Kyle rolled over in the early morning to the ring of the phone. Reaching for it before it woke up the kids, he half sat up. Vicky was awake too. Her hand rested low on his back.

“Yeah?”

“Kyle, this is Debra.”

“What’s up, Deb?” Kyle squinted at the clock trying to clear his eyes as the dispatch operator gave him information. Three A.M. Kyle's whole body went still, and he quickly grabbed a pen and wrote down the vital information. “Tell the unit on the site that I’m on my way.”

Kyle turned and looked at his wife. “I’m really sorry about this.”

“Don’t be silly. Go.”

“Vicky…”

“Kyle, you’re a cop. It happens. The same would be true if you were a doctor, fireman, or did some other job. Go. It’s okay. I swear.” Kyle still looked uncertain, but Vicky grabbed him back and kissed him hard. “Just you be careful out there, Deputy, or you’ll be hearing from me.”

Kyle smiled and leaned down trapping her to the bed and kissed her passionately. “You have a meeting today with a Special Ed counselor, right?”

“Ten thirty. Mom is watching the kids.”

“Good. Meet me at the Crashdown for lunch so you can tell me everything about the meeting. Say noon? Or call me on the cell phone if you’re done earlier.”

Vicky looked at him uncertain. “You might not be able to get away. Whatever this is might…”

“I’ll be there. I promise.”

Kyle kissed her again and took off to get dressed. He had a body. On the edge of the Mescalero Reservation. He hoped it wasn’t Maria DeLuca.

~~~

“Maria?” Michael tried to wake her. It was early morning, but he wanted to hit the road before the sun rose and the entire world became one of the levels of Dan te’s Hell. Most days New Mexico, and specifically Roswell were just Purgatory, but when it was over a hundred degrees, it was definitely Hell.

“Hmmm. Sleeping.”

“We need to get up and get going. We can make Tucson in about three hours, four at the max.”

Maria turned over and looked at the clock. It was still the middle of the night. She was tired. Just ignoring him, she went back to sleep.

“Maria…”

“No. Wake me in a couple of hours. It’s too early.”

Michael sighed. They needed to get on the road. The sooner the better. They could make Tucson around early morning traffic and sleep at her place. The sooner they were off the highways the better. Scooting down into the bed, he turned her in his arms and moved his mouth down her neck.

“Not going to work. Go away.”

Michael ignored her and kept moving downward, settling on her breasts, the right one and then the left, taking extra care to painfully nip the tender bud of the right one hard enough to almost send her into an orgasm. Her breasts were her downfall. She was so sensitive, and she liked it hot and a little rough. Her entire body tightened.

“Damn, you…” she said in a husky whisper.

Michael smiled as he moved on down, pulling the skin of her stomach into his mouth to nip not so gently. She was squirming beneath his mouth, under his hands, as her body ignored the instructions of her brain. The dichotomous traitor. Her brain was demanding rest, but her evil body was more than just a little awake.

When Michael’s teeth bit her inner thigh, she actually came. Shameful. Blasphemous bastard taking advantages of her weakened state! But he didn’t stop. Maria ran her fingers through his long hair calling him all sorts of names between pleas not to stop. He was better than straight caffeine.

When he reached for a condom she was hardly aware of her name, which was befitting since she could hardly remember anything else about herself. Finally giving up on sleep, she held on and enjoyed the early morning ride. There were rides, and then there were rides.

Michael pulled her close as the usual race of electrical impulses exploded along his lower spine and moved upward to the base of his neck. She was limp, clinging to him after three orgasms, all before breakfast.

“We really need to get going,” he said rubbing his chin on the crown of her head loving the feel of her body and legs moving along his. The room was cool, almost too cool due to the fixed air conditioner.

Maria just kissed his chest and settled in. “Sleeping.”

“Maria...” Michael looked down at her and gave up. Maybe sex wasn’t the most brilliant solution, because suddenly he felt like another few hours as well.

~~~

“Kyle.” Hanson came to stand next to Kyle handing him a cup of coffee.

“What took you so long, Hanson? I expected you to beat me here.”

Hanson drank deeply of his coffee and looked into the bottom of the cup, praying for more. “I sort of had a late night, and forgot to take my cell phone.”

“Sleep over?”

“Yeah.”

“So how is Sarah?”

Hanson tried to not appear too concerned as he waited on the side as the coroner finished up on the body. “You see the body yet?” He ignored the question.

“Nope. The coroner is taking his time.”

“DeLuca?”

Kyle just shook his head. “No. Male. White. Approximately forty-three years old.”

“So what’s taking so long?”

Kyle took a sip of his coffee. “Identification is tricky. All the bones in his body were crushed. Including his skull.”

“Fuck me!”

Kyle just shook his head. “Not in this lifetime, buddy. Plus thought Sarah already took care of that earlier.”

“We broke up.” Hanson said quietly.

Kyle looked at his friend, and someone he knew almost his entire life. “Geez, tonight? Sorry about that…”

“No over a week ago. Tonight was…someone else.”

“Oh.” Kyle was silent for a while. He couldn’t wrap his mind around Hanson and Sarah not together. They were childhood sweethearts, the real deal. “So how are you?”

“I miss Sarah.” Hanson was saved from commenting any more by the coroner walking towards them.

“You can look around now, Deputies. My teams are finished. They'll take the body whenever you’re ready.” The man nodded to his assistant who had all the collected physical evidence and film shots. “We should have all the evidence sorted and sent on the forensic l ab b y mid-morning.”

“Any identification on the body?”

“No. He was clean, and despite the state of the remains, someone cleaned the body, maybe even vacuumed it. Whoever did this didn’t want it to come back on them.”

Hanson went forward and looked the sack of human remains, a bag of human flesh holding pulp, blood, and bones. The face was almost unrecognizable, but he moved around to the other side.

“Kyle?”

“Yeah?” Kyle turned from where he was talking to the coroner. It was established that the man was killed there. Kyle thought it looked more like a dumping, but the blood from the body was too much to deny. Strange. The blood dispersement pattern was wrong. It reminded him of the splat marks left on a pavement from stepping on a bug. Squished out in all directions the body was shattered. To achieve that amount of was unthinkable.

“Come look at this.” Kyle and the curious forensic team returned to the body, and Hanson shined a light on the face which had a disturbing flat feature to it with all the bones crushed and broken.

Kyle swore. Special Agent Burns.

~~~

Amy DeLuca sat in a chair in the Roswell PD drinking coffee. She exchanged sympathetic smiles with Kyle as Jim Valenti’s voice rose in the background behind his shut door. Grimacing at the anger in his voice, she calmly continued to drink her coffee. “This is outside your jurisdiction, Special Agent. I’ll not have you interfering with my watch commanders or their units.”

Kyle exchanged a look with Hanson. Special Agent Stevenson had been in the Sheriff’s office almost from the moment it was announced that they recovered Burns’ body. The man was pushing to have the investigation turned over to the Bureau. “He was my field agent. I’ll call…”

“No one. Homicide in my terri tory is my jurisdiction, not yours. I suggest you leave and return to your duties so I can return to mine.”

Amy made a face as a few more choice words were spoken and finally a man of medium height and slightly balding came rushing out in his suit with a long jacket over his arm. Amy immediately recognized him as a diminutive man who held his power firmly, since he lacked so much more in his personal life. Women probably ignored him. The heat was stifling, and Amy couldn’t see how he could stand to be so overdressed. Jim came to stand next to Amy, watching Stevenson leave.

“Kyle. Hanson.” Jim called to his two Deputies. “We’ve got maybe forty-eight hours, if we’re lucky, to find out everything we can about the Burns case. If we lose it, we lose the DeLuca case as well, and…” Jim looked down at Amy, “I won’t lose the DeLuca case.”

Amy whispered a silent thanks to Jim.

~~~

Michael made Tucson just after nine in the morning. Maria was still hanging on tight, but it seemed that much of her weight was resting against his back. It took him a little while, after stopping for a city map and then some directions before they found Maria’s home. It was in a large bank of upscale renovated apartments and suites in the warehouse and business district. She lived in the unit she rented for studio space in an upper loft. The units around her were design companies, advertising agencies and a few other art studios.

Michael finally located her studio, and Maria seemed interested in the area around it, searching it like it possibly held the key to her memory.

“Can you open the locks?” Maria asked noticing the many deadbolts.

“Oh, I think so.” Michael held up the set of keys he found in her hotel room. Maria just made a sound of disgust and leaned against the door.

“I was hoping you were going to do it in your own special way. It gets me all turned on, hot, and everything.”

Michael looked at her, and her eyes were twinkling. Moving his gaze down to her mouth and then back up to her eyes again, he leaned into her, kissing her hard. “Far as I can tell, everything gets you turned on.”

“Again! Calling me a slut! I tell you, it must be you, or the fact I’m uninhibited.”

“Uh huh.” Michael unlocked the last lock and stood aside to let her enter her work space and home.

It was a large two-story studio loft area, almost as big as his house. The first floor had a large open kitchen and living room which looked well lived in, but the majority of space was her artist's studio. There were finished pieces of sculpture and numerous completed paintings stacked against the wall. The wall of an entire side of the loft was a mural done in paint overlay with hanging frames, thousands of them in varying sizes, some hanging by an edge and others in a square with smaller ones inside larger ones, some overlapping. The background mural consisted of rectangles and triangles with spirals looping from the edges. It was done in lighter colors, but the spirals were trimmed in darkness almost sucking the viewer into a endless vortex where it was unclear whether it was light or darkness that awaited them.

The entire face of the front wall was a large window - so many panes of glass, large industrial glass windows and an upper ceiling with skylights, all of it letting the sun into the loft for most of the day. The only dark area was the upstairs loft area. That had to be her bedroom. Under the loft stairs was another room with a large bathroom beside it. That room was an office.

“Maria, there’s an office.” He looked over, but she had been staring at the paintings on numerous easels. Some were finished and obviously left to dry, but one was incomplete. With a clicking noise in her throat, Michael watched as she took her special brushes and paints from the backpack they had brought from Roswell, and pushed paint onto the palate, then picked up a brush and began to work on her incomplete painting.

Comfort. Ease. An inner vision that was the driving force. Michael watched and envied how in tune she was with her inner muse, how it wasn’t the drive to paint as much as the inspiration demanding her to bring it to life. After watching her for a moment, he went into the office to search for clues to her trip that brought her to Roswell.

Sitting at her desk he noticed her blotter was covered in doodling she must have done while talking on the phone. There were hanging posters and fliers with announcements of her art showings. And Michael found a large file of clippings, reviews by art critics. Most were very favorable. Some were not. One critic called her art…detached. Lacking in passion. Michael thought of the painting in his home, the one that depicted her nightmare of being trapped in a burning car, and the pulling despair and fear. He snorted at the review. Maybe in the past, but not anymore.

She had a laptop on her desk. Michael opened it and powered up the evil machine. Great. He’d be lucky not to destroy it, and all the information inside. She had an online email list, address book, and a schedule for art shows along with her showings. She was scheduled to show at a gallery in LA in six months. Michael suspected this show was what all the paintings and sculptures in the studio were meant for. He found her mom’s name. Amy DeLuca. Calling the number, he got a pleasant voice on the other end asking him to leave a message, and if it was Maria, to call her private cell phone. Michael searched but the cell phone wasn’t listed. Maria must have had it committed to memory.

Hitting her answering machine, Michael sat back and listened. You have thirty-seven messages.

Michael frowned at the man’s voice, and the touch of desperation and pleading in it. Wondering who he was, and what happened between him and Maria. It was apparent that they had broken up months ago, and Maria was unwilling to talk to him. That call was the Saturday before she left for Roswell, and painting in Colorado. Michael rushed through some smaller messages of people calling to say hi, and hung up. The longer messages he listened to.

Saturday, 8:15pm…Hey, girl, Abby here. Try to scrub some paint off your carcass and meet me and a few of the gals at Les and Bunnies! They’re having mud wrestling….(giggling in the background)…..I know, not your scene, but you’ve been too quiet since your break up with Dan e. Fucking jerk. So come watch men in skimpy uniforms, mud wrestling, and me and the girls are going to take over the bar in a drunken Coyote Ugly way. You have all the moves baby, so come play. See yah!

Saturday, 09:25pm…Hey Ria, it’s me Soo! Hey me and the great dog, Montana are traveling to your area in about two weeks, so thought we may stop and crash at your place. I promise no Woody this time. We broke up. Anyhoooo, just passing through and thought I’d like to see you. Hope you’re around and not off painting some place, trying to avoid Dan e……Hey, Maria. Don’t let it get you down. Not everyone is ready for big steps in a relationship. Just don’t let him pressure you. When you’re ready, you’ll know…just worrying about you, girlfriend. Hey you could travel with me and Montana in my broken down Jetta to see the Canyons…just a thought. Buuuuh-ye.

Sunday, 4:33pm…Hey cuz, thought I give you a ring. Listen Aunt Amy said you’d be in Colorado tomorrow. Think you can stop and see your poor cousin? I need a big favor. Got this anniversary thing coming up and wanted to know if you could do a painting for Tina . She’d love it! Anyway, see if you can make a side trip to Steamboat Springs to see me, huh? I’d appreciate it. Plus, the baby is growing so quick, you might want to see her before she so big you won’t recognize your namesake……So hope to hear from you……Sis.

Michael listened to the messages. An ex-boyfriend who obviously wanted a commitment from Maria she couldn’t give. Her mom. Friends. And the ‘sort of’ sibling Maria sort of remembered as being irritating. Michael sat back and listened to a few more.

Sunday 5:01pm……Hey M, it’s me again, Shawn. Listen……I know what you’re doing. Don’t. God, M, please don’t. I know Aunt Amy doesn’t know, but I do. Just let it go. Maybe it’s not something wrong with you. Maybe it’s just that you don’t really love the jerk. Okay, I know…none of my business. But you and Aunt Amy are all the family I have except for little Maria and Tina . You helped me start my construction company, and you were here when Maria Louise was born. We’re all the family you need. Just…let it go. Call me.

Michael stopped listening and started searching her email files for anything from a woman named Lydia. Nothing. Maria had to be one of those people who read her mail and deleted it immediately, and Michael didn’t have enough, or even any computer skills to try to find or retrieve them. Sitting back, Michael thought about it. Was she running away from a broken relationship when she ended up in Roswell, or was she running towards something? Maybe it was a combination of both.

Lydia. She knew. And obviously Maria’s cousin Shawn had a thought or two. Searching her address book both on the computer and the one he found in her hotel room, he tried to find a listing for Lydia. Giving up, he powered down the laptop, and sat back wondering. It was a name that caught his eye, or a string of names with doodling around it on her abused blotter. L-a phone number-and the word ‘Roswell’. L? Lydia?

Michael picked up the phone and called the number.

“Gorsky, Tyler, and Jenkins Investigations, this is Lisa. How may I direct your call.”

Private dick. She hired a private investigator. “Hi, I’m in need of some special work done, and your firm was recommended by a friend of mine as being very successful and discreet.”

“We have a great success rate, Sir, and as always all our cases are met with the utmost discretion and complete confidentiality. Can I set you up for a consultation?”

“Well…Lisa, my friend recommended a Lydia personally.”

Michael could hear the smile and enthusiasm of the phone clone on the other end. “Yes, Lydia Tyler is not only a top investigator, highly requested, but she is one of the partners. I’m not certain if Ms. Tyler is available for new clientele at this time, let me look.”

Michael held the line. Her address book didn’t have Lydia Tyler’s number because she wasn’t a real acquaintance. Michael opened Maria’s planner and address book again and searched the pockets. There is was, a business card with the name of the firm, Lydia Tyler’s name, and a phone number. She had stuck it in the front binder pocket of her address book.

“Sir? Ms. Tyler has an opening on Wednesday at 10:30 am. I can redirect you to a minor field investigator if you need something more expedient. They could take down the particulars of your case and prepare it for Ms. Tyler on Wednesday.”

“That is very helpful of you…Lisa, but I think I can wait until Wednesday for Ms. Tyler.”

“Very good, Sir. If I could have your name and phone number, I’ll just pencil you into that time slot.” Michael quickly gave her a fake name and fake number which was her own with two number interposed. “And can I mark down the nature of the investigation?”

“Missing persons.” Michael said. He paused. “Could you give me your location and directions? I would hate to be late for the appointment.”

Michael quickly wrote down the offices information and hung up the phone. Looked like his evening was set.

~~~

“Hey!” Kyle slid into the booth at the Crashdown next to his wife, kissing her on the cheek. “Did you order for me?”

Vicky pinched his side. “I’ve barely had time to order for me.” Vicky frowned noticing his rushed look, and how he glanced at his watch. “You need to be somewhere else, don’t you?”

Kyle grimaced. “Nope. I need to be right here with you. I just have a meeting with someone in about an hour. So until then, you can have me.”

“In the middle of the Crashdown? Bad boy. That’s why we have three kids.”

Kyle laughed as Liz came up to the table.

“Hey, Kyle. Vicky. Can I get you anything?” Liz quickly took down their orders and left them glasses of ice water. She returned within moments with their drinks.

“Liz, how are the wedding plans going?” asked Vicky with a smile. She and Kyle had a huge wedding. In the early summer with a large party outside in her parent’s garden. It was still the most cherished moment of her life.

“Slow. Isabel and Mrs. Evans are doing most of the planning. I was involved, but two months into it I folded and decided to let them fight it out. Seemed like I'd survive better that way.”

“Do you have an actually wedding date chosen?”

“October 19th. But between you and me? I’ll be surprised if that isn’t in the year 2004.”

Vicky laughed and waved goodbye as Liz excused herself to go show another party to a table. “She’s nice. I can see why you dated her all through high school.”

Kyle just nodded, not wanting to discuss his old relationship with Liz and how he ignored Vicky in high school because he was going steady with Liz. It took until college before he finally was a free agent again and the first person he met was a partying Vicky at a fraternity rush party. It took him until his sophomore year of college to talk her into dating him exclusively. Vicky wasn’t insecure about Liz. Hard to imagine. Vicky was five eleven, blond, thin, and as glamorous as a model, but she loved to tease him for never giving her the time of day through high school.

“I think she and Max Evans make a better couple. Liz did a lot of partying and socializing in high school that she probably would have never done on her own. She’s much more quiet, introverted, and studious than the jock crowd. So I think I was lucky that she was such a good sport about it. That and her family obligations made it hard at times to do stuff with me and take care of her mom and the restaurant.”

“I noticed you were out a lot with the ‘boys’ drinking, partying, and speeding through town without her. You were the classic Sheriff’s son. Out of control. Just like the preacher’s daughter doing the entire football team one at a time, or sometimes more in a broken down barn.”

Kyle laughed. It was true. He spent most his high school years angry. His dad was too busy, and even Liz was often too busy for him as well. Part of him knew Max Evans watched her, and sometimes he thought it was spite that kept him with Liz all those years, liking to stick it to perfect quiet Max Evans from his upper-class family. Those thoughts still bothered him.

He was never going to let the job take him away from his boys, or Vicky. He’d quit first and fix cars in a garage. Priorities. His were his family, his dad, and then his job. He wasn’t changing that order for anything.

“Okay, so tell me about the interview.”

Vicky suddenly got excited. She stopped to thank Liz as she brought them their food and asked if they needed anything else. The interview was with the director of the Special Ed program.

“Oh, it was great! I was afraid that Roswell’s program wouldn’t be large enough to complete my degree and I’d have to transfer to Las Cruces or Albuquerque in a few years.”

“I take it that the program is large enough?”

Vicky laughed, so happy and carefree that her watching husband paused in his eating and fell in love with her all over again. Her hand gripped him tight on his thigh. Suddenly he wasn’t that hungry. Maybe they could get their food to go? He still had an hour, and the boys were with his mother-in-law…

“It’s huge! I had no idea. The director told me that she could get me a full scholarship if I sign an agreement to work in this area. I guess that the federal government came in with grants a few years ago when special testing in the schools showed an increased need for special education. There were all the children bussed in from the Mescalero Reservation and surrounding areas. So many of these children have learning disabilities, and the average was astoundingly above the national average. So special funding and programs were put in place to meet the need.”

“So, since they need Special Ed teachers in this area, and you live here and want to remain living here…”

“I’m an excellent candidate. I just need to pick up a few deficiencies in my transcript and beginning working on the teaching certification and diploma.” Vicky leaned into him and looked deep into his eyes, hers filling with tears. “Thank you. Thank you for making me try, giving me the support to really dream again, because it really feels like it’s going to happen, that I’m going to finally be a success at something.”

Kyle kissed his wife and rested his head against hers. “You were already a success, baby. You just needed to believe it.” Kyle looked over and caught Liz’s eye. Waving to her to bag their food to go she nodded and quickly came over to take the food while Vicky was whispering to him. She looked up in time as Liz deposited the food in bags back on the table. Kyle quickly stood up and shoved a twenty at Liz.

“Keep the change, Liz. Thanks.” Grabbing the bags, he led his wife from the Crashdown.

“I thought we were going to eat there?” Vicky said confused at how fast Kyle was moving.

“That was the plan. But it’s hot outside. You’re sexy, happy, and my wife. I’ve got an hour of nothing but quality time, and a house empty of small muttonheads demanding our attention.” Kyle looked over at Vicky after he put her in his police cruiser.

“Hmm, hit the sirens, Deputy. We’re burning time.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

~~~

Kyle was late. “ Alex ?”

The tall lanky man turned and smiled at Kyle. He was taller than Kyle remembered, and not as thin. He was still lean, but here was a toughness to his body that had been missing in his youth. Time added muscle mass to his body, and Kyle couldn’t help but notice that Alex stood on the balls of his feet, always alert and ready for action.

“Kyle.” He came forward and shook his hand.

“Sorry I’m late, man. Hope you weren’t waiting long.”

Alex just shrugged and looked across the park. Roswell. Once his home. “Not a problem.”

“I didn’t expect you to make a trip out here, Alex . Not that I don’t appreciate it.” Kyle sudden felt a trickle of suspicion up his spine. Why was Alex here?

“It wasn’t a big thing. I could always use the time to visit my parents. It’s been a few years since I came home, and they always seem forced to come visit me.”

“Well, still...thanks.”

Alex indicated that they should walk. “I hear Special Agent Burns met with a nasty demise.”

Kyle just snorted. “You could say that. All the bones in his body were crushed by an unbelievable force.”

“I heard that as well.” Alex pushed his sunglasses back on his nose and pushed his hands in his pockets. He was wearing a tight black t-shirt and a pair of black jeans. It was hot. He had forgotten about the heat of New Mexico. It wasn’t like D.C. There the heat had the extra bite of moisture and humidity. This felt hot, but tolerable. “The Bureau will want to take over the investigation now that they lost one of their own.”

“Ran into that this morning. A Special Agent Stevenson.”

Alex nodded. “Burns' immediate supervisor.” Alex didn’t know how much to help, but if they could find leads it would forestall the Bureau’s involvement. “Check airports. Private transports.”

Kyle frowned and looked at Alex with questions in his eyes.

“The amount of force to break every bone in a human body? He was tossed from a plane. Probably small Cessna, or twin engine private jet flying low, but with enough altitude to cause damage. He didn’t die until he smacked. There will be no evidence from his killers because literally their feet never touched the ground.”

Kyle felt his lunch in his stomach souring. Swallowing the nausea, he closed his eyes at the memory of the blood pattern. That was why it looked familiar. It reminded him of the splat a bug made when you tossed it hard on the pavement.

They walked for a few more minutes, neither talking until Kyle had to ask, “What’s really going on here, Alex ? You didn’t come because I called, did you? You were already here.”

“I can’t tell you that, Kyle. I can tell you that if this missing girl of yours is currently safe and hidden, you need to make sure she stays that way. You saw how Burns died. Your missing person was run off the road, had her car pumped full of bullet holes, almost died in that car in a fire, and yet she lives. She found a way to survive...with amnesia and pumped full of drugs. She deserves to live, but bringing her in from the cold? You might as well prepare the toe tag and slab. Someone wants her dead. Bad enough to kill a Federal Agent.”

Kyle already realized that. Whoever was sheltering Maria DeLuca was keeping her safe and alive. If whoever had her were the very people they were trying to protect her from, Burns would have backed off on the investigation. Until they could find out where the danger was, she was safer wherever she was, than anywhere else. But that didn’t stop a certain Amy DeLuca from searching, or even his father. Those two were a problem. They wouldn’t stop, not until they found Maria and got her killed, or discovered something to get themselves dead.

“Burns? He felt off to me. Wrong somehow. Her car was barely found. We were still processing it and trying to get into it, and he was there. He tore apart the home of the man that originally found Maria DeLuca. He was looking for something. And a medallion was found in the car, but it's missing now. We suspect Burns. He didn’t feel like a good guy, if you know what I mean.”

Alex took out a smoke and lit up. Stopping to lean against a tree his dark hazel eyes stared across the park in Roswell, but his gaze saw something further away.

“Burns was under investigation. He was assigned to the Albuquerque office. There was a complaint registered from his former partner, a Kathleen Topolsky. She’s dead. Her death was…mysterious. It set off enough internal alarms to push the investigation outside the Bureau to another agency. Internal house cleaning isn’t exactly the forte of the Bureau with their little G-men.”

“Agency outside the Bureau. You’re here. Does that mean you?” Alex didn’t answer. “What, Alex ? NSA? Marshals? Special Unit? What? I know it’s not the Company. No one is crazy enough to let the CIA back into Domestic; they’re too busy fucking up Foreign.”

“I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.” Alex stomped on his cigarette and looked up at his old roommate and laughed at his expression. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”

Kyle punched his old friend in the arm and made a face. “Geek.”

“Jock.” They laughed and continued walking. “Seriously, Kyle. I can’t tell you much. But what Burns was messing in is big. It spans a good ten years or more, and if Maria DeLuca is important enough to kill, then more than likely she's a witness I want alive. I don’t care what it takes. She has to survive.”

“Witness protection later?”

“Maybe. Hope not. It looks like she has a good life. I just can’t find any connection between what I’m looking into and her. There are nothing but questions.”

“What are you investigating, if not Burns?” Kyle asked, but seeing Alex ’s closed down face he backed off. “Nevermind. Tell me if you can. I’ll do what I can to help you.”

“Help Maria DeLuca stay hidden, and you’ve done a lot.”

Kyle stopped when what Alex was saying was finally making sense. “What is it Alex ? You know something. You think she's going to be found. Why?”

Alex sighed and reached into his pocket. Taking out a piece of paper, he handed it to Kyle. “I sort of intercepted this from the forensics. All the information was altered.”

Kyle was startled at how easily Alex had walked in unseen and took care of information. “Sounds like we need better security.”

Alex laughed. “It wouldn’t hurt. Candy from a baby. Wasn’t even tough enough for a good wet dream.” Alex laughed even harder at Kyle’s expression. “Computer geek, remember? If I can’t hack the Roswell PD, I’ll kill myself.”

Kyle just smiled slightly at that and read the report. It was the fingerprint report. His face quickly clouded in fury. “Bastard! Guerin?”