Into the Dark (4 page)

Stale air washed over Nathan as soon as he stepped into the room. Half of the track lighting flickered. Old equipment and boxes of office supplies littered the unused space. Two paramedics stood talking to an auburn-haired woman—Emilie. Her head was bent so that her hair shielded her face. She looked smaller and more fragile than Nathan had imagined. In the far corner of the room, Johnson and Chris struggled to force the door open.

“Bastard jammed it shut,” Chris said as Nathan inspected the door. It was made of sturdy oak. Rusting metal rods held the planks together.

“This sucker is old, Nate. Our perp didn’t put it here.”

“How the hell did he know about it?”

“Ram’s here,” Johnson said. “Let’s get in there.”

The door splintered open after several blows from the ram. A fetid scent oozed out from the gaping crack.

“Damn.” Chris gagged. “That’s rank.”

Weapon raised, Nathan peered over his shoulder into the dark opening. At first glance it appeared to be nothing more than a crude hole in the wall, but on closer inspection, he realized it was a long, narrow passageway. Decaying redwood posts supported the walls. Warped plywood served as a makeshift ceiling.

“Give me some light.” Johnson led the group single file over the threshold. “Be ready. The son-of-a-bitch is probably hiding.”

Nathan flipped on his Glock’s tactical light and shined the beam in the tunnel. The walls of earth rippled with the movement of insects as they sought refuge from the foreign light. The cobwebs were so thick in places the ceiling couldn’t be seen.

He covered his nose with his left arm and crouched in the small space as he crept forward. About ten feet into the passage, a section of the dirt wall had been dug out and replaced with a large oak barrel. Its metal fittings were peeling off. Black mold stretched over several gaps in the wood.

Nathan aimed his light at one of the redwood posts. Termites had taken over, but their damage wasn’t what caught his attention. The new pillar that stood next to the redwood was far more interesting. He moved the flashlight beam and saw that each disintegrating post had a support beam placed next to it.

“Do you guys see this?”

“Those are brand new,” Johnson said. “Jesus
Christ
.”

Nathan stepped over the broken jugs and rusted metal scattered over the dirt floor. The tunnel continued another fifty feet then sharply turned left. The confined space gradually widened into a circular room, its dimensions no larger than six by ten. The room was dug into the earth and had support beams scattered throughout. In the far corner, rickety old chairs stood around a corroded metal contraption covered with cobwebs and a few eight-legged residents.

“Is that what I think it is?” Nathan pointed his light at the haggard-looking device.

“Yep,” Johnson answered. “An old distilling apparatus. Probably from the 1920s or ’30s.”

“Emilie said the bank was built over an original foundation,” Chris said. “Guess we know how the owners paid the bills.”

“So where’s our guy?” Dust particles swam in the eerie glow of Nathan’s tactical light as he moved around the room.

“There,” Johnson said. “Go back to the right.”

Three tactical lights honed in on a smaller tunnel not much larger than a crawl space. The dirt around it had been disturbed. An impression roughly the size of a human body was visible.

“Where do you think that goes?” Chris asked.

Johnson pointed his light at him. “You’re the skinniest. Go. And be careful.”

“Damn.” Chris edged inside. “You should see the size of the cockroaches in here.”

He disappeared. “This thing goes twenty or thirty feet. Hold on.”

“What do you see?” Johnson knelt down and peered into the hole.

“Looks like an old sewer pipe. Not being used any more, thank God. Wait. There’s an old, homemade hatch on the pipe. And it’s open.”

“You got a visual?” Nathan wished he could see into the tunnel.

“Not very far, but there’s no one in sight.”

“Are you telling me this bastard is running loose in the sewers?” Johnson said.

“No.” Chris backed out of the hole wiping the grime off his fatigues. He stood up and pulled off his mask. His face was pale. “Pipe’s been refurbished. I could see the code on the side. It’s part of the drains.”

“You’re kidding me. The tunnels?” Nathan knew of the storm drain horror stories. Sprawling hundreds of miles beneath the city, the tunnels housed addicts, criminals, and the downtrodden. Few cops dared to venture inside.

“Yeah. He’s in the wind now. How did he find out about this?”

Johnson was on the radio again. “Vice is going to head into the nearest drainage ditch and see what they can find. We’ll be joining them.”

Nathan took a last look around the antechamber. The amount of research and planning that must have gone into the endeavor was staggering. A lot of time had to have been spent in the dugout tunnel securing the area. The path was a bank robber’s wet dream, but Nathan would bet a hundred bucks Joe had never known it existed.

“The partner planned this with the intention of kidnapping Emilie,” Nathan said. “Joe never had a clue, or they would have left hours ago.”

“Why didn’t the partner take Davis before we came in?” Johnson asked. “Why wait until we had a chance to catch him? And why leave her after all the effort?”

“I don’t know,” Nathan answered. “Some part of his plan must have gone wrong. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“I’ll tell the captain. Let’s go.”

Back inside the dim storage room, Nathan walked over to another SWAT officer. “Where’s Emilie?”

“In the hallway with Detective Douche-bag.”

“Avery. Christ. “ Nathan made his way over to where Emilie was sitting on the bottom stair. All of the bravado he’d heard over the phone was gone. Her head was down. Her scraped, shaking arms clutched her small frame. Her entire body was turned away from Avery.

Nathan stepped forward and spoke softly. “Emilie?”

Slowly, she raised her head. Most of her wavy hair had escaped the knot at the back of her neck. A bruise was forming on her right cheek. Her bottom lip was raw at the corner, as though she’d been repeatedly chewing on it. Dirt marred the white, sleeveless top she wore. The heel of one shoe had snapped off.

“Nathan?” she whispered.

“Yeah, it’s me. Are you all right?”

A tear rolled down her cheek and splashed onto her shoe. “It’s not over.”

Chapter Four

An icy knot had formed in Emilie’s stomach and sucked all the warmth into its core leaving her frozen and numb.

Nathan Madigan knelt in front of her. His striking blue eyes and sculpted cheekbones belonged on a magazine cover. “Are you okay?”

Was she okay? Covered in sticky, dried sweat, she was sitting on a discarded office chair in a dirty basement room. A crazy man had just tried to drag her into a damned hole underneath the bank. She definitely was not okay.

“He said he was here for me.”

“I’m sorry. I never dreamed there was an escape route.”

A dry, hollow laugh made her already sore ribs hurt even more. “Why would you? You’re not some madman who apparently moonlights as a dirt-burrowing mole.”

“Ms. Davis?” An expensive leather shoe tapped against the concrete floor.

Emilie glanced up at the detective. His suit was tailored to fit his narrow shoulders, and his blue-striped, silk tie was a perfect complement to the pale yellow dress shirt he wore. His pink scalp glistened with perspiration under his thinning hair. He looked out of place in the dank room.

“Detective Dalton Avery.” Avery cast a seething glance at Nathan. The negotiator’s sympathetic expression flashed to one of intense loathing.

“Ms. Davis, did the partner say anything else?” Avery continued.

Another SWAT officer appeared. “Metro wants us to help search.”

“Right behind you.” Nathan rose to his feet. He was tall and broad shouldered, and the black SWAT uniform made him slightly intimidating. “Take care, all right?”

“If it weren’t for you, I’d have lost it in there,” Emilie said. “Thank you.”

“Don’t sell yourself short.” He wiped the moisture off his face with the back of his muscled forearm. “You helped keep everyone alive.”

Emilie looked across the room where the door now rested against the wall. The hidden passageway emitted an eerie glow as police moved between the earthen walls.

“Where does it go?”

Even if the tunnel connected to the building next door, police had the area surrounded, so how did Creepy Guy intend to escape? Perhaps her mole analogy wasn’t far off—maybe the man was still underground, dodging the cops in some sort of dugout maze.

“You should probably focus on answering Detective Avery’s—”

“Nathan.” Emilie cut in. “I deserve to know, and I’d like to hear it from you.”

Emilie’s skin warmed as Nathan’s eyes searched hers. “Please.”

“The hole goes to a room with a distilling machine.” His gentle tone reminded Emilie of a compassionate doctor. “There’s a second tunnel. It leads to a sewer pipe.”

“A sewer pipe? So there must be a manhole nearby, right?”

“Probably. But it looks like this pipe was re-used when the storm drains were built in the nineties.”

Dizziness swept over Emilie. “He was going to take me into the tunnels?”

“Nate.” The shout came from above. “Truck’s loaded and waiting.”

“Don’t think about the tunnels. Just tell Detective Avery everything you remember.”

He offered her one last smile before retreating up the stairs, the sound of his heavy boots rumbling through the hallway.

Everything she could remember. Right. All she could think about was the cavernous hole less than twenty feet away.

Avery cleared his throat, his skinny face scrunched in frustration. “As I’ve already asked, did the partner say anything else?”

“Which time?” A stinging jab of pain tore through Emilie’s shoulder. She must have fallen on it when Creepy hit her.

“The partner said he’d come for you. Did you have any idea he was stalking you?”

“No. But this morning, I got flowers. I thought they were a mistake. Casablanca lilies with a William Blake poem attached. Blake is my favorite poet. Creepy told me he sent them.”

“How many people knew you liked Blake’s poetry?”

“No one.”

“Did you ever get a good look at the man who tried to kidnap you?”

“No.” Emilie shoved her damp hair off her face, cringing as her fingers grazed her sore cheek. “He kept his mask on. I just saw a few glimpses of skin.”

“Any idea of his ethnicity?”

“Maybe Mediterranean.”

“Surveillance wasn’t able to get a good visual. Can you describe him?”

“Tall and lanky. Clothes were dark and looked new, not like Joe. That guy looked and smelled filthy, but the partner smelled clean, like fabric softener.”

“What about his voice? Anything unique?”

“Pretty sure he was disguising it. Sounded too controlled.” Adrenaline rushed through Emilie. “That’s right. When he first spoke, I could have sworn I recognized his voice.”

Avery scribbled in his notebook. “What happened in the basement?”

“I fought to get away. We struggled. He…uh…” She surveyed Avery’s pristine appearance and refined mannerisms. He looked more like an accountant than a cop. “He was excited.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“He didn’t have to.”

“Oh. Good to know. Let’s get back to the basement itself. What’s the first thing you noticed aside from the…err… excitement?”

“The smell. I figured the cardboard boxes stored down there must have gotten wet and moldy. I tried to get away and then I heard noise from upstairs. Was someone shot?”

“A SWAT officer was taken to the hospital.” Avery squinted as sweat ran down into his eye. He dabbed his face with a delicate, white handkerchief. “I’m sure he’ll be fine. Continue, please.”

“I kept fighting.” Emilie closed her eyes. Her skin burned as she remembered the feel of Creepy Guy’s hands, his body pressing her to the floor, his erection rigid against her back. “He didn’t understand, like he expected me to go willingly. Kept saying we were meant to be. I finally nailed him in the crotch. He said something about having it my way, for now. Next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor alone.”

“Can you think of anyone who would want to harm you? Ex-husband, ex-boyfriend, someone with a grudge?”

“No.” Emilie’s upper lip curled at the reminder of Evan. As if that good-for-nothing bastard had any reason to hold a grudge. “My ex-husband moved to California with his girlfriend two years ago.”

“What about your family? Are they well-off?”

“What?” A new kind of fear shot through her.

“A kidnapping is usually motivated by money. If your family—”

“I haven’t had any contact with my family since I was eighteen. They are well-off, but that doesn’t matter. They wouldn’t be interested in a ransom.”

“Sixteen years? We’ll need their names and addresses.”

Emilie had no idea where her parents lived any more. Knowing Claire, she’d managed to wrangle an even bigger home out of her husband in a more elite neighborhood.

“Claire Davis is my mother.” Saying the words made her already-tight chest ache even more. “She’s married to Sam Davis. He’s a criminal attorney. They live in Portland. At least they did when I left.”

“He’s your stepfather?”

“Yes.”

“What about your biological father?”

“Never a factor in my life.”

“I’ll still need his name,” Avery said.

“Why? There’s no way—”

“We have to eliminate suspects, Ms. Davis. Your father’s name?”

“Mark Chambers. No idea where he lives.”

“We’ll interview all of them as soon as possible.”

Like hell they would. Emilie heaved herself to her feet, clutching the chair for support. Her right heel had snapped during the struggle down the stairs, and the remaining one wobbled dangerously. She grabbed the sleeve of Avery’s fancy suit. “Please don’t contact my parents.”

“It’s protocol.” Avery detached her soiled fingers and dusted off the sleeve of his suit.

“I don’t want them involved,” Emilie shouted. She swayed unsteadily. “Especially my mother. Please.”