Close Encounters (39 page)

To Ronald Singer, retired police officer with community affairs for the 70th Precinct Brooklyn, who has been available with information about basic police procedures through several of my books. To Mike Keane, retired Narcotics Detective, who did a very dangerous job for a long time. To Detective Ricardo Kelley, who is still out on the streets, undercover.

To Dr. Stephen Menlove, Attending Physician in Emergency Medicine at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan, who gave me anatomy lessons on the horrors of gunshot wounds and trauma to the human body.

Very special thanks to Captain William C. Wilkens, Commanding Officer of Highway Patrol, who has a great sense of humor and was open and honest with his information and anecdotes.

Finally…
muchas gracias al Nancy Heredia y Luis Samot, para sus vocabulario y las palabras maliciosos.

Thank you all for being heroic and inspirational!

Sandra Kitt is the author of more than twenty novels, including
The Color of Love
,
Significant Others
, and
Close Encounters
, as well as numerous short stories. Her work has been nominated for the NAACP Image Award and has appeared on the
Essence
and Blackboard bestseller lists. She is the recipient of the Romantic Times Lifetime Achievement Award and the Zora Neale Hurston Literary Award. A native New Yorker, Kitt previously worked as a graphic designer, creating cards for UNICEF, illustrating books, and exhibiting her own work, which is included in the collection of the Museum of African American Art in Los Angeles. She formerly served as the managing director of the Richard S. Perkin Collection in Astronomy and Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2000 by Sandra Kitt

Cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa

978-1-4804-3877-4

This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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New York, NY 10014

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