The slab of iron rose a fraction of an inch. But no more.
Rhyme said, 'I got Lon. He's sending uniforms. Some ESU too. They're on their way, getting close.'
'I think he's gone. I tried to open the cover, Rhyme. I couldn't. Goddamn it. I couldn't. I was looking right at him. Had to be the perp. Who else'd kneel down in the middle of the street on a day like this and look through a manhole cover?'
She tried once more, thinking maybe he'd been squatting on it and that's what had prevented her from pushing it up. But, no, it was impossible to move with her one free hand.
Shit.
'Sachs?'
'Go ahead.'
Rhyme said, 'An officer saw somebody at the manhole in a short dark-gray coat, stocking cap. He took off running. Disappeared into the crowd on Broadway. White male. Slim or medium build.'
'Damn it!' she muttered. 'It was him! Why run otherwise? Have somebody pop the cover, Rhyme!'
'Look, there're plenty of people after him. Keep walking the grid. That's our priority.'
Heart racing, she shoved a palm into the manhole cover once more. Convinced, unreasonably, that if she could get to the surface she could find him, even if the others couldn't.
She pictured his eye. She saw the narrowing lid.
She believed the perp was laughing at her, taunting her because she hadn't been able to open the cover.
What color was the iris? she wondered. Green, gray, hazel? She hadn't thought to register the color. This lapse infuriated her.
'One thing occurs to me.' Rhyme brought her back to earth.
'What's that?'
'We know that's how he got into the tunnel - through the manhole. And that means he'd've rigged a work zone. He'd have cones and tape or a barricade of some kind. And that might show up on video.'
'Or a witness might've seen.'
'Well. Yes, maybe. For what that's worth.'
Sachs climbed back down the ladder and returned to the victim. She had done a fast sex-crime exam of Chloe's body but now wanded it with the ALS to look for traces of the three S's present in most sexual assault cases - semen, sweat and saliva.
Negative on that but it was clear he'd probed her skin with his gloved fingers - or at least the abdomen, arms, neck and face. No other parts of the body appeared to have been touched.
She used the light on the rest of the scene - from the manhole to the breadbasket - and found nothing.
All that remained for her was removing the flashlight that the unsub had left as a beacon.
'Sachs,' Rhyme called.
'Yeah?'
'Why don't we have city workers pop the manhole and you come out that way? You'll have to search that area on the street anyway. We know that's how he got in - and he was there about five minutes ago. Could have some trace.'
But she knew he was suggesting this so she could avoid the smaller of the two tunnels.
The circular coffin ...
Sachs glanced at the black maw. It seemed even smaller now. 'It's a thought, Rhyme. But I think I'll go out the way I came in.'
She'd beaten the fear once; she wasn't going to let it win now.