Due Diligence (17 page)

“Oh, my God.” I was shivering. “Oh, my God, oh, my God.”

The elevator descended at an infuriatingly leisurely pace. I stared at the floor indicator above the elevator door, tapping my foot anxiously. After what seemed like an hour, the light blinked from 2 to 1. As the elevator passed by the first floor landing, light came through the window and I winced, afraid that his face would abruptly appear. I jammed my thumb hard against the button for the lower level.

“Hurry,” I pleaded. “God, hurry.”

Finally, the elevator reached the lower level and shuddered to a halt. The door slid open and I stepped out into a small area. To my left was a door marked STAIRS. To my right was a long narrow corridor. From somewhere up above, I heard a metal door open. Then there was the clattering sound of footsteps coming down the stairs. It had to be him.

Cradling my purse under my arm like a football, I sprinted down the corridor, which opened onto a concrete loading dock area. I could go right or left. To my right there were four parallel loading docks, all positioned at a forty-five degree angle to the underground service tunnel that ran through the center of the mall. A large Saks truck was parked in position at the far dock. Beyond the loading dock area to the right, the concrete slab narrowed into an elevated walkway that ran along the side of the building for fifty yards and then curved out into another loading dock area. To my left, the slab narrowed and ended. The service tunnel curved out of sight to the left.

I chose right. I jogged past the four loading docks and continued along the pathway, pausing to try the doors marked MALL STORAGE, ELECTRICITY, GENERATOR ROOM, GAS METERS, WATER VALVE ROOM. Each was locked.

Back in the distance, I could hear the sound of a metal door swinging open, then footsteps charging down the corridor. Up ahead, just before the next loading dock area, was a large trash compactor. It was twenty feet long, maybe four feet high.

I turned back. He wasn't visible yet. I looked around frantically. There was nowhere else to hide. I tossed my purse into the open top of the compactor and climbed in after it, landing inside on several large, bunchy bags of trash.

Chapter Seventeen

The stench was powerful.

Fighting back thoughts of Bruce Rosenthal's final moments, I grabbed my purse and crawled over the bags toward the other end of the long container. When I was far enough back to be invisible from the opening, I turned toward the front and waited, my knees pulled up to my chin. I tried to breathe through my mouth to minimize the putrid smells.

After a few minutes, I heard footsteps from a distance. The metal container was a good sound conductor. The footsteps were heavy enough to be boots. I listened, straining my ears. I heard several quick steps, then a pause, then several more steps, then another pause.

Perhaps he was trying each of the doors I had tried.

His steps grew louder as he approached the trash compactor from the rear. I listened as he walked the length of the container, passing my position on the way. He stopped at the front end. I held my breath.

A hand appeared at the top of the opening, and then the other hand. I saw a glint of metal in the second hand. He was resting his hands on the top of the container opening. I remained motionless, silently begging him to move on. He leaned over and squinted into the container, his red hair falling over his face. I didn't move, praying that I was far enough back to be shrouded in darkness.

He straightened up. His hands withdrew. I heard him move down the length of the container toward the back. I listened as the footsteps grew fainter.

When they faded away altogether, I exhaled slowly and waited. A few minutes passed in silence. I heard the distant growl of a truck engine starting up, followed by the noise of shifting gears. As the engine noise grew louder, I suddenly realized that the truck was inside the service tunnel somewhere south of my position. It was moving north toward me. But by the time I made the connection—namely, that the driver could be my rescuer—the truck had already rumbled past the compactor on its way out of the mall.

“Damn,” I mumbled as my spirits fell.

More silence. Ten minutes passed. Then the crackle of automobile wheels on cement.

I clambered over the garbage bags toward the opening, but by the time I got to my feet the vehicle was disappearing into the northern end of the tunnel. I could just make out the two red bubbles on the roof. I realized that it must have been mall security, or maybe the police.

The realization triggered a wave of hopelessness. If that vehicle really was mall security or the police, they were probably on their evening rounds. That meant they might not be back through the tunnel for hours.

Standing chest high in the opening of the trash compactor, I scanned the area. No sight of him.

I knew I couldn't remain there. I had to start moving, to get out from the underground portion. Just as important, I had to get myself into a position where I could flag down a truck or other vehicle that might come through the tunnel.

As quietly as I could, I climbed out of the compactor container. Standing on the cement platform looking out over the service road, I got my bearings. The service tunnel ran south to north underneath the middle of the mall. The freight elevator shaft was roughly two-thirds of the way down the mall structure, which meant that I had started off in the underground section closer to the southern than the northern end of the mall. After getting off the elevator, I had moved further south. The underground service tunnel was a one-way road. The entrance was at the southern end of the mall. The choice seemed obvious: the quickest and safest way out was to keep moving south.

The elevated concrete pathway wrapped around the corner of the loading deck and terminated in a short stairway down to the road level of the service tunnel. I went down the stairs and inched along the wall until I was facing south. The tunnel was dark beyond the loading docks. The only illumination was an occasional weak overhead light.

He could be down there waiting, or he could be coming up from behind. Based on the sound of his footsteps when he walked away from the compactor, he was heading north. Moving south still seemed the best idea for me.

Seemed
, I reminded myself.

If I was wrong, I told myself, if he was actually somewhere farther south in the tunnel, I would need a hiding place if he turned and came back. I looked around. I didn't see any doors or openings on either side of the tunnel. A few yards ahead, set in the wall near the ground, was something I first mistook for a small steering wheel. As I kneeled to look closer, I saw that the steering wheel was actually the locking mechanism for a circular hatch, like one on a submarine, except set in the wall. There were yellow warning stripes on the hatch. A small yellow sign bolted to the wall above the hatch read:

WARNING: ACCESS TO STORM CULVERT
OPEN ONLY WITH EXTREME CAUTION!

I put my hands on the wheel and tugged counterclockwise. The wheel initially resisted, but then turned smoothly. I retightened it and stood up.

Peering down the tunnel, I saw another hatch set in the wall about twenty yards further south. The tunnel curved to the right beyond that, so I couldn't tell whether there were other hatches.

It hadn't rained for at least a week, I told myself as I started walking forward along the tunnel wall. That meant that the storm culvert might be a good hiding place.

As I continued to walk south down the tunnel, I could feel the slight incline in the road. That was a good sign, because it meant that the service tunnel was beginning to return to street level, which meant I was getting closer. Anticipation got the better of me, and I started to run. As I rounded the corner I could see the tunnel entrance off in the distance.

Yes
!

But as I got closer, I saw that the entire entrance was blocked by a steel-barred gate. I stopped in front of it. It was one of those motorized gates that slid up and down like a flexible garage door. I peered through the gate toward the entrance ramp. Getting in was easy. There was an electric eye device out there, along with one of those cardkey boxes. Getting out at this end was another story. I put my hands on the cross-hatched steel and tried to pull the gate up. It wouldn't budge.

I stared through the gate, my hands resting on the steel bars. I felt like a prisoner.

There had to be a way to open the gate from the inside. I looked around. Over on the wall near the gate was a control panel. The button marked CLOSE GATE was just that: a simple black button. But the one marked OPEN GATE required a key.

I turned around and faced north into the service tunnel as I tried to organize my thoughts. I had two choices: (1) I could wait here in the hopes that a truck or security car would eventually come down the ramp and open the gate in time to save me, or (2) I could go back into the service tunnel and try to reach the elevator. The advantage of waiting by the gate was that I could get out the moment the gate opened. The disadvantage was that if he showed up before a vehicle did, I would be trapped. If I headed back into the tunnel, though, there were two advantages: there were other escape routes and there were more places to hide if he showed up. The disadvantage was that he was probably in there somewhere.

I turned back and peered through the gate.

If he's somewhere down in the tunnel, which he probably is, and if he's heading my way, which he eventually will, I certainly don't want to end up against this metal gate like a cornered rabbit
.

I turned around, my back against the gate, and took a deep breath. The panic and the raw fear had faded. I seemed to be running on a combination of adrenaline and autopilot.

Okay
, I said to myself as I slipped off my shoes and shoved them into my purse.

I started down the slope, back into the underground service tunnel. I was walking quickly but cautiously in my stocking feet, trying to make as little noise as possible.

I heard the first sound as I came around the curve. It was a metallic clanking noise, as if someone were trying to open a locked door by yanking on it. The clanking was off in the distance, somewhere back near the second loading dock area.

Silence for a moment. Then more clanking, this time just a little closer.

It had to be him. I remembered all those locked doors near the second loading dock. He must have first searched for me in the north end of the service tunnel and was now working his way back.

I spun around. The entrance gate was no longer visible. I turned back at the faint sound of boots on concrete. I concentrated, trying to reconstruct the layout in my mind. He was crossing the loading dock, still out of view around the next bend. We weren't more than fifty yards apart. Soon he'd be coming down those stairs and heading north toward me. My eyes darted around the tunnel. One of the storm culvert hatches was a few feet in front of me.

I heard him coming down the stairs. In just moments he would round the curve.

I knelt by the hatch, grabbed the locking mechanism, and yanked counterclockwise. It didn't budge. I yanked again as hard as I could, grunting from the effort. Nothing.

I stood up, gasping, and started to back up along the wall. The footsteps were approaching. I turned and ran south toward the next storm culvert hatch.

This one turned.

I spun the wheel as fast as I could for several rotations. The locking mechanism clicked and the hatch swung free on its hinge, opening out from the wall like a small door.

The footsteps were closer.

Without even looking, I scooted feet first through the opening into a corrugated metal tube and turned to close the hatch. There was a handle on the inner side of the hatch, but no locking mechanism. The best I could do was pull it closed. When I let go of the handle, it opened slightly, creating a gap of a couple inches. I tried again to pull it shut, with the same result.

Forget the hatch
, I told myself.
Just move
!

It was pitch-black inside the tube. I could hear the noise of moving water below me. It sounded like a creek. I reached forward in the dark and found the edge of the tube. I turned and crawled backward, blind, to the edge of the tube. I lowered myself slowly, feetfirst. My stocking feet touched the slanted side of the culvert. It was slick and oily. I could hear scurrying, scrabbling noises beneath me.

Rats
, I told myself with a shudder.

I kept lowering myself until my arms were fully extended and I was hanging from the edge of the tube by my fingers. My feet were in the water now. It was icy cold. I could hear his footsteps. They were practically even with the hatch. I took a deep breath and let go.

I slid down the greasy side of the culvert and into the water, banging my wrists hard against the concrete as I struggled to regain my balance. The water came up to my thighs. Fortunately, the bottom of the culvert was flat, which enabled me to stand.

The metal hatch banged open above me. I took a quick breath and ducked under the water. Using my hands, I pulled myself forward down the culvert, trying to keep my body submerged as I moved along.

I scuttled along underwater with my eyes closed tight, bumping into glass bottles and tree branches and other junk scattered along the bottom. I was literally blind and deaf in the icy water. I kept flinching at the thought of a knife or a bullet ripping into my backside. When my lungs were about to explode, I carefully raised my head, quickly exhaled and inhaled, and ducked under water again.

I got about ten feet further before I banged into a large object. I tried moving right, and then left. It was too big to get around under water. Slowly, I lifted my head and turned to stare back in the direction I had come. It was too dark to see a thing. I turned toward the object that had blocked my path. Feeling around it, I realized it was a metal shopping cart on its side, slick with algae.

I raised my head to look beyond the cart. I could see light in the distance. The storm culvert emerged from beneath the shopping center about fifty yards further down. I was almost there.

Using my hands for balance, I climbed around the shopping cart. There was a sudden explosion behind me and I spun around just as something zinged off the concrete to my left. A second of silence, then the panicked squeals of hundreds of rats. There was a quick flash of light, then another roar of gunfire, followed by a splash in the water in front of me.

He was shooting at me from the edge of the tube above the culvert.

My last shred of control vaporized. Hysterical, I turned and started running and splashing and stumbling through the water toward the opening ahead. He fired again, this time high and wide. I tripped over a heavy object and fell forward into the water. As I struggled to my feet, he fired, missing again. I staggered on, sobbing for air, as I got closer to the opening.

Gasping, I emerged from the culvert into a swampy area behind the mall below the parking area. I scrambled up the gravel embankment and onto the dry grass. A chain-link fence separated me from the parking lot. Exhausted and soaking wet, I lurched toward the fence and grabbed the chain links for support. I glanced back toward the culvert, half expecting him to emerge with a fresh round of ammunition.

Don't stop now
, I told myself.

Totally fatigued, I looked up. The fence was about seven feet tall. I looked down at my bare feet. Where were my shoes? Reaching for my purse, I realized it was gone. It must have fallen off in the storm culvert.

I looked up at the fence again.

You can do it, Rachel
.

The fence seemed as tall as Mount Everest.

Just do it, goddammit
.

I reached up, grasped hold of the chain links, and started up the fence. As I swung my second leg over the top of the fence, I saw the flashing red light of a police car as it pulled onto the grass near the fence.

“Thank God,” I said as I pushed off the fence and collapsed on the ground.