She froze. He was close, only feet away.
‘I’m coming for you!’
The darkness was total and instant.
Flipping the main fuse had been an instinct, a spur of the moment impulse to confuse Luis Rodriguez and whatever men he had upstairs to buy himself some time. But now that it was done, Goodman regretted it at once. Trapped and disorientated in the cramped basement, he struggled to contain his panic. He felt as if he were in a coffin. No light! No escape! His heart raced, pounding wildly to the beat of his own terror. It took every ounce of his self-control to try to calm his breathing. In. Out. In. Out.
Now think.
He fumbled in his pocket for his cell phone. It wasn’t there. With trembling fingers he checked every pocket, realizing as he did so that the phone must be back at the office. Fortunately he had a Maglite on his keychain. As soon as he twisted the head, the light came on and reality reasserted itself. The lid of the coffin was merely the basement’s low ceiling, its fat, aluminum-clad pipes draped with cobwebs. Behind him was the opening to the ventilation shaft he’d used to get in, that led up to street level in the alley. In front of him, about twenty feet from the fuse box, was a set of rickety metal stairs.
Goodman moved slowly towards them on his hands and knees, feeling warily for any live wires or nails or other hazards on the filthy floor. Everything was quiet. There’d been a loud ‘bang’ when the lights went off, but since then, nothing. Was Rodriguez even still in the building? He might have killed Nikki and left while Goodman was worming his way inside. Maybe I’m the only one crawling around in the dark in here?
As he had the thought, he heard a scream from above. A single, piercing scream. Nikki? Drawing his gun, he scrambled to the staircase and began to climb.
Luis Rodriguez froze and listened, eagerly, like a wolf. She was close, very close. He could hear her breaths, short and rapid from the pain of his bullet.
His hand tightened on his gun as he lunged furiously towards the sound. Once he reached her, even in the pitch-dark he would find her neck and hold her down and fire a second shot deep into her skull.
Bitch. Nikki Roberts had tried to brainwash Anne, to take her from him. Luis wouldn’t stop until Dr Roberts’ ‘brilliant’ mind was splattered all over the walls like vomit. ‘Where are you?’ he grunted, shuffling forwards. There was nowhere for her to go, no escape other than to go past him in the narrow corridor. And yet as he reached out he felt nothing but air. Where the hell could she have gone?
The pain hit him then, like a gunshot. A fist, hard and determined, slamming at full force into the soft flesh between his legs. He doubled over, his roar of pain morphing into a dry retch as he sank to his knees. Behind him he heard scrambling, like the scuttle of a mouse racing for its hole.
She got past me! The bitch scrambled straight through my legs! She’s going for the stairs.
Still doubled over in agony, he twisted his upper body around and fired wildly into the darkness. ‘I’ll kill you!’ he rasped. ‘I will kill you!’
I made it! I’m out.
Nikki heard the shots ring out as she reached the top of the fire stairs, but elation trumped fear. Faint glimmers of evening light were visible here, rising up from the ground floor below. All she had to do was make it down these stairs and out onto the street. Someone would be there, surely? Someone would help her. Save her. But she must hurry. Rodriguez would be on his feet soon.
Clinging on to the handrail she took one step, then two before sliding uncontrollably to the ground, writhing in agony. My leg! Adrenaline had seen her this far, but now the deep bullet wound reasserted itself. She couldn’t move. The pain was overwhelming. Hard metal tore into her back as she fell onto the stairs, blacking out for a moment as she rolled down to the first landing. Willing herself back into consciousness, she used her last ounce of strength to drag herself over to the corner of the landing, curling up into a tiny alcove cut into the concrete wall.
For a moment she felt overwhelming sadness. Her eyes filled with tears. She could see the way out. Peering through the shadows, there was the fire door, no more than twenty feet below her. I’m so close! But she couldn’t get there. Couldn’t move another muscle. Nikki knew with certainty that this spot, this alcove was the end of the line.
Closing her eyes, a strange sensation of heat crept over her. It was really quite pleasant. As swiftly as it had arrived, the sadness left her and with it the pain and fear, all three replaced by a thick, warm blanket of exhaustion.
Sleep. I need to sleep now.
At the top of the stairs, Goodman finally stood up tall, pressing his back hard against a brick pillar for cover as he squinted into the gloom. The high, dirty windows afforded only the faintest rays of natural
light this late in the evening, but after the darkness of the basement, his eyes adjusted quickly and he was able to switch off his flashlight. Satisfying himself that he was alone – the entire floor was one, vast empty room – he began to move stealthily towards the service elevator on the far wall when a familiar voice stopped him in his tracks.
‘Goodman! You in here?’
Mick Johnson’s gruff, Boston-Irish twang echoed off the walls.
No. How was it possible? How the hell had that fat slob made it here?
‘Where are you, Lou?’
Goodman’s blood ran cold. Now he had two of them to worry about, Rodriguez and Johnson. He had to find Nikki before his partner did. It was either that or kill Mick before he made his move. He hoped it didn’t come to that. Despite everything, Lou Goodman still felt some kinship with Mick Johnson, some residual affection for his comrade of the last year. But this was a life-or-death situation. There could be no room for sentiment or hesitation.
He started to run.
Whacking his head on the low ceiling of the basement, Mick Johnson cursed under his breath as his flashlight clattered to the floor. Damn Goodman. Johnson had found his partner’s car abandoned a few blocks up and followed what he assumed had been his path towards the warehouse. Pausing at the narrow passageway as Goodman had done, he’d noticed the dislodged grate and put two and two together. With some effort, he managed to squeeze his own, more considerable girth inside, emerging as his partner had done into the basement electrical room.
Goodman had come this way, all right. His shoe and hand prints were everywhere in the dust. Reaching down for his dropped flashlight, Johnson picked up one of his partner’s white monogrammed cotton handkerchiefs from the filthy floor, where he must have dropped it in the confusion of the blackout. Who the hell carried handkerchiefs in this day and age? Not so long ago, Johnson would have been irritated by Goodman’s vanity and dandyish ways. But not now. Now Goodman had shifted from ‘irritating’ to ‘dangerous’, a threat that must be stopped at all costs.