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We'll take the shortcut."
     
She smiled, thankful for her guardian angel. Linking arms again, she allowed Harlan Porter to lead her into the darkest shadows between the buildings.
     
"As far as I can tell," he said casually as they walked, "the only thing wrong with you is that you're a tad too trusting."
     
With no more warning than that he pushed her hard against the brick wall of one of the houses and pressed his forearm equally hard against her throat. She slumped almost immediately.
     
Consciousness seemed to come slowly. First there was the sweet sensation of breathing, then the sting of something cold and wet on her face. She heard voices next, and moments later light began to sift through the veil of her heavy, dark lashes. It was as if her senses were coming alive in layers. She groaned softly and brushed ineffectually at the wetness on her face.
     
Harlan Porter wiped her cheeks and brows once more with the damp handkerchief. He considered her efforts to push him away as a good sign. She was of no value to him if she was out cold.
     
They were no longer in the passageway. It was the first thing that registered when she opened her eyes. Neither were they alone.
     
Harlan Porter was holding her steady with one arm and using the other to gesture wildly as he spoke to the man who had joined them. They were standing at the servants' entrance at the rear of a large brownstone and it appeared to her that the stranger had come outside because he didn't want Harlan Porter in the home.
     
"I'm telling you, Wicken," Harlan said again, "he's going to want to see what I've got here. She's a near perfect match to what he described to me."
     
She saw Mr. Wicken's square jaw harden and his eyes narrow as he assessed her skeptically from head to toe. She doubted her efforts to return the stare were nearly as threatening.
     
"It may be as you say, Porter, but you have to get past me first, don't you?"
     
Harlan frowned. "You want to use her first, is that it?" When his question was met with stony silence he finally shrugged. "It's your neck," he said. "As for myself, I don't care, and it makes no difference to her, but if he ever finds out that you're sampling his goods, he'll put you out in the street."
     
"Is that a threat?" Wicken asked.
     
"He won't find out from me," Harlan said. "I can't speak for the lady."
     
Wicken's eyes returned to her. Without warning his hand shot out and encircled her neck. His fingers squeezed hard enough to bruise her skin while his eyes slid insolently over her face. "Well?" he asked.
     
"Will you be saying anything?"
     
The pressure and pain in her throat was so great that she thought she would simply faint with it. She clawed at Wicken's forearm but he didn't remove his hand. She closed her eyes and only Harlan Porter's arm at her waist kept her upright.
     
"Let her go, Wicken," Porter said.
     
Wicken released his hand slowly, smiling as she sucked in air. "I think I can count on her keeping quiet."
     
Porter propped her against the wall and put out his hand, palm up, to Wicken. "I'll take my finder's fee now, thank you."
     
"Not until I've had my sample. She may not be worth anything; then Mr. Bea le won't pay.
     
"He's always paid because I've always found him what he's wanted."
     
She seized her opportunity as Porter and Wicken argued. She pushed away from the wall and hurtled herself over the porch rail, sprinting across the backyard and into the alley behind the house.
     
Ignoring Wicken's shout and Porter's demand that she stop, she skirted the edge of a picket fence until she found the gate. She fumbled with the closure, forced it open, and ran into the yard of another brownstone. Heading straight for the back porch, she took both steps in a single leap and threw herself against the screen door, pounding on the frame with the last of her strength.
     
Harlan caught up to her just as the door was flung open. She was pushed into the dark corner of the porch where she