Internal Affairs by Alana Matthews

them back when he finish,” Aunt Luba was saying, “But he no come. He must still be in here.”
    “You have any idea who this guy is?” another voice said, and at the sound of it, Rafe’s heart stopped.
    It was Eberhart. And Kate was undoubtedly with him.
    Uh-oh.
    “Do you have another set of keys?” Eberhart asked.
    “No,” Aunt Luba told him.
    The small apartment suddenly filled with the sound of pounding, fist on wood, the door rattling loudly with every jolt. “Sheriff’s department! Open up in there!”
    Rafe stood frozen in place, knowing he was toast, knowing that this was likely the end of his job, and despite all his self-proclamations earlier, he wasn’t quite ready to give up on it. Not just yet.
    And as he heard the pounding on the door again, Eberhart shouting for him to open up, he knew that the next sound would be splintering wood.
    Rafe didn’t think, just reacted. Turning on his heels, he launched himself toward the window with the fire escape.
    He was across the room in three strides, hands grabbing for the lock, struggling to push the window open, when the inevitable happened behind him, the front door crashing wide, as Eberhart and Kate entered the premises.
    Mostly likely with guns drawn.
    Rafe yanked at the window, trying to force it open, and finally, thankfully, it scraped upward, just enough for him to squeeze through—
    And a sound just loud enough to be heard in the living room.
    He dove through it just as Kate shouted behind him, “Police! Stop!”
    But Rafe didn’t stop, didn’t slow down. He scrambled onto the fire escape and started his descent, glad that the window was dirty and that his face was obscured by the hoodie. Fortunately, he was only two flights up and it took him no time at all to navigate the steps and leap to the blacktop below.
    He stood in the alleyway at the rear of the building, heard footsteps clanging on the metal above him, Kate once again shouting for him to halt.
    “You! Stop right there!”
    He took off running, heading for the mouth of the alley, a sudden sense of guilt sweeping through him—he was running from his own sister —but he couldn’t risk being caught.
    Kate kept shouting and he could tell by the sound of her voice that she was working her way down the fire escape. He hit the mouth of the alley and turned, picking up speed, but he’d run plenty of races with Kate as a kid and he knew just how fast she was.
    A moment later he heard her shouting again as she came around the corner behind him. Rafe suddenly flashed back to early this morning when he was chasing the suspect at the auto repair shop and it was hard for him to believe he was now on the receiving end of such a chase.
    He bore down again and picked up speed, his lungs drawing in ragged breaths. Kate had stopped shouting and he knew she was now concentrating on breathing and quite possibly gaining on him. But he couldn’t look back. He didn’t want her to recognize him.
    Rafe reached the end of a street, darted across the intersection, nearly colliding with a car that had sped up to jump a red light, then shot across to another alleyway, hoping that Kate had been slowed at the intersection.
    But a moment later, she shouted again, struggling to breathe herself, and he knew she was much too close for comfort. “Stop! Stop right now!”
    Rafe almost expected her to call out his name, because surely she must recognize him even from behind, but he didn’t waste time worrying about it. He put the hammer to the pedal and picked up even more speed, heading toward a pair of metal doors in the side of the building.
    One of them was ajar.
    “Stop!” Kate shouted once again, and he could tell by the faltering tone that she was starting to get winded, losing speed.
    Rafe reached the doors and launched himself against them, flinging them open to reveal nothing but darkness inside. This was a warehouse of some kind or a storage facility.
    As he got inside, he kept moving through the