Fireproof (12 page)

He darted around a corner. Just as Maggie got there a shopping cart came barreling into her. She grabbed the front. Kept the cart from tipping and spilling all the tattered possessions inside. Its owner came next. The poor woman screamed at Maggie, fists raised, ready to do battle. Maggie swung the cart over to her and started running again. She had taken her eyes away for only a second or two, but now she couldn’t see the man.

She stopped. Waited. Let her eyes check over the door wells. There were no alleys in this block. He couldn’t have made it around the corner and she didn’t see him across the street.

She was breathing hard. Adrenaline pumping. Ears now a high-pitched hum. The thump at her temple had accelerated. Between it and the hammering of her heart, she couldn’t focus. Her vision blurred a bit. She leaned a palm against the cold brick building. That’s when she realized that she could see her reflection on the windows across the street.

She started out again, slower this time. Walking and watching the reflections ahead of her. She stayed close to the building. Still, she didn’t see him. Could he have darted into one of these buildings?

She craned her neck to look for a business sign and noticed there weren’t any fire escapes on this side, not even a rusted ladder. There were no low windows. Only one doorway, and it looked bolted. All of these buildings appeared to be warehouses or storage facilities.

How could he have just disappeared?

Maggie bent over, hands on her knees, catching her breath,
trying to quiet the rumbling in her head. That’s when she realized she was spending too much time looking up.

Steam billowed from the grates of a manhole cover. Steam was always billowing up from the District’s sewer system, especially on chilly days like today. But this cover lay askew, the lip overlapping the concrete. Someone hadn’t set it back correctly. Someone in a hurry.

Maggie stared at it for a moment, then looked up and down the street one last time. She noticed an old woman going through a garbage receptacle, picking out aluminum cans. Across the street a man in coveralls leaned against the corner of a building, tapping on his cell phone. Another man was chaining his bicycle to a lamppost. Otherwise there was no one else around. Even traffic had been intermittent.

She stood with hands on her hips. Stared at the manhole cover again. Why would the guy run if he wasn’t the arsonist? Did he come back to see if the dead body had been removed? The one that he put there. If he got away now, they might never catch him.

Maggie released a long sigh. Then she squatted down to shove off the manhole cover, letting the metal clank and thump against concrete. Just as well let the bastard know she was coming down after him.

He wanted to tell her the guy with the backpack was a waste of her time. He was a nobody. One of those street people, a real loser. Still, he’d been keeping his eye on the man since before the fire. He hadn’t realized that he had used the poor bastard’s home—a crappy cardboard box—for his dump site. So he’d been keeping an eye on the raggedy man, though the guy hadn’t even noticed him.

In fact, he had sort of forgotten about him, until the footrace.

Wow! She could sprint.

Her body looked like it was used to running, prepped and trained for the chase. He wondered how much faster she could run if she was the one being chased. There was that tingle again and suddenly he wanted very much to watch that. To see what her stride would look like when fear propelled her.

He didn’t need to follow too quickly. He knew exactly where the homeless man was going. He knew his routine. Wasn’t like the guy was bright enough to change it up. And usually when someone was frightened he always resorted to the predictable. That was one of the reasons he had started doing a double now and then. Of course, the conditions had to be right for doubles but that just added to the challenge.

By the time he rounded the corner she was already there—exactly where he knew the guy had dropped into his underground world. Actually an interesting world. He had followed the guy once before. A bit too confining for his taste, and the squirrelly bastard didn’t add much to the game. He moved like one of the displaced sewer rats, always looking over his shoulder. Nosier than hell. He was too annoying and stupid to kill. Much more fun to follow, let him know that he was being followed, then watch him squirm.

Just as he tucked himself into a dark shadow ready to observe, the woman cop did something he hadn’t predicted. She dropped down into the hole.

Maggie texted Tully and Racine. She gave them her location. Told them she was going down under. She should wait for back up but the guy would be long gone by then. She could still hear the crack of Tully’s elbow hitting the pavement. Did that constitute assault? He was certainly fleeing after an order to halt.

No, she couldn’t wait. She gave one last glance around and then she started her descent down the brick-lined hole that reminded her of an oversize drain.

God, how she hated closed-in spaces.

The metal ladder crumbled rust under her palms and felt slick under her shoes. Hot, fetid air rose to meet her. She didn’t expect the bottom to be so deep, and halfway down Maggie glanced back up.

Big mistake
.

Nausea churned her stomach and she pressed her body against the rungs while she steadied herself.

She’d just take a look. That’s all.

Finally the hole spit her out into a dimly lit tunnel, concrete and brick, pipes snaking alongside. Steam hissed. Valves cranked.
Water slushed. She stepped off the last rung and put her foot into water, jerking it back and almost losing her balance.

Of course there would be water down here. What was she thinking?

A steady trickle soaked the bottom half of her leather flats, but she was relieved to have some space.

Two feet above her head a maze of monster pipes hung from the ceiling. The concrete walls swallowed any sound from above the street and replaced it with drips and gurgles and the swishing of water. Air hissed and Maggie could feel bursts of steam. Somewhere overhead metal clanked and scraped as valves opened and closed.

She told herself it wasn’t any different from a big furnace room.
Pretend it’s not twenty feet underground. Pretend there are no moving vehicles and brick buildings right on top of you
.

Incandescent bulbs lit the tunnel in front of her. Two others branched off to the left and to the right but those remained dark. Maggie’s fingers found the butt of her gun. She waited. And listened.

Her first impulse was to follow the brightly lit tunnel. But isn’t that what he’d expect her to do? Did he know the tunnel system well enough to use the darkened routes? Despite the twists and turns, she’d probably be able to see illumination if he was using a flashlight down one of those pitch-black tunnels.

Maybe he didn’t expect her to follow him down. Maybe he expected her to do the sensible thing, like wait for backup. Only now did she realize the wheeze she kept hearing was actually her own breathing. She tried holding her breath. Listened again. She could hear a faint echo of footsteps walking away from her, down the lighted tunnel.

She started to follow, slipping her gun out of its holster. She stayed close to the concrete wall, pressing against it in places to keep from touching the pipes and to avoid dripping water. She stopped before every bend, holding her breath and listening. She planted her feet, making sure they didn’t slip. Cringed when she saw the greasy water getting deeper. Damn! It was starting to seep inside her shoes.

But she could hear him up ahead, the thump of a steady pace. He was walking. Not running. He didn’t know she was behind him.

She paid little attention to how many corners she turned. She followed the lighted tunnel, trying to keep as quiet as possible. Something black in the water moved across her foot. Maggie stifled a gasp and kicked out her leg. The toe of her shoe caught the rat under its belly and flung it away.

Rats. Of course there’d be rats
.

She took a couple of deep breaths, despite the smells that were getting more rancid. Then she started forward again.

A sudden pop behind her echoed through the tunnel.

A valve switching on? A pipe bursting? She couldn’t tell. She ignored it. Took another step. Another pop. This time she noticed the light behind her dim. Just as she glanced back, the third pop she recognized. Incandescent bulbs made a sound like that when they broke.

Could steam or water pop out a lightbulb?

That’s when she heard footsteps again. Only this time they came from behind her.

Maggie tightened the grip on her revolver. Kept her finger on the trigger.

A brick ledge ran along the wall, about six inches wide and almost twelve inches above the water. Maggie stepped up onto it. Pressed her back against the wall and ignored dirt and concrete crumbing down into her collar. She could still feel the sting and pull of the stitches on her neck.

The popping sound stopped. She was sure it had been lightbulbs. She could see the tunnel she had just come from had become dark. Someone had smashed the bulbs as he came up behind her.

How the hell was he able to backtrack?

It didn’t make sense that the tunnels would wind in a circle. And now she couldn’t hear any footsteps. Only water gushing through the pipes. A drip started over her head. She didn’t move. Tried to focus on the sounds beyond the pitter-plat. Within seconds the familiar throb began at her temple. That’s when she saw his shadow. He had stopped to listen for her. Just around the last corner, unaware that she could see a piece of his shadow.

She held her breath, trying to quiet the pounding in her head and in her chest. She readjusted her grip on the revolver. It didn’t
matter. She couldn’t fire down here. The bullets would ricochet. He had to know that. Probably counted on it.

She watched the shadow inch forward and she pressed tighter against the wall. The drip found her forehead. Damn! It wasn’t just water. She could smell it now. With a slow, smooth motion she switched her grip on the revolver, slipping her fingers down around the barrel, converting it from gun to club.

“O’Dell, where the hell are you?” Racine’s voice echoed through the tunnel, almost making Maggie fall off her ledge.

The shadow bobbed and ducked back out of sight. She heard a shuffle, a swish of water, and retreating footsteps. Maggie jumped off the ledge, jogged, and sloshed to the corner.

He was gone.

She tried to listen while her eyes adjusted to the dimmer light. He had to have escaped down one of the dark tunnels. He could be standing halfway down in the pitch black, staring right at her, and she’d never see him. She felt a shiver. It didn’t help matters that her feet were soaked and her hair damp.

“O’Dell?”

“I’m here.” She finally yelled when she saw a flashlight beam dancing along the wall.

She sidestepped her way to Racine, keeping an eye on the black mouths of the tunnels. Now she realized that to catch him down here would be impossible. He obviously knew his way around. But he was still there in the dark. She could feel him. Almost certain she could smell him. But there was nothing she could do.