came rushing up to the door of her office, then stopped short when she realized that the visitors' chairs were occupied. Meredith retreated, but not before Suze noticed what she was holding: another yellow mailing envelope. For the rest of the pitch Suze tried to push aside fantasies of what that envelope might hold. Sure, that generic envelope could be anything from anyone, but from Meredith's expression Suze guessed—no, she _knew_ —that it was from the contest. But she'd already been rejected. What was left to say? Impatient, Suze broke the news to the California Schoolroom guys as gently as she could.\n\n\"I'm not saying you don't have a viable product here,\" she said. \"Personally, I love the idea. But I'll never be able to sell the partners on it. They want to wait until we hit our fund-raising target for this year before taking on any nonprofits.\" Suze ushered them out of the office, then headed straight to Meredith's cubicle.\n\n\"Where is it? What is it?\" she asked.\n\n\"Open it!\" Meredith flung the envelope into Suze's hands.\n\nSomehow, by the time they crossed the hall to Suze's office, Kevin, Emily, and Jeff had joined them.\n\n\"What's it say? What's it say?\" they all clamored.\n\nSuze sat down and took out her letter opener.\n\n\"Oh, my God, you're so slow it's killing me,\" Meredith said.\n\nSuze paused. \"Okay, people. I appreciate your enthusiasm. But please realize that this is the second letter I've received. The first already informed me that I lost. This is probably another legal document, a coupon for a massage, or some other buy-off. Don't get your hopes up.\"\n\n\"Right,\" Meredith teased. \"I saw how quickly you ended that meeting. But I'll be super careful not to get _my_ hopes up.\"\n\n\"I'm not sure what I'm supposed to hope for,\" said Jeff.\n\n\"Ten million dollars!\" said Emily.\n\n\"She already lost,\" Kevin, Meredith, and Jeff all said at the same time.\n\nSuze smiled. \"Glad we got that straightened out.\" She opened the envelope and pulled out a letter. There was a check attached to it, made out to her, in the amount of $250,000.\n\n\"Oh, my God, what? What is it? Did you win?\" Meredith was hyperventilating.\n\n", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 418}
{"section": "", "text": "\"Excuse me, Caroline? Are you ready?\" Alicia had silently entered and was standing over her. Caroline fumbled to shut off the phone. Alicia led Caroline past the elevator bank, where Janey stood, tucking an envelope into her bag. Letting Alicia get a bit ahead, Caroline slowed down to whisper to Janey.\n\n\"Did you meet him?\"\n\nJaney nodded. \"Ye—\"\n\nBefore she could say more, Alicia gestured Caroline forward urgently. Janey whispered a quick \"Good luck.\" Caroline hurried away, down the hall after Alicia. This was it. She was going to meet the mystery man at last.\nChapter 30\n\nIt was not Nicholas. The rejection letter had been signed by Nicholas, but the man who stood up to shake her hand introduced himself as Tom Greenfield. He smiled nicely. That was what Caroline noticed first. He looked embarrassed and eager at the same time. He gestured for her to have a seat on the pale linen sofa. It was hard to take it all in. There was Tom, lean and handsome, with green eyes and a slant of dark hair, and the office, with its neutral tones and dramatic art, and the intrigue of the great Greenfield enterprises.\n\n\"Hi, Tom,\" she said, laughing and shaking her head. \"I have a lot of questions for you.\"\n\nHe grinned sheepishly. \"I'm sure you do. Fire away.\"\n\n_Tom,_ she was thinking. _This is the man I've been wondering about, and his name is Tom. He is still a total stranger, but now he has a name. Will it come to be familiar to me, so familiar that it seems there's always been Tom?_\n\n\"Are you definitely you? The mystery man? I mean, I got a letter from Nicholas, and there have been so many interviews that I just need to know—\"\n\n\"You've reached the end of the line,\" Tom said. He smiled again, and Caroline's heart dipped a bit. \"I'm it. I'm sorry for that letter. Those were my words, but I used Nicholas's name on your letter—and different names on the other letters—because I was counseled to keep my name out of all the correspondence. I know it sounds ridiculous. I mean, it _is_ ridiculous! But as you might imagine, I have my own share of doubts about this process. Thank you for enduring all of it, for being here.\"\n\nCaroline looked around. \"I feel like I'm still being interviewed. See my perfect posture?\"\n\n\"You're right. I'm an idiot. No, actually, I had to meet another candidate—\"\n\n\"Janey,\" Caroline said.\n\n\"That's right, you two have met. I'm sorry about that, too. It must have been awkward,\" he said.\n\n\"It's okay, actually. We kind of became friends. At least I like your taste.\"\n\n\"But I did think—if it's okay with you—we could get out of here.\" He pointed out the window, which had an expansive view of the beach. \"It's better over there.\"\n\nCaroline smiled. Rich though he might be, he wasn't arrogant.\nChapter 31\n\nVenice Beach was wide, a long trudge through sand from the footpath to the edge of the ocean. They were quiet as they walked, and Caroline wondered if they would find their footing once they literally found their footing. Close to the water they came to a vacant lifeguard station. It was picturesque; a rough wooden ramp led up to a platform, in the middle of which stood a tall lifeguard chair. Without needing to discuss it, they headed up the ramp, its surface a relief from the drag of the beach.\n\n\"Is this okay? I didn't plan this part,\" Tom said.\n\n\"Good,\" said Caroline. \"Not planning is perfect, and this is perfect.\"\n\nThey sat at the edge of the platform, legs dangling off the side, arms hooked over the lowest rail.\n\n\"I believe in soul mates,\" Tom said. \"But not just one. Think about it—all these people find true love, but how many potential mates do they encounter? A few hundred? A thousand?\"\n\n\"Four?\" Caroline suggested jokingly.\n\n\"There are no perfect mates, but there are hundreds of potential soul mates that you might never encounter. I believe love is hard to find but easy to recognize. So I tried to improve my chances. And here we are.\"\n", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 419}
{"section": "", "text": "Shooters inside the Vault were using the granite doorframe as a barricade as they leaned out and fired on the uniformed officers positioned behind their car doors.\n\nConklin and I got out of our car with our guns drawn and crouched beside our wheel wells. Adrenaline whipped my heart into a gallop. I watched everything with clear eyes, and yet my mind flooded with memories of past shoot-outs. I had been shot and almost died. All three of my partners had been shot, one of them fatally.\n\nAnd now I had a baby at home.\n\nA cop at the car to my left shouted, _\"Christ!\"_\n\nHer gun spun out of her hand and she grabbed her shoulder as she dropped to the asphalt. Her partner ran to her, dragged her toward the rear of the car, and called in, \"Officer down.\" Just then SWAT arrived in force with a small caravan of SUVs and a ballistic armored transport vehicle as big as a bus. The SWAT commander used his megaphone, calling to the shooters, who had slipped back behind the fortresslike walls of the Vault.\n\n\"All exits are blocked. There's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Toss out the guns, now.\"\n\nThe answer to the SWAT commander was a fusillade of gunfire that pinged against steel chassis. SWAT hit back with automatic weapons, and two men fell out of the doorway onto the pavement.\n\nThe shooting stopped, leaving an echoing silence.\n\nThe commander used his megaphone and called out, \"You. Put your gun down and we won't shoot. Fair warning. We're coming in.\"\n\n\"WAIT. I give up,\" said an accented voice. \"Hands up, see?\"\n\n\"Come all the way out. Come to me,\" said the SWAT commander.\n\nI could see him from where I stood.\n\nThe last of the shooters was a short man with a café au lait complexion, a prominent nose, dark hair that was brushed back. He was wearing a well-cut suit that had blood splattered on the white shirt as he came out through the doorway with his hands up.\n\nTwo guys in tactical gear grabbed him and slammed him over the hood of an SUV, then cuffed and arrested him.\n\nThe SWAT commander dismounted from the armored vehicle. I recognized him as Reg Covington. We'd worked together before. Conklin and I walked over to where Reg was standing beside the last of the shooters.\n\nCovington said, \"Boxer. Conklin. You know this guy?\"\n\nHe stood the shooter up so I could get a good look at his face. I'd never met Kingfisher. I compared the real-life suspect with my memory of the fuzzy videos I'd seen of Jorge Sierra, a.k.a. the King.\n\n\"Let me see his hands,\" I said.\n\nIt was a miracle that my voice sounded steady, even to my own ears. I was sweating and my breathing was shallow. My gut told me that this was the man.\n\nCovington twisted the prisoner's hands so that I could see the backs of them. On the suspect's left hand was the tattoo of a kingfisher, the same as the one in the photo in Kingfisher's slim file.\n\nI said to our prisoner, \"Mr. Sierra. I'm Sergeant Boxer. Do you need medical attention?\"\n\n\"Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, maybe.\"\n\nCovington jerked him to his feet and said, \"We'll take good care of him. Don't worry.\"\n\nHe marched the King to the waiting paddy wagon, and I watched as he was shackled and chained to the bar before the door was closed.\n\nCovington slapped the side of the van, and it took off as CSI and the medical examiner's van moved in and SWAT thundered into the Vault to clear the scene.\n\n# About the Authors\n\nJAMES PATTERSON has written more bestsellers and created more enduring fictional characters than any other novelist writing today. He lives in Florida with his family.\n\nHILARY LIFTIN has collaborated on numerous _New York Times_ bestsellers and is the author, most recently, of the novel _Movie Star by Lizzie Pepper_. She lives with her family in Los Angeles.\n\n### Thank you for buying this ebook, published by Hachette Digital.\n\n", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 420}
{"section": "", "text": "Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data\n\nKrentz, Jayne Ann.  \nSizzle and burn / Jayne Ann Krentz.  \np. cm.  \nISBN: 978-1-1012-1534-0  \n1. Psychic ability—Fiction. 1. Title.  \nPS3561.R44S54 2008 2007028161  \n813'.54—dc22\n\nThis is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.\n\nWhile the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.\nFor Frank  \nAs always, with all my love  \nThanks for the sizzle and burn!\n\n## Contents\n\nChapter One\n\nChapter Two\n\nChapter Three\n\nChapter Four\n\nChapter Five\n\nChapter Six\n\nChapter Seven\n\nChapter Eight\n\nChapter Nine\n\nChapter Ten\n\nChapter Eleven\n\nChapter Twelve\n\nChapter Thirteen\n\nChapter Fourteen\n\nChapter Fifteen\n\nChapter Sixteen\n\nChapter Seventeen\n\nChapter Eighteen\n\nChapter Nineteen\n\nChapter Twenty\n\nChapter Twenty-one\n\nChapter Twenty-two\n\nChapter Twenty-three\n\nChapter Twenty-four\n\nChapter Twenty-five\n\nChapter Twenty-six\n\nChapter Twenty-seven\n\nChapter Twenty-eight\n\nChapter Twenty-nine\n\nChapter Thirty\n\nChapter Thirty-one\n\nChapter Thirty-two\n\nChapter Thirty-three\n\nChapter Thirty-four\n\nChapter Thirty-five\n\nChapter Thirty-six\n\nChapter Thirty-seven\n\nChapter Thirty-eight\n\nChapter Thirty-nine\n\nChapter Forty\n\nChapter Forty-one\n\nChapter Forty-two\n\nChapter Forty-three\n\nChapter Forty-four\n\nChapter Forty-five\n\nChapter Forty-six\n\nChapter Forty-seven\n\nChapter Forty-eight\n\nChapter Forty-nine\n\nChapter Fifty\n\nChapter Fifty-one\n\nChapter Fifty-two\n\nChapter Fifty-three\n\nChapter Fifty-four\n\nChapter Fifty-five\n\nChapter Fifty-six\n\nChapter Fifty-seven\n\nChapter Fifty-eight\n\nChapter Fifty-nine\n\nChapter Sixty\n\n## One\n\nBurn, witch, burn....\n\nThe voice was a dark, ghostly whisper in her head. Raine Tallentyre stopped at the top of the basement stairs. Gingerly she touched the banister with her fingertips. That was all the contact she needed. The voice, thick with bloodlust and an unholy excitement, murmured again.\n\n...Only one way to kill a witch. Punish her. Make her suffer. Burn, witch, burn....\n\nIt was the same voice she had heard when she brushed against the counter in the kitchen a few minutes before. It whispered of darkness, fear and fire. The psychic traces were very fresh. A deeply disturbed individual had come through this house in the recent past. She could only pray that the freak was the type who limited himself to twisted fantasies played out in his head. But she'd had enough experience to know that probably wasn't the case. This bastard was the real thing, a human monster.\n\nShe shuddered, snatched her hand off the banister and wiped her palm against her raincoat. The gesture was pure instinct, a reflex. The coat, long and black, was wet because it was pouring outside but no amount of water could wash away the memory of the foul energy she had just sensed.\n\nShe looked back at Doug Spicer and heard another voice, her aunt's this time. The warning came straight out of her teenage memories. Never tell them", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 421}
{"section": "", "text": "'s the one who made the decision to raise you outside the Society and to deny you your heritage.\"\n\n\"In her place, I would have done the same thing. She didn't have a lot of reason to trust the Society or J&J.\"\n\nHe moved around the end of the coffee table, reached down and wrapped his hands around her wrists. He pulled her up off the sofa.\n\n\"What about you?\" he said.\n\n\"I have no reason to trust the Society or J&J, either. They've got their own agendas.\"\n\n\"And you have yours.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"You don't trust the Society and you don't trust J&J,\" he said. \"What about me?\"\n\nShe searched his face. \"Does it matter?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said. He could hear the rough, gritty edges in his own voice but there was nothing he could do to soften them. \"It matters.\"\n\n\"I trust you,\" she said. She looked as if the statement surprised her but she didn't back away from it. \"You have been honest with me since the start of this thing.\"\n\nHe felt something deep inside him ease.\n\n\"Okay,\" he said. He made himself release her wrists. \"Okay, thanks.\"\n\n\"Do you trust me?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" He answered without even thinking about it.\n\n\"Even though you know I've got my own reasons for helping you find out what Nightshade is after?\"\n\n\"I know where you're coming from. Not like you've kept it a secret. You've been honest from the beginning.\"\n\n\"So have you.\" She sank back down onto the sofa. \"I'll pour you some of my special tea. We'll play some cards.\"\n\nHe did not want to sit down. He wanted to keep moving. Tea and solitaire weren't going to cut it tonight. The images of Lawrence Quinn's last seconds on earth were still too vivid, too intense. The attack by Ski Mask had compounded the usual problems of the aftermath.\n\nIt was going to be a bad night and he couldn't risk dampening his senses with a couple of shots of scotch. Probably better not to even try to sleep.\n\nRaine poured the brew into the small cup and handed it to him. \"Here. Drink some of this.\"\n\nTo please her, he downed half the contents of the cup in a single swallow. The slightly astringent, herbal flavors were not unpleasant but he didn't think they were going to have any effect on the visions. There was only one thing that could distract him from the death scene and that was the one thing that was not available to him tonight.\n\nRaine picked up the deck of cards and started to deal. He made a valiant effort to concentrate but he knew it was a waste of time. His brain insisted on jumping wildly from images of oncoming death to a raging need to affirm life in the most primitive way possible.\n\n\"I appreciate the effort but it's not going to work.\"\n\n\"It's going to be one of those nights, isn't it?\" she asked. \"One of the bad ones.\"\n\n\"I'm used to it. Don't worry about me.\"\n\n\"I'm not feeling very sleepy, myself. Watching that man try to kill you left my nerves on edge, to put it mildly. And then, seeing his body in the street—\"\n\nHis hand stopped with the cup halfway to his mouth. \"How did you know that the guy was coming after me?\"\n\n\"I'm not sure. He passed very close behind the booth where I was sitting. I was just suddenly aware of him. And not in a good way. It was like looking over your shoulder and seeing a tiger waiting to pounce.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"That happens with hunters when they're running hot. The energy they put out is predatory. Most people can sense it, even if they aren't consciously aware of it. Another sensitive like yourself wouldn't have any trouble at all picking up the vibes.\"\n\n\"You're sure that the visions you picked up tonight were connected to Lawrence Quinn's death?\" Raine asked quietly.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And you're also sure that the killer was Ski Mask?\"\n\n\"Can't be absolutely certain, but it seems logical. The last thing Quinn saw was a face that his panic-stricken brain interpreted as a death's head. Two black holes for eyes. I'm betting it was really a ski mask", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 422}
{"section": "", "text": "The problem is Bradley, isn't it?\"\n\n\"No,\" Raine said.\n\n\"I understand.\" She flicked a quick glance at Zack and then turned back to Raine. \"Bradley explained that you misinterpreted his friendship. Read more into it than was there. Don't worry about it. These things happen.\"\n\nRaine glanced at her watch and jumped to her feet. \"You'll have to excuse me. I've got to go to my shop now. Good luck with your writing project.\"\n\nCassidy made no move to rise from the sofa.\n\nNiki was starting to look downright nervous. She blinked several times and cleared her throat. \"Uh, perhaps we should leave, Miss Cutler. Don't forget you're supposed to call your agent at nine.\"\n\nCassidy hesitated a few seconds longer, clearly annoyed. Raine contemplated throwing her out bodily. It wouldn't be difficult. She had the advantage of height and weight.\n\nBut Cassidy finally seemed to comprehend that the situation had become awkward. She rose reluctantly and held out a hand to Niki.\n\n\"Card,\" she said brusquely.\n\nNiki hastily opened the leather briefcase and took out a gold card holder. She extracted a business card and placed it in Cassidy's outstretched palm.\n\nCassidy handed the card to Raine. \"I want you to think about this, Raine. Regardless of the status of your personal relationship, you and Bradley share a very special working partnership, one that enables both of you to make a unique contribution to justice. Please keep my card. When you're ready to consider my offer, give me a call at that number. It's my cell phone.\"\n\nRaine took the card. It seemed the quickest way to get Cassidy out of the condo.\n\nZack was already in the foyer, opening the door. Cassidy walked outside very quickly. Niki threw Raine an apologetic grin and followed.\n\nZack closed the door and looked at Raine. \"That is one very determined woman.\"\n\n\"She thinks the reason I won't help with the project is because of what happened between me and Bradley,\" she said.\n\n\"I know.\"\n\n\"That's got nothing to do with it. I just don't want to take the risk that I'll end up named in her book.\"\n\n\"You don't trust her to keep you anonymous?\"\n\n\"Nope. My cover would start falling apart the first time a blogger got curious.\"\n\n\"Got a hunch you're right.\"\n\nRaine looked at him. \"What's the next step in your investigation?\"\n\n\"Well, to begin with, you're not going in to work today. I assume Pandora can handle the shop?\"\n\n\"Yes. What are we going to do?\"\n\n\"I think it's time we talk to the last people to see Vella Tallentyre alive.\"\n\n## Thirty-nine\n\nDr. Baxter Ogilvey looked at Raine across the expanse of a desk piled high with files, papers and scholarly journals. He was the director of St. Damian's Psychiatric Hospital. Over the course of the year that Vella had been a patient at the hospital Raine had come to like and respect him.\n\nHe was a compassionate man steeped in traditional medical and psychiatric practices. She knew that he'd never had a clue as to the true nature of Vella's mental illness. To fully comprehend her pathology, he would have been forced to believe that Vella possessed psychic senses. Raine knew that he had never been able to make that leap. To the end Ogilvey had considered Vella's claim of hearing voices a symptom of her illness.\n\nNevertheless his approach to what had to have been one of his more unusual and challenging cases had been surprisingly open-minded and wide-ranging. It had included nutritional aspects such as vitamin supplements as well as cutting-edge psychotropic medications, traditional talk therapy and, above all, a tranquil environment. Raine knew that she would always be grateful to him. Ogilvey had done what she and Gordon and Andrew had been unable to do on their own in the past year. He had given Vella a degree of mental and emotional peace for the first time in years.\n\nHe had clearly been surprised to see Raine and Zack walk into his office a short time before but he had offered condolences again.\n\n\"I understand that you are still grieving,\" Ogilvey", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 423}
{"section": "", "text": "loose-fitting pants felt bulky and awkward over his trousers but with the hospital lights dimmed for the night, he didn't think anyone would notice. His soft-soled running shoes and a plastic ID badge finished the look. The badge was on backward, concealing the fake ID. Just an accident. Could have happened to anyone dressing in a hurry.\n\nSt. Damian's maintained a large staff. In addition, a little research earlier in the evening had turned up the fact that, like most hospitals, it occasionally relied on temporary agency help to fill in when there was a staffing crunch. It seemed reasonable that an unfamiliar orderly in the hall would not cause undue concern. The plan, however, was to avoid any such encounters, if possible.\n\nThe most serious problem was that he was running hot, all his senses jacked up to the max. That meant there was no way to tune out the background static that infused the entire building. He was primarily sensitive to the darker passions—violence and fear and the adrenaline rush that came with the anticipation of the kill—but other stuff sometimes seeped in as well, stuff like despair and psychic pain. There was plenty of that in a psychiatric hospital.\n\nHe knew that once he got upstairs into the wards, just walking across the floor would be uncomfortable. The thick soles of his running shoes would not be able to block out all the bleak energy that would cling to every surface.\n\nTensed against the psychical shock waves that awaited him, he loped up the stairs to the third floor. At the door he paused, listening intently. He heard no sound in the corridor. When he stepped out into it, he found it empty.\n\nBright lights marked the small nurses' station at the far end of the corridor. All but a few of the overhead fluorescents in the corridors were off, however, as he had anticipated. The doors to the patients' rooms were mostly closed, although one or two were open partway.\n\nRaine had told him exactly where 315 was located. Luckily it was at the end of the hall farthest from the nurses' station. He started toward the room and found out immediately that he had been right about the floor.\n\nSome sensitives claimed that walking through a hospital or a police station or any other highly charged environment was like walking through a graveyard and discovering that the occupants were still partially alive. He disagreed. He always found graveyards to be relatively peaceful places. Hospitals, on the other hand, were anything but.\n\nThe door to 315 was closed. He opened it as quietly as possible and walked into the room, moving with the confidence of an orderly who has just entered to do a routine check. He closed the door gently behind him.\n\nMoonlight spilling through an uncovered window revealed a figure in the bed. Zack could see that the patient, a teenager, was watching him with wide, frightened eyes. It didn't take a psychic to pick up the raw energy of terror. For some reason the kid was looking at him like he was the monster from under the bed.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" Zack said softly. \"Didn't mean to scare you. Just a routine check to make sure you're okay.\"\n\nThe frozen kid did not move or speak.\n\nThis was not going well. He would have to come up with a Plan B.\n\n\"I'm leaving now,\" Zack said, holding up both hands in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. He took a step back.\n\n\"Are you going to kill me?\" The boy's voice quivered so badly it was barely audible.\n\nZack stopped edging toward the door. \"No. I'm not here to hurt you. I just wanted to take a quick look around the room. Make sure everything is okay.\"\n\n\"I don't believe you,\" the boy whispered. \"You're glowing too hot. None of the other orderlies do that.\"\n\nUnderstanding slammed through him. \"Well, damn. You're picking up my aura, aren't you?\"\n\nThe boy did not respond. He just continued staring with those big, frightened eyes.\n\nZack shut down his parasenses. \"Is that better? I'm no longer jacked up.\"\n\n\"What does that mean?\"\n\n\"It means I've closed down my paranormal senses. I can't shut them off entirely, but I can dial them back. I'm not putting out nearly as much energy now. Most folks wouldn't be able to detect an a", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 424}
{"section": "", "text": "tapped the end of the pen against the tabletop, thinking. \"But then, I hadn't even realized she had an affair with him until Andrew told me. If Vella kept any souvenirs of her time with Wilder Jones, they would be at the Shelbyville house.\"\n\n\"You said the basement was filled with boxes and cartons.\"\n\n\"Yes. Most of them contain her paintings. I suppose we'll have to go through them. It's going to be a job. There must be two or three hundred pictures in that basement. As far as I know they're all masks.\"\n\nThe doorbell chimed, startling Raine into dropping the pen. \"It's six-thirty in the morning. Who in the world?\"\n\n\"Got a hunch that's your babysitter.\"\n\nZack put down his coffee mug and went into the living room. Robin and Batman trotted along at his heels, ears perked and tails high. They had adopted him, Raine realized. As far as they were concerned, Zack was now part of the gang. She tried to recall the name for a group of cats. Clowder. That was it. Unfortunately it didn't sound very exciting, let alone cool. No wonder people didn't use it to describe those of the feline persuasion.\n\nShe heard the front door open and the rumble of a deep bass voice that sounded like it came from the heart of a mountain. She got to her feet, exercising some caution because her ankle was still tender, and went to stand in the doorway.\n\nA big, dark-skinned man a few years younger than Zack occupied a considerable amount of space in her small living room. His head was completely shaved and gleamed as though it had been waxed. Dark glasses veiled his eyes. A gold ring flashed from one ear. He was dressed in khakis, a dark blue pullover shirt and a battered suede bomber jacket. She caught a glimpse of a shoulder holster beneath the jacket.\n\nHe gave her a smile that could have lit up the stage of a large theater.\n\n\"You must be the client,\" he said.\n\nShe didn't even try to resist the smile. \"You must be the bodyguard.\"\n\n\"This is Raine Tallentyre,\" Zack said. \"Raine, meet Calvin Harp.\"\n\nRaine extended her hand. \"A pleasure, Mr. Harp.\"\n\n\"Call me Calvin.\" He shook her hand and then looked down at the cats, who were sitting directly in front of him, gazing upward with unblinking stares. \"Who are these guys?\"\n\n\"Batman and Robin,\" Zack said.\n\nCalvin beamed. \"What do you know? Couple of my favorite masked avengers.\"\n\nHe went down on his haunches and held out his hand. The cats sniffed his fingers in an assessing manner and appeared to be satisfied. Calvin rubbed their ears gently with one huge hand and straightened.\n\n\"Looks like you're in the club,\" Zack said. \"How about some coffee?\"\n\nCalvin's smile got even bigger. \"Excellent idea. Any chance of some food? I've been a little busy since I got Fallon's call a few hours ago. Wasn't anything to eat on board the company plane except a couple of boxes of doughnuts. Had to share 'em with the pilots.\"\n\n\"How do you feel about peanut butter?\" Zack asked.\n\n\"Works for me.\" Calvin looked toward the kitchen with great interest. \"Hell, I'm hungry enough to eat the cats' food.\"\n\nZack looked at Raine. \"The only downside of working with Calvin is that you have to feed him. A lot.\"\n\n## Forty-seven\n\nZack used a gadget from his J&J tool kit to let himself into the small studio apartment. He did not expect to find anything that pointed to Pandora as a member of Nightshade but he had learned the hard way not to let the personal get in the way of the logical.\n\nThe tiny space was decorated in what could only be described as High Goth. The ceiling was an elaborately detailed night sky, complete with crescent moon and stars. The walls were painted midnight blue, the window and door trims picked out in a paler shade. The furnishings were eclectic and mostly black punctuated with the occasional bloodred pillow.\n\nHe checked the refrigerator first. One of the things they had learned in the Stone Canyon affair was that Nightshade", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 425}
{"section": "", "text": "\"But if she was involved—\"\n\n\"She wasn't,\" Zack assured her.\n\n\"Explain,\" Raine ordered.\n\n\"When I came through the back room I got a quick look around. The mayor's purse was unfastened. The contents were scattered across the carpet. I realized that she was probably the one who brought the smoke bomb into the shop but there were no hot spots around her or her purse. She didn't know what she was doing.\"\n\n\"Then why in the world did she set off the smoke bomb?\" Raine demanded.\n\n\"The most likely explanation is that either Cassidy or Niki is a parahypnotist,\" Zack said. \"Probably formula-enhanced.\"\n\n\"In other words, you think that one of them hypnotized the mayor into carrying the smoke bomb into my shop and exploding it,\" Raine said.\n\n\"Right.\" Zack shrugged. \"Which is why, when Her Honor came around, she had no memory of what she had done.\"\n\nRaine looked at him. \"What are we going to tell her? What are we going to tell Bradley, for that matter?\"\n\nZack stretched his legs out toward the fire and rested his elbows on the arms of the chair. He put his fingertips together.\n\n\"The simplest story is usually the best,\" he said. \"Mitchell will soon realize he can't do anything with a drug charge because there is no evidence of illegal drugs. But what do you think about promoting the notion that Cassidy and Niki planned to kidnap the mayor and hold her for ransom?\"\n\nRaine blinked. \"I think Mayor Escott would love it. Talk about great publicity for the upcoming election.\"\n\nCalvin grinned. \"Very creative, Jones.\"\n\n\"Cassidy and Niki will deny it,\" Raine pointed out.\n\nCalvin uttered a half-amused little sound. \"They'll deny everything. So what? They'll both be in padded cells within a couple of days.\"\n\n\"Wonder why they decided to grab me,\" Raine said.\n\n\"Sheer desperation,\" Zack said. \"The idea was to watch you as closely as possible to see if you inherited whatever it is that Lawrence Quinn hoped to get from Vella. You were the only link left. When I showed up, it merely confirmed their theory that you knew something vitally important. They decided they couldn't afford to wait and allow J&J to get the secret from you.\"\n\n\"Those poor women,\" Raine whispered.\n\nThe men exchanged looks. Neither spoke.\n\nRaine sipped her tea and lowered the cup. She frowned a little at Zack. \"You said the Arcane labs have a sample of the formula that they've been studying. They must know a lot about it by now. Isn't there anything your experts could do to save Cassidy and Niki?\"\n\nZack looked at her over the tips of his fingers. He seemed baffled by the question. \"You want to save that pair? Cassidy Cutler is probably indirectly responsible for the murder of Lawrence Quinn, and it's a good bet she's the one who ran down the illusion talent the other night. She tried to kill Pandora and kidnap you. Niki was her accomplice in everything that took place.\"\n\nRaine pulled her robe more tightly around herself. \"It's just that the prospect of going insane is so terrifying. My aunt believed that she was hovering at the edge of it for years, and it was my own worst nightmare for a long time. The thought of letting someone else, anyone else, face that abyss makes me ill.\"\n\nZack glanced at Calvin.\n\nCalvin raised his massive shoulders. \"Don't look at me. How the heck should I know if they've come up with an antidote?\"\n\nZack hesitated a moment longer, then, reluctantly, he unclipped his phone. \"I'll see if Fallon knows anything about the status of the research.\"\n\n## Fifty-three\n\nShe was in bed, Batman and Robin curled up at her feet, when she heard his phone ring. The sound was muffled by the closed door of the hall bathroom and the rush of water in the shower. The water was turned off abruptly. She heard the low rumble of Zack's voice.\n\nA few minutes later he walked into the bedroom. He was naked except for a towel around his waist. His hair was damp. He stopped beside the bed, grim-faced.\n\n\"That was Fallon,\" he said. \"He checked", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 426}
{"section": "", "text": "s out you were wrong when you confirmed that the Shelbyville cops had the serial killer in custody.\"\n\n\"I said the analysts estimated the probability of the cops having the right man to be ninety-six point three percent.\"\n\nShe made a tut-tutting sound. \"Not good enough, Mr. Jones. Your analysts were one hundred percent wrong. The real killer took a couple of shots at us this afternoon. One of those shots hit Zack. That was before the guy tried to torch us, by the way.\"\n\n\"How bad?\"\n\nHe sounded genuinely worried. She relented slightly.\n\n\"The doctor said he'll be okay. I'm standing outside the emergency room as we speak, waiting to find out.\"\n\n\"Did they get the bastard?\"\n\n\"You mean, did they get the right bastard this time? The answer is yes, no thanks to J&J.\"\n\n\"I don't know how we missed that one. Clearly we had insufficient or false data.\"\n\n\"Maybe you should rely a little less on your analysts' psychic abilities and a little more on traditional methods of criminal investigation.\"\n\n\"It's not like we had a lot of time to check out the reports,\" Fallon shot back defensively. \"We had other priorities, if you will recall.\"\n\nShe was about to fire back but she saw Zack on the other side of the sliding glass doors. He was on his feet and moving. That was a very good sign. The medics had cut off his shirt. He wore his leather jacket open over his bare chest. She could see the edge of a large white bandage on his side.\n\n\"Zack just came out of the ER,\" she said. \"Got to go.\"\n\n\"Wait,\" Fallon said quickly. \"Don't hang up. Put him on the line.\"\n\n\"Okay. But before I do, there's something you and I should get clear.\"\n\n\"What?\" he asked, very wary.\n\n\"I understand that J&J answers only to the Governing Council and the Master of the Arcane Society.\"\n\n\"Yeah. So, what?\"\n\n\"As it happens, I will soon be the wife of the next Master.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"That position will give me a great deal of power, not to mention enormous influence.\" She waved a crutch at Zack. \"Better not piss me off any more, Mr. Jones.\"\n\n\"Give me Zack,\" Fallon snarled.\n\nZack was through the glass doors, coming toward her.\n\n\"It's Mr. Jones of J&J,\" she said. \"He wants to speak with you.\"\n\n\"Figured he'd be calling,\" Zack said.\n\n\"Better warn you, I just told him that you and I are going to get married.\"\n\nMasculine satisfaction etched his hard face. His eyes got very, very blue.\n\n\"Well, now,\" he said softly. \"Within the Society that pretty much amounts to a formal announcement. How'd he take it?\"\n\n\"In another era I believe he would have been described as apoplectic.\"\n\n\"Don't worry, he'll survive.\"\n\n\"Zack?\" Fallon's voice, emanating from the small phone, sounded faint and tinny. \"Is that you?\"\n\nZack took the phone from Raine's hand, leaned forward and kissed her very thoroughly. By the time he raised his head she was tingling from head to toe.\n\n\"Zack?\" Fallon was shouting now. \"You there? Talk to me, damn it.\"\n\n\"Later,\" Zack said somewhat absently into the phone. \"I'm a little busy at the moment.\"\n\nHe ended the call, dropped the phone into a pocket and went back to kissing Raine.\n\n## Fifty-eight\n\nThey were gathered in her living room, drinking the first of the two bottles of Oregon pinot noir that Gordon had brought along. He and Andrew claimed they both needed the wine for medicinal purposes while they recovered from the shock of events. The pair occupied the sofa, the cats stretched out between them. Zack was in one of the two reading chairs. Raine took the other.\n\n\"How did you figure out where she hid the journal?\" Andrew asked. \"Did you know about the wall safe?\"\n\n\"No.\" Raine looked at the leather-bound book lying on the coffee table. \"But this morning I suddenly remembered the painting on the wall of her bedroom. It was the first of her mask series. \"In hindsight, I", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 427}
{"section": "", "text": "\"We all know that we can expect little overt assistance from the government, the establishment media or the mainstream law enforcement community,\" Guerrero added. \"Officially, at least, most people in this country still hold the view that the paranormal is the province of science fiction, fantasy, quacks, gurus, talk-show guests and frauds. Convincing them that a secret, dangerous conspiracy comprised of psychically enhanced individuals exists and must be taken seriously is probably beyond our ability, at least for now.\"\n\nWithout exception, those around the oval table sat tight-lipped and grim-faced.\n\n\"And so we welcome to this Council chamber a new Master who is uniquely qualified to lead us through these perilous times.\" Guerrero fixed Zack with piercing eyes. \"We ask you to take the oath of office and assume the Master's Chair, Zackary Gabriel Jones.\"\n\nZack rose but made no move to go to the head of the table. Instead, he looked at each of the ten members in turn. Then, very deliberately, he set a folder down on the polished stone table.\n\n\"Before I take the oath,\" he said, \"I am going to introduce you to my fiancée, Miss Raine Tallentyre, daughter of Judson and Miranda Tallentyre.\"\n\nThe name hit the room with the impact of a meteor. Jaws dropped and eyes widened. Zack knew that some of those present had served on the Council when Tallentyre was kicked out of the Society. The rest were well aware of the name.\n\nBefore anyone could say a word, Bancroft opened the door to the chamber and ushered Raine into the room.\n\nShe stopped just inside the doorway and gave everyone a cool, self-possessed nod. She was at her most austere and untouchable today in a sculpted black Armani jacket, trousers and high heels. Her dark hair was pulled straight back into an elegant knot at the nape of her neck. Her eyes were pools of mystery behind the lenses of her black-framed glasses.\n\nHow in hell did I get so lucky? Zack thought. I will love her for the rest of my life and beyond.\n\nHe walked around the table and took her arm, making no attempt to conceal his pride.\n\n\"Welcome, my dear. Allow me to present the members of the Governing Council of the Arcane Society, USA.\"\n\nHe went through the names quickly. Heads nodded stiffly. There were a few mumbled greetings. Most of the members were still speechless.\n\nRaine gave them all her dazzling screw you smile.\n\n\"What a pleasure to meet all of you,\" she said in a perfectly neutral tone.\n\nZack managed, just barely, to suppress a grin. Fortunately, none of the Council members seemed to grasp the fact that they had just been dissed.\n\n\"As many of you will have guessed,\" he said, \"my fiancée is the daughter of the Judson Tallentyre who, many years ago, was investigated by J&J for unauthorized research. That investigation led to Tallentyre being thrown out of the Society. All records of his work were destroyed.\"\n\nNo one moved. They all knew the story.\n\n\"What neither the Council nor J&J was aware of at the time was that the focus of Tallentyre's research was not on the founder's formula but on an antidote for it.\"\n\nThat garnered another round of startled murmurs.\n\n\"The only reason Tallentyre created a version of the formula was so that he could run experiments on it with his antidote,\" Zack said.\n\nThe faces around the table assumed various expressions ranging from confusion to dawning comprehension. At least three of the people in the room were high-level intuitives who were no doubt starting to sense where this was going.\n\n\"I'm sure all of you realize what a great strategic advantage an antidote would provide us in our battle against Nightshade,\" he continued. \"Among other things, it would weaken the organization's hold over its operatives.\"\n\n\"An antidote would be a huge asset,\" Paul Akashida observed. \"Currently, the penalty for failure or betrayal within Nightshade brings an automatic sentence of death or insanity. The existence of an antidote would make it possible to attract defectors.\"\n\nJanice Forster brightened. \"It might also allow us to plant a spy within the organization.\"\n\nAt the far end of the table Conner Price spoke up. \"Hell,", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 428}
{"section": "", "text": "'t you think of anything else?\"\n\n\"I wasn't addressing you,\" William replied before returning his attention to Mattie. \"I hope the topic isn't too painful.\"\n\n\"Not at this point. Barry died six years ago of heart failure. I believe cardiac ischemia is the term they used. He taught jewelry making at the San Francisco Art Institute. He was a very talented man, though a bit of an eccentric.\"\n\nWilliam was nodding. \"Cardiac ischemia. I know the term well. From the Greek, ischein, meaning 'quench' or 'seize,' combined with haima, or 'blood.' A German pathology professor first introduced that term in the mid- 1800s. Rudolf Virchow. A remarkable man. What age was your husband?\"\n\n\"William,\" Henry sang.\n\nMattie smiled. \"Really, Henry. I'm not sensitive about this. He died two days shy of his seventieth birthday.\"\n\nWilliam winced. \"Pity when a man's struck down in his prime. I myself have suffered several episodes of angina, which I've miraculously survived. I was discussing my heart condition with Lewis, just two days ago by phone. You remember our brother, I'm sure.\"\n\n\"Of course. I hope he and Nell and Charles are all in good health.\"\n\n\"Excellent,\" William said. He shifted in his chair, lowering his voice. \"What about your husband? Did he have any warning prior to his fatal attack?\"\n\n\"He'd been having chest pains, but he refused to see the doctor. Barry was a fatalist. He believed you check out when your time is up regardless what precautions you take. He compared longevity to an alarm clock that God sets the moment you're born. None of us knows when the little bell will ring, but he didn't see the point in trying to second-guess the process. He enjoyed life immensely, I'll say that about him. Most folks in my family don't make it to the age of sixty, and they're miserable every minute, dreading the inevitable.\"\n\n\"Sixty! Is that right? That's astonishing. Is there a genetic factor in play?\"\n\n\"I don't think so. It's a little bit of everything. Cancer, diabetes, kidney failure, chronic pulmonary disease...\"\n\nWilliam put his hands on his chest. I hadn't seen him so happy since he'd had the flu. \"COPD. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The very term brings back memories. I was stricken with a lung condition in my youth—\"\n\nHenry clapped his hands. \"Okay, fine. Enough said on that subject. Why don't we eat?\"\n\nHe moved to the refrigerator and took out a clear glass bowl piled with coleslaw, which he plunked on the table with rather more force than was absolutely necessary. The chicken he'd fried was piled on a platter on the counter, probably still warm. He placed that in the center of the table with a pair of serving tongs. The squat little crockery pot now sat on the back of the stove, emitting the fragrance of tender beans and bay leaf. He removed serving utensils from a ceramic jug and then took down four dinner plates, which he handed to William, perhaps in hopes of distracting his attention while he brought the rest of the dinner to the table. William set a plate at each place while he quizzed Mattie at length about her mother's death from acute bacterial meningitis.\n\nOver supper Henry steered the conversation into neutral territory. We went through ritual questions about Mattie's drive down from San Francisco, traffic, road conditions, and matters of that sort, which gave me ample opportunity to observe her. Her eyes were a clear gray and she wore very little makeup. She had strong features, with nose, cheekbones, and jaw as pronounced and well proportioned as a model's. Her skin showed signs of sun damage, and it lent her complexion a ruddy glow. I pictured her out in the fields for hours with her paint box and easel.\n\nI could tell William was reflecting on the subject of terminal disease while I was calculating how soon I could make my excuses and depart. I intended to drag William with me so Henry and Mattie could have some time alone. I kept an eye on the clock while I worked my way through the fried chicken, potato salad, coleslaw, baked beans, and", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 429}
{"section": "", "text": "paused to check her watch. \"Let's get a move on. Time to party.\"\n\nWe sped south on the 101 with Reba at the wheel.\n\nI said, \"I'm not sure this is smart. Why go to a place where everyone's drinking?\"\n\n\"I'm not going there to drink. I haven't had a drink for twenty-three months, fourteen and a half days.\"\n\n\"Then why put yourself in harm's way?\"\n\n\"I told you. Because that's where Onni is. She goes out every Thursday night to hustle guys.\" I opened my mouth to protest, but she shot me a look. \"You're not my mother, okay? I promise I'll call my sponsor the minute I get home. At least, I would if I had one, which I don't.\"\n\nBubbles was a Montebello wine-and-champagne bistro that had once done a lively business in concert with the Edgewater Hotel and another high-priced piano bar called Spirits. The three were in easy driving distance of one another and formed a triangle traveled by every rich, hot, single person on the market back then. All three places were heavy on atmosphere—glitz, glitter, live music, small dance floors, and low lights. Drinks were pricey, served in oversize glasses, and food was an afterthought, meant to get you home again without a fatal accident.\n\nIn the mid-seventies, for reasons unknown, Bubbles became a magnet for escort services, girls working high-end out-call and \"models\" from Los Angeles, who drove to Montebello cruising for love. Eventually cocaine became prevalent and the county sheriff's department stepped in and shut the place down. I'd been there on occasion because my second husband, Daniel, was a jazz pianist who played the three night spots in rotation. Early in the relationship, I realized if I didn't make a point of being there with him, I might not see him until breakfast the next day. He claimed he was out \"jamming\" with the guys, which turned out to be true, in both the literal and metaphorical senses.\n\nWe pulled up to the left of the entrance. Reba handed her car keys to the valet and we went in. Men in suits and sport coats stood five and six deep at the bar, checking out our boobs and butts as we passed. Reba did a quick search from table to table while I followed in her wake. Bubbles hadn't changed. Illumination was achieved primarily by way of massive fish tanks that lined the walls and separated one seating area from the next. In the main room, there was a bar with a U-shaped border of booths and a scattering of tables big enough for two. In the second room, through a wide arch, a jazz combo—piano, saxophone, and bass—was set up on a wide deck above a dance floor the size of a trampoline. The music was mellow—haunting melodies from the forties that stuck in your head for days. This was not a place where voices were raised or raucous laughter cut through the murmur of civilized conversation. No one got drunk and tumbled backward into other patrons. Women didn't weep or fling drinks on their dates. No one upchucked in the elegant restrooms with their marble floors and baskets of tiny terrycloth towels. Customers smoked, but the ventilation system was high-tech and a roving band of busboys whisked away dirty ashtrays and replaced them with clean ones every five minutes or so.\n\nReba put a hand out and slowed me to a halt. Like a pointer, she stood and pinned a look on Onni, who sat at a table by herself, smoking a cigarette with an air of indifference I suspected was fake. The presence of two half-filled champagne flutes and a bottle resting in a nearby cooler suggested a companion who'd left the table moments before. The \"real\" Onni bore only passing resemblance to the Onni I'd seen in the grainy black-and-white photos. She was tall and slim, with a long thin face, wide nose, thin lips, and small nearly lashless eyes. Her dark hair was dead straight and spilled across her shoulders with the high silky shine you see in ads for shampoos. Silver earrings dangled from her lobes and brushed against her neck with every move of her head. The jacket of her black business suit had been shrugged aside, revealing a white silk tank top that looked more like a slip than", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 430}
{"section": "", "text": "'s been admitted to Saint Terry's. I'm on my way over to take him his toiletries and robe.\"\n\n\"What happened?\"\n\n\"Well, he's desperately ill,\" she said, as though I'd been stupid to inquire. \"All this upset over Reba has taken its toll.\"\n\n\"Is she here?\"\n\n\"Of course not. She's never here when he needs her. That's a job that falls to Freddy or me.\" Her smile was self-satisfied and brittle, her manner brisk. \"Well now. What can we do for you?\"\n\n\"Is he allowed to have visitors?\"\n\n\"You must not have heard me. He's ill. He shouldn't be disturbed.\"\n\n\"That wasn't what I asked. What floor is he on?\"\n\n\"He's on the cardiac ward. If you insist, I suppose you could speak to his private-duty nurse. What is it you want?\"\n\n\"He asked me to do a job. I'd like to give him my report.\"\n\n\"I'd prefer you didn't.\"\n\n\"But I don't work for you. I work for him,\" I said.\n\n\"She's in trouble again, isn't she?\"\n\n\"I guess you could say that.\"\n\n\"You don't understand what this has done to him. He's had to rescue her all his life. Reba keeps putting him in the same position. She sets it up so that if he doesn't step in, she'll be doomed, or so she'd like him to think. I'm sure she'd deny this, but she's really still a child, doing anything she can to get her father's attention. If anything happened to her, he'd forever blame himself.\"\n\n\"He's her father. He gets to help her if he wants.\"\n\n\"Well, I may have put an end to that.\"\n\n\"How so?\"\n\n\"I called Priscilla Holloway, Reba's parole officer. I thought she should be aware of what's been going on. I'm sure Reba's been drinking and probably gambling as well. I told Ms. Holloway Reba left the state, and she was furious.\"\n\n\"You'll get her sent back to prison.\"\n\n\"That's my hope. We'd all be better off, including her.\"\n\n\"Great. That's perfect. Who else did you tattle to?\" I meant the question as a piece of sarcasm, but the silence that followed suggested I'd scored an unexpected bull's-eye. I stared at her. \"Is that how Beck found out where she was?\"\n\nShe dropped her gaze. \"We had a conversation on the subject.\"\n\n\"You told him?\"\n\n\"That's right. And I'd do it again.\"\n\n\"When was this?\"\n\n\"Thursday. He came to the house. Nord was sleeping so I spoke to him myself. He'd been looking for her and he was very concerned. He said he didn't want to cause a problem, but he thought she'd taken something. He was quite uncomfortable and I had to work very hard persuading him to tell me what it was. He finally admitted she stole twenty-five thousand dollars. He said he didn't want to make trouble, but I thought that was nonsense and told him where she was.\"\n\n\"How'd you get Misty's address?\"\n\n\"I didn't have her address, I had yours. Nord scribbled a note to himself the night you called. The Paradise Motel. I saw it written on the pad beside his bed.\"\n\n\"Lucinda, Beck manipulated you. Don't you see that?\"\n\n\"Hardly. He's a lovely man. After what she did to him, I'd have told him even if he hadn't asked.\"\n\n\"Do you have any idea what you've done? A man was kidnapped because of you.\"\n\nShe laughed, tucking her purse under one arm as she picked up the overnight case. \"No one was kidnapped,\" she said, as though the notion were absurd. \"Really. You're just like her, creating drama where there is none. Everything's a crisis. Everything's the end of the world. It's never anything she's done. She's always the victim, always expecting someone else to pick up after her. Well, this time she'll have to take responsibility. Now, if you'll excuse", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 431}
{"section": "", "text": "She said she'd call by the house at nine, but she was concerned Mr. Beckwith would find her again.\"\n\n\"I'll bet. Lucinda's been dishing out the information right and left,\" I said. \"Look, if you hear from her, tell her it's important we talk. Did she leave a suitcase by any chance?\"\n\n\"No, but she did have one with her. She put it in the trunk of her car before she left.\"\n\n\"Well, let's hope she calls in.\" I glanced at my watch. I'll be at my office for the next couple of hours and then I'll head home.\"\n\nMy office always feels odd at night, its flaws and shabbiness exaggerated by the artificial light. As I sat at my desk, all I saw through the window was dinginess reflected back at me, the dust and ancient rain streaks barring any view of the street. On weekends this part of downtown Santa Teresa is dead after 6:00 P. M., city buildings closed for the night, the courthouse and public library dark. The bungalow I occupied was the middle unit of three; identical stucco structures that, at some point, represented modest housing. Since I'd moved in, the bungalows on both sides of mine had remained vacant, which afforded me the quiet I preferred, at the same time creating an unsettling sense of isolation.\n\nI sorted through the mound of mail the carrier had shoved through my slot. Much junk, a few bills, which I sat down and paid. I was restless, eager to get home, but felt I should stay, in the hopes that Reba would call. I did some filing. I straightened out my pencil drawer. It was make-work but gave me something useful to do. I kept glancing at the phone, willing it to ring, so when someone rapped on my side window, I nearly leaped out of my skin.\n\nReba was outside, concealed in the shadowy space between my bungalow and its twin next door. She'd traded her shorts for jeans and her white T-shirt looked like the one she'd been wearing when she left CIW. I unlocked the window and raised the sash. \"What are you doing?\"\n\n\"You have access to those garages out back?\"\n\n\"Sure, the one for this unit. I've never used it, but the landlord did give me the keys.\"\n\n\"Grab 'em and let's go. I gotta get my car off the street. I've had those goons on my tail ever since I left the house.\"\n\n\"The ones we saw in L.A.?\"\n\n\"Yeah, only one of 'em now has a black eye, like he walked into a door.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear. Wonder if I did that with my widdle chair,\" I said. \"How'd you get away?\"\n\n\"Fortunately, I know this town a lot better than they do. I led 'em around for a while, then sped up, doused my lights, turned down a little side road, and then behind a hedge. The minute I saw their car pass, I doubled back and came here.\"\n\n\"Where have you been all this time?\"\n\nShe seemed agitated. \"Don't ask. I've been busy as a little bee. Get a move on. I'm cold.\"\n\n\"I'll meet you out back.\"\n\nI closed the window and locked it. In my bottom desk drawer I lifted aside the phone book and picked up two silver keys hooked together on a paper clip. I picked up my bag and found my trusty penlight, checking the strength of the batteries as I moved down the hallway and out the rear door. A short patch of stubby grass separated the bungalows from the row of three garages along the alley. Reba'd parked her car in the shadow of a pyracantha bush that had probably scratched the shit out of the paint on the right-hand side. I could see her at the wheel, smoking a cigarette while she waited for me.\n\nThere was a light fixture with a forty-watt bulb attached to the wood beam above the middle garage, which was the one assigned to me. The bulb yielded just enough light to see by if your eyes were good. I fumbled with the padlock and finally popped it open. I unhooked it from the hasp and hauled up the overhead door with a labored groaning of wood and rusty hinges. I flashed my penlight across the walls and floor", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 432}
{"section": "", "text": "\"No way. This is my only chance to get even with that son of a bitch.\"\n\n\"Oh, I get it. This isn't about Marty. It's about you and Beck.\"\n\n\"Of course it's about Marty, but it's also about settling the score. It's like a test. Let's see what Beck's made of. I don't think it's such a bad deal—Marty in exchange for this. The fact the feds want it is what makes it so valuable.\"\n\n\"There are more important things in life than revenge,\" I said.\n\n\"Well, that's bullshit. Name one,\" she said. \"Besides, I'm not talking about revenge. I'm talking about getting even. Those are two different things.\"\n\n\"No, they're not.\"\n\n\"Yes, they are. Revenge is you hurt me and I grind you underfoot until you wish you were dead. Getting even restores the balance in the Universe. You kill him, I kill you. Now we're even. What else is capital punishment about? Getting even is just what it sounds like. Tit for tat. You hurt me, I hurt you back. We're square again and all's right with the world.\"\n\n\"Why not get even by turning him over to the IRS?\"\n\n\"That's business. This is personal, between him and me.\"\n\n\"I don't get what you want.\"\n\n\"I want him to say he's sorry for what he did to me. I gave up two years of my life for him. Now I have something he wants so let him beg for it.\"\n\n\"That's asinine. So he pulls a long face and says sorry. What difference will that make? You know what he's like. You can't ever do business with a guy like him. You'll get screwed.\"\n\n\"You don't know that.\"\n\n\"I do. Reba, would you listen to me? He'll work you over the first chance he gets.\"\n\nHer face was set. \"Why don't you go get your car and bring it around? I'll wait for you here.\"\n\nI shut my mouth and closed my eyes. Why argue the point when her mind was made up? \"You want help with this garage door?\"\n\n\"I can handle it.\"\n\nI returned to the office. I locked the back door behind me, then moved down the hall turning off lights as I went. I grabbed my shoulder bag and went out the front door, pausing long enough to lock up. I stood for a moment, scanning the darkened street. All the cars in range belonged to neighbors, vehicles I'd seen before and could identify on sight. I let myself into my car and fired up the engine. I drove around the corner and nosed my VW into the alleyway.\n\nReba had closed and padlocked the garage. She opened the passenger-side door, put the suitcase in the backseat, and got in. I reached over into the rear and grabbed my denim jacket. \"Here. Put this on before you catch cold.\"\n\n\"Thanks.\" She shrugged into the jacket and locked her seat belt in place.\n\n\"Where to?\"\n\n\"The nearest public phone.\"\n\n\"Why not my office, as long as we're here?\"\n\n\"I don't want you tied into this in any way.\"\n\n\"Tied into what?\"\n\n\"Just find a phone,\" she said.\n\n##  31\n\nReba wanted me to make the call to Beck. We found a phone booth outside a supermarket. The store was a bright island, icy fluorescent lights reflected in the shiny paint finish of the dozen or so cars in the parking lot out front. This was the store where I did my weekly shopping, and I longed for nothing so much as to buy milk and eggs and then wend my way home.\n\nReba put a handful of coins and a slip of paper with Beck's home and office numbers on the metal shelf under the phone. \"Try his home phone first. If Tracy answers, maybe she'll think he has a girlfriend,\" she said.\n\n\"He does. Her name is Onni.\"\n\n\"She probably knows about her. I'm talking someone new. Might as well bug the shit out of her while we can.\"\n\n\"That's not nice. I thought women were supposed to be nice.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't bet on it if I were you.\"\n\nI picked up the handset. \"So what am I supposed to say to", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 433}
{"section": "", "text": "doors were slow to respond, which gave me time enough to cross to the second set of doors. I yanked my shoe from the track and slipped into the counting room as the corridor doors slid shut. The doors to the counting room slid shut half a beat later, and I was safe. Temporarily, at any rate.\n\nMarty's body was still there.\n\nI went on disconnect and blocked any and all emotional responses. Now was the wrong time. I tossed the shoe aside, not daring to take time to slip it on again. I looked at the ladder affixed to the wall, following the sight of it, rung by rung, all the way to the top. I started climbing, one shoe off and one shoe on, diddle-diddle-dumpling, my son John. I knew the trap door at the top opened onto the roof. Once there, I'd hide or hang over the parapet screaming until the cops showed up. Maybe officers were already scrambling—regular Santa Teresa cops, the SWAT team, hostage negotiators—all of them decked out in bulletproof vests.\n\nI flicked a look at Marty, still bound to his chair. Why hadn't the guys done as Beck instructed? They were supposed to get him out of there, but they'd left him where he was. My hands were perspiring, but I ventured a second quick look down, noting what I'd failed to spot earlier. The counting and bundling machines were still sitting on the counter. The currency was gone. Instead of disposing of the body, the goons must have packed up the cash and removed that instead.\n\nI reached the top rung of the ladder and reached for the door directly above my head. I couldn't find a lock or a knob or any means to open it. I ran my hand across the surface, looking for a hook or a handle, any kind of lever that might cause it to spring open. Nothing. I clung to the top rung, hanging on for dear life while I tried to get my fingertips in the crack. I banged on it with the flat of my hand, then pushed as hard as I could.\n\nBelow, I heard the elevator door slide open. I laid my head against the ladder and held my breath.\n\nIn a conversational tone, Beck said, \"That door's locked so you might as well come down. Reba's on her way. Soon as we've settled up, you're free to go.\"\n\nI looked down at him. He was wearing his raincoat, apparently in preparation for his departure. He had the gun in one hand and it was pointed right at me. He probably didn't have a clue how much pressure it took to pull the trigger. If he inadvertently blew my head off, I'd be dead all the same. He leaned down and picked up my shoe.\n\nHe waggled the gun. \"Come on. I don't want to hurt you. This is almost over. Wrong time to cut and run when we're down to the wire.\"\n\nI eased my way down, feeling for each rung with my foot, suddenly fearful of heights. I considered letting go, plunging down on top of him, but I'd only hurt myself and there was no guarantee I'd do him any harm at all. He watched me patiently until I reached the bottom. He probably preferred keeping his eyes on me to looking at Marty. He hadn't seemed to register the fact that the body hadn't been removed.\n\nHe smiled slightly. \"Good try. You had me goin' there. I thought you ran the other way...\" He handed me my shoe. I paused, leaning against the wall while I pulled the shoe on.\n\nHe took my elbow and urged me through the service elevator to the corridor. He was right. It was almost over so what was the point of risking my neck. In the end, this had nothing to do with me. I hunkered, taking my time while I tied my shoelaces. Beck was getting short on patience, but I didn't like to walk with laces flapping loose. He took me by the elbow again and steered me around the corner to the public elevators. He'd left his briefcase in the hall. He picked it up and used the knuckle of his index finger to push the call button. The elevator must have been sitting right there because the doors opened instantly. The two of us got on. Beck pressed the button for the lobby. Like strangers, we stood silently against the back wall, eyes on the digital readout while the floor numbers dropped from 4 to 3 to ", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 434}
{"section": "", "text": "Meanwhile, Beck was intent on his task. He took the screwdriver and jammed it into the workings of the computer, twisting metal parts, snapping wires, careful to avoid any direct contact between the acid and his hands. He had his back to the big plate-glass windows so he didn't see Cheney step out of the shadows with his gun drawn. Vince Turner appeared along with four agents in FBI vests.\n\nToo late to salvage the data, but I was grateful nonetheless.\n\nReba caught sight of them. I saw her gaze flick to the window and back to Beck. \"Oh, poor Beck. You are so screwed,\" she said.\n\nHe stood up and reached for his briefcase. He looked at her, his expression pleasant. \"Really? How do you figure that?\"\n\nReba was silent for a beat, a slow smile lighting her battered face. \"The minute I got back to town, I put in a call to a man who works for the IRS. I spilled the beans, spelled it all out—names, numbers, dates—everything he needed to get his warrants. He had to call the judge at home, but he was happy to be of help.\"\n\nFacetiously, Beck said, \"Oh, Jesus, Reba, get a grip. I've known for months they were on to me. This is the only thing I was really worried about and now it's taken care of. How much incriminating data you think they'll salvage from this mess?\"\n\n\"Probably none.\"\n\n\"That's right. Thank you very much.\"\n\nBeck saw Reba's attention shift. He looked over his shoulder and spotted Cheney, Vince Turner, and assorted cops and federal agents lined up on the walk. His smile might have faltered, but he didn't seem concerned. He signaled to Willard to let them in. Willard set the gun on the floor, raised his hands to show he had no weapons, and used his jumble of keys to unlock the doors.\n\nReba wasn't finished. \"Only one problem.\"\n\nBeck turned back to her. \"Which is?\"\n\n\"That's not Marty's.\"\n\nBeck laughed. \"You're full of crap.\"\n\nReba shook her head. \"Nope. Not so. The feds didn't like the fact the computer had been stolen so I swapped it back.\"\n\n\"How'd you get into the building?\"\n\n\"He let me in,\" she said, indicating Willard.\n\n\"Give it up, baby. The man works for me.\"\n\n\"Maybe so but I'm the one who's been screwing his brains out. We're just like this.\" She raised her left hand and made a circle with the thumb and index finger. She stuck her right index finger in the hole and pumped it like a piston. Beck winced at the crudity, but Reba laughed.\n\nI shot a quick look at Willard, who dropped his gaze with appropriate modesty. Cops and FBI agents were crowding into the lobby. Cheney picked up Beck's gun and flicked the safety before he handed it to Vince.\n\nReba was saying, \"After Willie let me in, I took Marty's computer up to your office. I disconnected your computer, pulled it out, and put Marty's in its place. Then I put your computer under Marty's desk. That one's Onni's. Nothing much on it but personal correspondence and a bunch of stupid computer games. I can't believe you paid her so well when all she did was waste time.\"\n\nBeck still wasn't buying it. He shook his head, sliding his tongue across his front teeth while trying to suppress a smile. She might as well have been telling him she'd been abducted by aliens for use in sexual experiments.\n\nShe said, \"Want to know what else I did? I'm tellin' you, Beck, I've been a busy little girl. After I swapped computers, I drove over to Salustio's and paid him the twenty-five grand I stole. Marty gave me the cash in exchange for documents he never got to use. Truth is, Salustio didn't give a damn where the money came from. Problem is, I pay him and he's still pissed at me. So I figure to compensate him for the inconvenience, I'd warn him about the raid. That gave him just enough time to get his money out of here. So now all's forgiven. He and", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 435}
{"section": "", "text": "thirdness is, without doubt, his natural statute and the recognition of his semiotic condition, the third term, the figuration of an _orbis tertius_ that criticism carries to planetary dimensions.\n\nWithout claiming to carry out an inventory—since such a proposal alludes to invention—nor to recur to the dangers of taxonomic procedures, but rather to deconstruct on the basis of the critical function whatever taxonomy that tries to register and describe in a restricted way the critical function, it behooves us to recall the arbitrariness that results from the dualities among which we debate.\n\nThe critic installs himself between the author and the reader but, without eluding the network of implications of his work, participates in the attributions and requisites of both and, in a certain way, neutralizes the opposition by way of a third position that involves them both.\n\nThe critical text is found between the text of creation, without ceasing to be itself a creation, and the theoretical text, without ceasing to be theoretical. A convergence organized by forms of knowledge that pass through the imagination or through reason producing a third form of reasoned imagination that defines the predominant characteristic of contemporary literature.\n\nOne could attribute to the vigor of the imagination _the weakness of a thought_ that recognizes hermeneutics as the manifestation of contemporary knowing: \"The contemporaneity of hermeneutics, which is thought of for good reason as the philosophy of modernity,\" a knowing that distances itself from philosophy in order to come closer to history, to the accidental variability of circumstances, in order to disembowel the textual truth. Vattimo attributes to the discoveries of interpretation the mission of a transcendent nature: \"The history of salvation and the history of interpretation are far more tightly bound than the Catholic orthodoxy would like to admit.\"\n\nIn effect, he attributes to hermeneutic intermediation an eternal safe passage: \"salvation occurs through interpretation,\" navigates between different times. The critical gaze makes the past resurface in the present of reading, an ephemeral time that is prolonged or not according to how the critical examination manages to consolidate it. In this sense all criticism is responsible for continuity, is posterior to the literary texts it deals with, a _posterity_ that is consecutive time and suspension of time: heaven. It is, in this sense, that the present of critical interpretation keeps vigil over the text, suspending the difference between times that have passed or, equally, times that will pass.\n\nAlthough it is known to be ephemeral, critical writing scrutinizes a knowledge and, at the moment of finding it, it finds it but without going beyond conjecture, beyond an imminent revelation that remains under suspicion, or a supposition that, in the terms of Charles Sanders Peirce, would be an _abduction_. Neither deduction nor induction, the hypothesis is a sequestering of reason, a supposition that is valid for only a short time, a certainty that is not prolonged for much more than the clarity produced by a lightning bolt. Like the horizon always in flight, one hypothesis is displaced by another hypothesis that is left behind only to be in turn superseded by a new hypothesis, and so on successively: each epoch, each critic, each reader _supposes_.\n\nCritical supposition may be an abduction, or it may prolong the work thanks to an infinite interpretation, like unlimited semiosis, the successive comprehension of which Peirce spoke. For this reason, despite the apparent tautological construction, it would not be merely redundant to propose _the hypothesis that interpretation is a hypothesis_ , a conjecture, a supposition that turns back on itself, a logical figure but also a game of the imagination, \"a play of musement.\" I have already said that in this age, when _positions_ becomes less and less drastic, when _oppositions_ are defended with indifference, it would be possible to find in _supposition_ the personal procedure valid for approaching that scarce reality of reality that is ours, the truth that is ever less convincing, conditioned ever more by a plurality that puts in evidence the dangerous limits of a unique truth.\n\nA hypothesis, a supposition, in both expressions is revealed—from the (in)formation of the word—an operation that lies beneath the text. _To suppose_ means to interpret; _to interpret_ , a way of understanding ( _entender_ ). I do not believe that \"understand\" in English is associated with this hypothetical position (localization), but, without a doubt, comprehension is bound to a perspective that is opened", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 436}
{"section": "", "text": "The hallucinations of his blindness that extend those of dreaming to the wakefulness of his vainly open eyes; the will or valor of anticipating it, first, and the resignation facing the fatality afterward; the certainty of the lucidity in darkness; the memory of the shadow of forgetting; its elegy; the reading not distinguished from writing; are topics run through by an ironic network that multiplies constant references and preferences in poems, books, essays. Like the ambivalences of his memory, the ambivalences of his blindness are so frequent as to discourage, as useless, the catalogue.\n\nWhen Borges formulates the _Elegy of the Shadow_ or records the _History of Night_ , it is not merely a question of affirming that resignation but of exalting the proud _belonging_ to a courageous kin: his literal ancestors (Saxons or Gauchos, both warriors), or his literary ancestors converge in _the_ _myth of the blind poet_.\n\nIt is with difficulty that the coincidence of fatalities must be attributed only to chance, a license of reasoning in which Borges does not believe. He attributes his blindness to God—in whom he also does not believe—to diminish the arrogance or enjoy a chosen liberty. For this reason he oscillates between a God (indefinite but in upper case) or the god (definite but in lower case) who, like in Plato's dialogue, chooses the poet to whom to bequeath the blindness that Borges recognizes as the perfect instrument of another poet. In \"The Other,\" a poem from _The Other, the Same_ , \"the other\" itself is the title of the poem or of the title that he bequeaths as much to Milton as to another blind poet, model of poetry and blindness, who was the first, Homer, or the other who is he himself:\n\nThe pitiless god who is not named gives:  \nTo Milton the walls of shadow,  \nTo Cervantes exile and forgetting.\n\nIn his lecture \"Blindness,\" Borges does not say that Oscar Wilde said it—because he did not say it—but rather that \"it was said\": \"The Greeks maintained that Homer was blind in order to mean that poetry should not be visual, that its duty is to be auditory.\" It is Borges who has Wilde say that it is not important if Homer existed or not, but rather that the Greeks preferred to imagine that he was blind in order to insist on the fact that poetry is above all musical and that the visual in a poet can exist or not.\n\nThe series of enthusiasms, stubborn or blinded (he includes, in passing, Tiresias, who, prophesying, provoked the blindness of Oedipus), is extended to other Argentine writers:\n\nMy blindness had been coming on gradually since childhood. It was a slow, summer twilight. There was nothing pathetic or dramatic about it. Beginning in 1927, I had undergone eight eye operations, but since the late 1950's, when I wrote my \"Poem of the Gifts,\" for reading and writing purposes I have been blind. Blindness ran in my family; a description of the operation performed on the eyes of my great-grandfather Edward Young Haslam appeared in the pages of the London medical journal the _Lancet_. Blindness also seems to run among the directors of the National Library. Two of my eminent forerunners, José Mármol and Paul Groussac, suffered the same fate.\n\nBlindness, a limitation inherited from his elders, made him slide, from the standpoint of that noble and double genealogy: arms into letters, the country into the city, prose into verse, free verse into classic meter; and by way of that adverse itinerary he intended to return to the language of his elders. He says so in an autobiographical essay in which he connects blindness with the mnemonic virtues of verse—other \"mémoires d'aveugle,\" Derrida would say—and the tendency to return through poetry to the story, where a narrative thread, an argument, could lead it like a sonorous thread, a _leitmotiv_ between spaces and walls that do not see, quotidian environments that he passes through without recognizing, converting known objects into enigmas, no less threatening for being familiar, only more frequent. A blindness that textualizes its surroundings as \"the exercise of commentary illuminates the text by adding it to the text", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 437}
{"section": "", "text": ". Norton & Co., 1991), 42.\n\n. Although the actual German adds a letter, again the omnipresent _n_ , the unknown of pure change, to the _nth_ degree: _redner_ ; a _reder_ is rather one who builds ships.\n\n. Christian Reder, _Wörter und Zahlen, Das Alphabet als Code_ (Vienna/New York: Springer, 2000).\n\n. Ibid., 7.\n\n. His whole thought deals with this problem but was first expounded in Richard Rorty, _Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature_ (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1979).\n\n. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, _What Is Philosophy?_ , trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchell (New York: Columbia UP, 1994), 5.\n\n. And yet Kabbalah, as Bloom has said, is not mysticism but interpretation, \"a theory of writing.\" Harold Bloom, _Kabbalah and Criticism_ (New York: Continuum, 1975), 52.\n\n. See chapter 6 of this book.\n\n. Etymology, what Deleuze and Guattari call \"a specifically philosophical athleticism\" ( _What Is Philosophy_ , 8), is one of Block de Behar's cherished tools. Her analysis of the relation between _chance_ and _fall_ appears in chapter 8.\n\n### ONE. FIRST WORDS\n\n. Jorge Luis Borges, _Obras completas_ (Buenos Aires: Emecé Editores, 1974), 522–544.\n\n. Ibid., 444–450.\n\n. Ralph Waldo Emerson, _Essays and Lectures_ (New York: The Library of America, 1983), 455.\n\n. August of 1999 marked the centennial of Borges's birth. Beyond the chronological precision of commemorations, the intention of this book was to contribute to his constant celebration.\n\n. _Perlas de la sabiduría judía (Antología de los hagiógrafos y de Pirké Avot)_ , 2ª edición bilingüe ampliada (Buenos Aires: Editorial Yehuda), 317.\n\n. There is a connotation of the phrase _cita sin fin_ that \"Endless quote\" does not capture, namely, that of a _cinta sin fin_ , or tape recorder on auto-reverse, a metaphor of audio reproduction that resonates with Lisa Block de Behar's notion of the quote [W. E.].\n\n### TWO. VARIATIONS ON A LETTER\n\n. Louis-Auguste Blanqui, _L'éternité par les astres: Hypothèse astronomique_ , ed. L. B. de Behar (Genève: Fleuron-Slatkine, 1996), 149.\n\n. English in the original.\n\n. Jorge Luis Borges, _Obras completas_ (Buenos Aires: Emecé Editores, 1974), 712.\n\n. Emir Rodríguez Monegal, \"Borges y la nouvelle critique,\" _Revista Iberoamericana_ (July–Sept. 1972): 367–390; _Borges par lui-même_ (Paris: Seuil, 1981).\n\n. Gregory Ulmer, \"The Puncept in Grammatology,\" in _On Puns: The Foundation of Letters_ , ed. Jonathan Culler (New York: Blackwell, 1988), 164–189.\n\n. Borges, _Obras completas_ , 173.(Where no volume number is indicated for Borges's _Obras completas_ , the author is citing the single-volume 1974 edition [W. E.].)\n\n. Ibid., 773.\n\n. See Lisa Block de Behar, \"El milagro de la rosa o el ultrarrealismo de Borges,\" in _Al margen de Borges_ (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI Editores, ", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 438}
{"section": "", "text": ". A popular magazine devoted to rural themes [W. E.].\n\n. Borges, _Obras completas_ , 1070.\n\n. Roland Barthes, \"Proust et les noms,\" in _Les critiques de notre temps et Proust_ présentation par Jacques Bersani (Paris: Garnier, 1971), 160.\n\n. The eponymous character of a dialogue of Plato that often carries the subtitle \"On the Precision and Property of Names.\"\n\n. Barthes, \"Proust et les noms,\" 160.\n\n. The action of calling, as much in the religious sense in which God calls, attracts to Himself a person, a people, as in that of the action and result of an installing voice; although similar, that _vocation_ does not correspond completely with what linguistics considers performative utterances.\n\n. Barthes, \"Proust et les noms,\" 163.\n\n. In this case we would have to understand _motivation_ in two of its senses: 1) in general, as movement or that which puts into movement (from Latin: _motor, movere_ : to move); 2) specifically, linguistically, as a principle opposed to the arbitrariness of the sign, a natural reason of being or the (onomatopoetic) possibility that the sign is imitating the thing.\n\n. Roger Dragonetti, _La vie de la lettre au Moyen âge_ (Paris: Seuil, 1980), 22.\n\n. _Propio_ , which also means \"own\" [W. E.].\n\n. Leopoldo Lugones, _Obras poéticas completas_ (Madrid: Aguilar, 1974), 197.\n\n. Geoffrey Hartman, _Saving the Text: Literature/Derrida/Philosophy_ (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1982), 111.\n\n. Reading Dante, Luce Fabbri de Cressatti observed that some Italian nouns carry two meanings: one subjective and the other objective. \"The distinction is found in the Latin grammars apropos of the specifying complements that carry out a subjective as well as an objective function, when the idea of an action or a sentiment is included in the respective noun. There are still today nouns that can have a specifying complement of both kinds. Typical example: 'The love of God' ( _of God_ is ambiguous. According to the context it could be 'the love of God for the world' or 'the love of the world for God').\" From _Informe sobre sustantivos italianos susceptibles de dos significados, uno subjetivo y otro objetivo_ , unpublished manuscript by Luce Fabbri de Cressatti, whom I asked and now I thank.\n\n. Emir Rodríguez Monegal, \"Borges & Derrida: Boticarios,\" _Maldoror_ 21 (1985): 123–132.\n\n. Lisa Block de Behar, \"A manera de prólogo,\" in _El texto según Genette, Maldoror_ 20 (1985): 17–29.\n\n. Gershom Scholem, _La kabbale et sa symbolique_ (Paris: Payot, 1975), 40.\n\n. What follows depends on the words _clave_ and _llave_ in Spanish, both of which are translated by the English \"key,\" the former denoting the musical key and connoting the more figurative meanings of \"key,\" the latter the literal, physical object [W. E.].\n\n. Edmond Jabès, _Ça suit son cours_ (Montpellier: Fata Morgana, 1975), 58.\n\n. Lisa Block de Behar, _Una retórica del silencio_ (México: Siglo XXI Editores, 1984).\n\n. _Lectarios_ —The term I use for those characters who, in the text, appear as listeners of an out-loud reading realized by another character: neither proper listeners nor proper readers (the Gutres, little Marcel of the _Recherche_ , little Jean of _Les mots_ , etc.); they are included in a literary species whose", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 439}
{"section": "", "text": ". \"Your mind must leap from a third-person perspective—'he' or 'she'—to a first person perspective—'I.' Comedians have long known how to exaggerate this leap.... To see ourselves as others see us.... This dramatic shift is a discovery.\" Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett, _The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul_ (New York: Bantam Books, 1981), 20–21. The text with which the book begins is \"Borges and I.\" It would have been interesting to observe that dramatic chance—in the strong sense of the term, as well—on the basis of the story we are analyzing here.\n\n. Derrida, _La Dissémination_ , 120.\n\n. Borges, _Obras completas_ , 496–498.\n\n. Ibid., 514–518.\n\n. Ibid., 550–556.\n\n. Ibid., 556.\n\n. Harold Bloom, _A Map of Misreading_ (New York: Oxford UP, 1980), 3.\n\n. Charles Sanders Peirce, _Collected Papers_ (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1931–1958), 332.\n\n. Umberto Eco, _Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language_ (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1984), 26.\n\n. Rosalie Colie, _Paradoxia Epidemica: The Renaissance Tradition of Paradox_ (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1976), 517–518.\n\n. Borges, _Obras completas_ , 508–513.\n\n. Ibid., 508.\n\n. Heraclitus, fragment 70, quoted in Abel Jeannière, _Héraclite_ , traduction et commentaire des _Fragments_ (Paris: Aubier, 1985), 114.\n\n. Borges, \"De las alegorías a las novelas\" and \"El ruiseñor de Keats,\" _Otras inquisiciones, Obras completas_ , 718 and 745.\n\n. I here adopt both literary notions of the two famous essays of John Barth that appear, respectively, under those titles in _The Friday Book_ (New York: Perigee Book/Putnam, 1984), 62–76 and 193–206.\n\n. Jacques Derrida, \" 'Psyché o la invención del otro,\" in _Diseminario: La desconstrucción, otro descubrimiento de América_ , ed. Lisa Block de Behar (Montevideo: XYZ Editores, 1987), 49–106, 57.\n\n. Borges, \"Tema del traidor y del héroe,\" _Obras completas_ , 496. Borges combines the disjunctive gesture (an excluding alternative) with equivalence (a copulative union).\n\n. Although Borges does not explicitly consider this semantic and numeric aspect of the term, he titles one of his last collections of poems _The Cipher_ ( _La cifra_ , Buenos Aires: Emecé Editores, 1981).\n\n. Heraclitus, fragment 51, quoted in Abel Jeannière, _Héraclite_ , 111.\n\n. Borges, in _Ficciones, Obras completas_ , 485–490.\n\n. Borges, _Obra poética_ , 353–354.\n\n. Ibid., 353.\n\n. Borges, _Obras completas_ , 488.\n\n. Ibid., 490.\n\n. Ibid., 490.\n\n. Ibid., 718.\n\n. Martin Heidegger, _Phénoménologie de l'esprit de Hegel_ , sec. II, trans. Françoise d' Emmanuel Martineau (Paris: Gallimard, 1984), 112.\n\n. Paz, _Árbol ad", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 440}
{"section": "", "text": ". _The Holy Bible, New International Version_ (International Bible Society, 1973), 26; <http://www.gospelcom.net/ibs/bibles/use.html>.\n\n. Christiane Chauviré, _Ludwig Wittgenstein_ (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1989), 234.\n\n. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, _El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha_ , 9 vols., ed. Francisco Rodríguez Marín (Madrid: Ediciones \"La Lectura,\" 1911).\n\n. Borges, \"Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote,\" _Obras completas_ , I: 444–450.\n\n. Arthur Conan Doyle, _The Valley of Fear_ (1915), _The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes_ (London: Penguin Books, 1981), 802.\n\n. Jacques Rancière, _Les noms de l'histoire: Essai de poétique du savoir_ (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1992), 98.\n\n. Thomas A. Sebeok, _A Sign Is Just a Sign_ (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1991), 20.\n\n. From Lat. _eliminare_ , \"faire sortir, mettre dehors,\" of _ex-limen, liminis_ , \"seuil.\" (...) 1777; \"[the term] is resurrected in algebra in the sense of 'to make disappear' (one or more unknowns) of a group of equations such as to obtain one equation with only one unknown. Alain Rey, _Dictionnaire historique de la langue française_ (Paris: Le Robert, 1992), 673.\n\n. Arthur Conan Doyle, _The Sign of Four_ (1890), _The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes_. (England: Penguin Books, 1981), 111.\n\n. Rancière, _Les noms de l'histoire_ , 22.\n\n. _idea_ —from Gr. v. _idein_ , aorist of _horan_ = to see.\n\n. Robert Hewison, _John Ruskin: The Argument of the Eye_ (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 57.\n\n. Plato, _Kratylos. Crátilo. Diálogos_ , trans., foreword and notes by J. L. Calvo (Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1983), II: 365.\n\n. Buenos Aires, October 1985.\n\n. Borges, \"El Golem,\" _Obras completas_ , II: 263–265.\n\n. Borges, \"Pierre Menard,\" _Obras completas_ , I: 449–450.\n\n. Borges, \"La supersticiosa ética del lector\" (1932), _Discusión, Obras completas_ , I: 202–205; \"Parábola del palacio\" (1960), _El hacedor, Obras completas_ , II: 179–180; \"Del rigor en las ciencias\" (1960), _El hacedor, Obras completas_ , II: 225.\n\n. Stéphane Mallarmé, \"Le démon de l'analogie\" (1874), in _Oeuvres complètes_ , ed. Henri Mondor and G. Jean-Aubry (Paris: Gallimard, 1945), 272–273.\n\n. 1 Corinthians, 13: 8–10.\n\n. Quoted in Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, _La poésie comme expérience_ (Paris: Christian Bourgois, 1986), 54.\n\n### FIFTEEN. THE PLACE OF THE LIBRARY\n\n. Jorge Luis Borges, _Obras completas_ (Buenos Aires: Emecé,", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 441}
{"section": "", "text": "**123RF.com:** ermess 50cla; manganganath 100b; Sean Pavone 85cla; seregalsv 119tl, 170bl; Figurniy Sergey 30br; Michael Spring 145bl; sytnik 50cra.\n\n**4Corners:** Anna Serrano 46br; Luigi Vaccarella 2-3.\n\n**Michael Abid:** 86-7.\n\n**Alamy Stock Photo:** Mauricio Abreu 48br, 83br, 89b, 111tr; age fotostock 51bl, / Ken Welsh 137clb; Paulo Amorim 30-1t; Juanma Aparicio 155ca; Archive PL 132cl; John Baran 138br; Antoine Barthelemy 29tr; Bildagentur-online / McPhoto-Boyungs 81tc; Dominic Blewett 45cl; Brazil Photo Press 51tl; Michael Brooks 39b, 134cl, 137bl; David Coleman 122tr; UtCon Collection 140bc; Education & Exploration 1 35br, 81tr; Luis Elvas 70tr; Faraway Photos 135tr; Folio Images 55br; Kevin Foy 34-5t; Greta Gabaglio 40bl; Kevin George 29br; GL Archive 54br; Mauritius images GmbH 168-9t; André Vicente Gonçalves 55tr; Granger Historical Picture Archive 53bc, 53br; Jeff Greenberg 132-3b; Emile Haydon 127t; Hemis 22bl, 41clb, 42br, 44bl, 44-5t, 75tr; Peter Herbert 16c, 58-9; Heritage Image Partnership Ltd 52br; Peter Horree 53tl, 54tl; Hufton+Crow-VIEW 46-7t; imageimage 129tl; INTERFOTO 54bl, 126tc; John Kellerman 53clb; Art Kowalsky 38bl, 137crb; David Litschel 10br; Photolocation ltd 67t, 166b; Pictorial Press Ltd 122bc; M.Sobreira 22cr, 102t, 157br; Cro Magnon 19, 148-9; dov makabaw 32-3b; Martin Thomas Photography 20t, 24t, 42-3t; McPHOTO 37tl; Mikehoward 1 90bl; Tuul and Bruno Morandi 12clb, 32-3t; Ilpo Musto 13t; newborn 24cr; nobleIMAGES 8-9; North Wind Picture Archives 54-5t; Ian Patrick 49cla; Sean Pavone 11cr, 52bc; Roman Pesarenko 146tl; Photolocation 3 33cl; Photononstop 8cl; Luis Miguel Lopes Pina 160-1t; David L. Moore - PRT 49b; Alex Ramsay 147cr; Simon Reddy 33crb; Mieneke Andeweg-van Rijn 155cla; robertharding 4, 48-9t; RosaIreneBetancourt 10 45br; RosaIreneBetancourt 12 36tl; RosaIreneBetancourt 3 38-9t; RosaIreneBetancourt 7 121t; Chantel Rowe 27crb; Sagaphoto.com / Stephane Gautier 136-7t; Philip Scalia 39cr; Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo 108bl; WENN UK 40-1t; Westend61 GmbH 75br; Rob Wilkinson", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 446}
{"section": "", "text": "Front and spine:_ **Alamy Stock Photo:** Sean Pavone.  \n _Back:_ **Alamy Stock Photo:** Art Kowalsky c, Sean Pavone b, Jan Wlodarczyk cla; **Getty Images:** Alexander Spatari tr.\n\nFor further information see www.dkimages.com\n\n# CONTRIBUTORS\n\n### Print\n\n**Main Contributers** Matthew Hancock and Mandy Tomlin, Andy Gregory, Susie Boulton, Sarah McAlister  \n**Senior Editor** Ankita Awasthi Tröger  \n**Senior Designer** Owen Bennett  \n**Project Editors** Rachel Thompson, Lucy Sienkowska  \n**Project Art Editors** Dan Bailey, Tania Gomes, Vinita Venugopal, Bharti Karakoti, Hansa Babra, Ankita Sharma  \n**Design Assistant** William Robinson  \n**Factchecker** Andy Gregory  \n**Editors** Jackie Staddon, Alison McGill   \n**Proofreader** Christine Stroyan  \n**Indexer** Helen Peters  \n**Senior** **Picture Researcher** Ellen Root  \n**Picture Research** Vishal Ghavri, Sumita Khatwani, Deepak Negi, Mark Thomas, Harriet Whitaker   \n**Illustrators** Isidoro González-Adalid Cabezas/Acanto Arquitectura y Urbanismo S.L., Paul Guest, Claire Littlejohn, John Woodcock, Martin Woodward  \n**Senior Cartographic Editor** Casper Morris   \n**Cartography** Zafar u Islam Khan, James Macdonald  \n**Jacket Designers** Maxine Pedliham, Bess Daly  \n**Jacket Picture Research** Susie Peachey  \n**Senior DTP Designer** Jason Little   \n**DTP Coordinators** George Nimmo, Tanveer Zaidi  \n**Senior Producer** Stephanie McConnell  \n**Managing Editor** Hollie Teague  \n**Art Director** Maxine Pedliham  \n**Publishing Director** Georgina Dee\n\n### eBOOK\n\n**Senior Digital Producer** Miguel Cunha  \n**Production Manager** Rebecca Short  \n**Digital Design Manager** Nain Rawat  \n**Digital Producer** Alex Valizadeh  \n**Digital Editor** Suruchi Kakkar\n\n**The information in this DK Eyewitness Travel Guide is checked regularly.**\n\nEvery effort has been made to ensure that this book is as up-to-date as possible at the time of going to press. Some details, however, such as telephone numbers, opening hours, prices, gallery hanging arrangements and travel information, are liable to change. The publishers cannot accept responsibility for any consequences arising from the use of this book, nor for any material on third party websites, and cannot guarantee that any website address in this book will be a suitable source of travel information. We value the views and suggestions of our readers very highly. Please write to: Publisher, DK Eyewitness Travel Guides, Dorling Kindersley, 80 Strand, London, WC2R 0RL, UK, or email: travelguides@dk.com\n\nFirst edition 1997\n\nPublished in Great Britain by Dorling Kindersley Limited,  \n80 Strand, London, WC2R 0RL\n\nPublished in the United States by DK Publishing,  \n345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014\n\nCopyright © 1997, 2019 Dorling Kindersley Limited  \nA Penguin Random House Company  \n19 20 21 22 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1\n\nAll rights reserved.\n\nNo part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.\n\nA CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.\n\nA catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.\n\nISSN: 1542 1554  \n[UK eBOOK] ISBN: 9780241388167\n\nwww.dk.com\n\n# CON", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 447}
{"section": "", "text": "worst, by far, was my head. When I turned, I could feel a slight tug on the back of my neck where dried blood had glued my hair to my skin.\n\nHe stepped back, putting distance between us. \"I think you're right; I do need a shower. I need to wash your deluded filth from me.\"\n\nDespite his appearances, I was beginning to see he was no idiot, just crazy.\n\n\"I'm not the deluded one here, Frank. You are if you think you're going to rule the world. You may be strong, but there are more humans than you can deal with. And you know it, or you wouldn't be hiding the fact you're a werewolf.\"\n\n\"You know nothing. You're just a tiny, insignificant piece in a global puzzle.\"\n\n\"There is no puzzle, just a greedy, crazy werewolf leading other crazy, greedy werewolves. And if I'm so insignificant, then why take me? Let me go.\"\n\n\"The only crazy thing about Blake was his decision to let Richard keep you for four years. Your time's up. We've waited long enough for you to come to the right decision on your own. Now, we will decide for you. We'll start with you, and then we'll help the rest of your sisters. We will stop this cycle, and a judgment will be made.\"\n\nHe slowly approached me with a wild light in his eyes. He didn't look upset anymore, and that worried me. He slowly knelt in front of me, spreading my knees so his hips were against the chair. His stench was overwhelming.\n\n\"You can end this now.\" He tilted his neck so I could see the dirt rings there. \"Claim me. I will raise your brothers to be strong, not the little weaklings Richard made them.\"\n\nThey were _not_ weaklings. The courage they'd displayed when I'd run with them and when David had found us again, was undeniable. Weaklings were men like Frank and Blake who bullied and hurt people. Torn on how to respond, I simply chose to turn away from him. Spitting in his eye like I wanted to do would probably just result in more bleeding on my part.\n\nHe growled furiously and shoved himself to his feet. I watched him from the corner of my eye. At first, I thought he would hit me and inwardly cringed. After a moment, he seemed to calm himself and swung away to move toward the bathroom. He left the door open, no doubt so he could hear me. I averted my eyes and thought back to what he'd said.\n\nHe was right. I didn't know anything. What sisters was he talking about? I was an only child from my father and had two brothers from my mom. No sisters. And what was an Urbat? He made it sound different from a werewolf.\n\nPerhaps I didn't need Blake. It seemed Frank had some answers, too. I just needed to figure out how to get them. The thought of being nice to him made my stomach roll. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad once he was clean.\n\nThe water turned on, and the shower curtain rustled. I risked a quick glance at the bathroom where I, thankfully, couldn't see him, then turned to look for something that might help me get out of the ties. Even the slightest tug hurt so I didn't try too hard. What was the point if I bruised myself so badly I couldn't run? I knew they wanted me alive. I was too valuable to them, which was probably why I hadn't been hurt worse.\n\nThe sudden silence from the bathroom brought me back from my thoughts. There was no way his shower had been long enough to get rid of the smell. I quickly turned away, afraid he'd come marching out in the nude. I grew nervous when he didn't make any noise for several minutes.\n\n\"Afraid you'll see something you like?\" His voice, inches from my ear, startled me.\n\nI squeezed my eyes shut and answered with more bravado than I felt. \"Hardly. I just don't think my stomach can take much more—\"\n\nHe smacked me upside the back of the head, stopping the rest of my comment. I winced and swallowed hard against the pain. It could have been worse.\n\nRisking another smack, I kept talking, hoping he'd give away some useful information. \"You know, it's that kind of treatment that had me running in the first place. If you", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 448}
{"section": "", "text": "\"We're going to need to get our things,\" he said, noting the direction of my glance.\n\nI wrinkled my nose but knew he was right. Our plane tickets were still there.\n\n\"They dropped these off this morning,\" he said, showing me a pair of black, slipper flats. He didn't let me take them, but went to a knee to help put them on so I wouldn't need to bend. The flats fit me well enough.\n\nHe stood again. \"Ready?\"\n\n\"Just a second.\"\n\nI walked back into the bedroom to make sure we weren't forgetting anything. Not much to forget since we'd arrived with just the clothes on our backs, but I still felt the need to check. Maybe I simply needed to look at the room one more time.\n\nIt was hard not to stare at the bed for a moment as the reality of what I'd done settled over me. Engaged. I didn't really feel engaged. Of all the different ways I'd imagined last night playing out after the bite, it had been completely different than I'd expected.\n\nI wondered when I'd feel something from Emmitt like Nana Wini had mentioned. All I felt at the moment was my complete contentment. I paused. Was I really content? A little. But I felt nervous about meeting the lawyer, tired, and sore, too. I missed my brothers and wanted to get back home.\n\nEmmitt stood in the doorway behind me, watching, and gave me a questioning look. Understanding dawned, and I smiled at him in wonder. It wasn't my contentment I was feeling, but his.\n\nI moved to twine my fingers through his. \"I'm ready.\"\n\nHe kissed the back of my hand, and we left the room.\n\nThe person at the front desk called a cab for us, and within minutes, we were making our way back to the old hotel. I still worried Blake had lied on the phone and would be waiting either at the hotel or at the lawyer's office. I didn't trust him after everything he'd done to me.\n\nThe cab pulled up to the hotel's drop off, and I eyed the building. Everything looked normal from the outside, but I really didn't want to go back in there. Emmitt seemed to sense my concern and told me to wait in the cab while he ran in. It was a nerve-racking wait. I scanned the parking lot around us the whole time. I caught the cabbie looking at me several times and figured I wasn't being as casual about it as I'd hoped. If I'd seen anything, I would have been yelling at the cabby to \"go, go, go!\" like in the movies.\n\nThankfully, Emmitt returned before I had to do anything so drastic. Grey and Carlos trailed behind him with their bags. I couldn't believe they had stayed in their old room. What if Blake had come back? I couldn't say anything as they piled in. The cabbie already looked ready to tell me to get out.\n\nEmmitt gave the driver the lawyer's address as he handed me my slack bag. He caught my look at the bag and shrugged.\n\n\"There was nothing else worth taking.\"\n\nI wondered what they'd done to our things and dejectedly faced forward. I wanted to go back home. I wanted Blake to leave me alone for good. I wanted to see my brothers. Above all, I wanted some time with Emmitt where we could just be normal. Well, as normal as an engaged werewolf and human could be.\n\nWith Emmitt beside me, I calmed slightly, and we rode in silence to our next stop.\n\nThe news crew waited outside the lawyer's office. Carlos and Grey hung back, looking like personal bodyguards. In a way, I guessed that they were.\n\nAfter the reporter introduced herself, we started talking about my sudden fortune and the cause of it. I had to look appropriately upset since Richard had passed away scarcely a month ago. Thankfully, that topic was short-lived. They recorded most of our conversation, but I knew they'd edit the heck out of it to make it news worthy.\n\nI answered as many questions as I could; and by the time we needed to go in, I'd committed to a charity and an amount. Though I invited the reporter to come inside with us, she declined. She already had the information she needed from the copy of the will she'd acquired and our talk.\n\nTrepidation filled me as I watched her walk away. If the news crew left, were we still safe?", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 449}
{"section": "", "text": "didn't know how he'd known I was getting cold but appreciated that he did. He claimed a quick kiss when he handed it to me. Holding hands, we walked into the meeting room.\n\nNana Wini sat at the table. I eased myself onto the chair beside her and tried not to wince at the tenderness in my stomach, a pointless effort since everyone in the room watched me closely.\n\n\"What happened to you? I can smell blood,\" Nana said, concerned.\n\n\"I ran into a door.\" I smirked at being able to use that line. No one in the room appreciated my humor. I cleared my throat and looked at Thomas.\n\n\"Thank you for keeping Liam and Aden safe. Frank admitted Blake attempted to get them back.\" I glanced at Nana Wini. \"I'm guessing Frank followed us here and called Blake. I think Blake was on his way here while we were going to him. Anyway, when we got to Wisconsin,\" I gently massaged my head, remembering, \"I got a visit from Frank. He's the reason I ran into a door. He took me to another hotel and started saying some weird things...like I was just one piece of a huge puzzle and that they would start with me but get all of my sisters.\"\n\n\"You have sisters?\" Nana Wini asked.\n\n\"No, I don't. I think he means women like me—us.\" I met Charlene's eyes. \"I've been having visions of other women. So far, there seems to be five of us total. I'm guessing each of us has a unique ability. One of the women seemed to have a calming effect on the crowd around her. The other two were harder to tell.\" I paused, thinking. \"Does Gabby have any special abilities?\"\n\n\"She's told Sam about an unusual pull she has on human men. According to Sam, they appear to be very attracted to her. Yet, our men don't seem any more or less attracted to her because of it,\" Charlene said.\n\nIf I had premonitions, Charlene could control minds, and the redhead could influence people's emotions, I didn't see how being exceptionally attractive qualified as a special ability.\n\n\"Hmm. My abilities changed when I met Emmitt and again when I met you. You said yours first changed when you Claimed Thomas. Maybe hers will manifest when she's with her Mate?\"\n\nNana Wini spoke up. \"She found her Mate but isn't acknowledging him. We'll have to keep an eye on the situation.\"\n\n\"What happened when you met me?\" Charlene asked, circling back to what I'd said.\n\n\"Well, it wasn't exactly when we met but when we first touched. Before meeting any of you, my premonitions were about the stock markets. When I met Emmitt, I started to see people. Women. But when I first touched you, I was transported to another place. It was like a white nothing filled with monitors. Each monitor had an image of one of us, women with power. Around us, there were always werewolves. Somehow, we're in the middle of them. I wasn't able to study the images before I was pulled out of that place.\"\n\n\"When I let go,\" Charlene said, nodding. \"It makes sense. I seem to enhance Thomas's ability as pack leader through our mental link. Perhaps I enhance yours when we touch.\"\n\n\"Maybe,\" I said. \"I did notice something else important, I think. The images I've seen played out when touching Emmitt are the same ones in that room. I'm thinking that's my source. And I'm still not clear why I don't see a vision every time I'm with Emmitt.\" There was a lot I wasn't clear about, actually.\n\n\"To be safe, we need to warn Gabby about Blake and his men,\" I said. \"And I think we need to look for the others like us. I don't want any of them to have to deal with Frank or Blake on their own.\"\n\nEmmitt reached over and clasped my hand. I smiled at him reassuringly, not wanting him to think I was blaming him.\n\n\"Did Frank say anything more about the puzzle? What he meant?\" Nana Wini asked.\n\n\"No. Nothing clear, anyway. He said they were going to stop this cycle so a judgment would be made. He was talking about Urbat, making it sound like it was another type of werewolf.\"\n\nEveryone sat quietly for a few moments,", "title": "", "token_count": 1024, "id": 450}