A Heartbeat Away

by Michael Palmer

  Could she still be alive?

  She lifted Sylvia’s head using two fingers underneath her chin. Immediately the flash of hope gave way to anguish and revulsion. Angie recoiled at the sight of the dead woman’s tongue protruding out between her lips. Sylvia’s face was swollen and dark, and even in the gloom, Angie could see that her bulging eyes were spotted red with burst capillaries—a sign, she knew, of strangulation. She swallowed back a jet of bile and allowed Sylvia’s chin to drop back against her chest.

  Calming herself with deep breaths, Angie examined the method used to hang the woman. The overhead pipe supplied the leverage to hoist her off the ground. The knot around the pipe seemed expertly done. Was she strangled before she was hung?

  Two thoughts occurred to Angie at that moment. First, that this was murder, not suicide. There was no chair or box Sylvia could have used. Somebody powerful had to have pulled on the cord to lift her off her feet. The second thought sent a chill through her. When she first stepped into the basement and listened she’d had a strong sense that she was not alone.

  Instantly, Angie was overwhelmed by the need to get out of the building and into the alley. She whirled and dashed back up the aisle.

  She had made it halfway when the heavy steel door ahead of her swung shut.

  CHAPTER 38

  DAY 5

  11:15 P.M. (EST)

  Before Angie could react, a man emerged from the shadows beside the door, and stepped into the aisle, blocking her path. He was tall—six feet or more—and thin, but broad at the shoulders. Even in the dim light she could tell that his aquiline face was probably handsome at one time. Now, dominated by a huge, jagged scar running down his forehead, across his eyebrow, and over his cheek, it was utterly terrifying. He wore a black leather jacket, black watch cap, and black leather gloves. Dangling loosely from his right hand was a meat cleaver. What little light there was glinted off its broad blade.

  “Welcome to hell, Senorita Fletcher,” he said, his perfect English tinged with a Hispanic accent.

  React! Angie’s mind screamed. Now!

  She swept her arm across the shelf by her shoulder, sending a barrage of cans and cartons flying into his chest, belly, and groin. The impact wasn’t much, but the surprise gave her what she needed—enough time to whirl and bolt back down the aisle.

  “No chance, senorita,” the man called out in a singsong voice.

  Angie screamed for help, frantically wondering where she might find another way out. If there were a stairway, she would have to pass by Sylvia’s body to find it.

  “Help!” she screamed again. “Someone please help!”

  “I promise it will be painless for you, senorita,” the man called from behind her. “Dr. Chen was kind enough to part with her papers. Now, I just need a few answers from you. Thank you for leading me to her, by the way. I’ve been with you all the way from Kansas, and now I feel as if we are sort of buddies.”

  He was close.

  Angie turned her head to gauge how close, and slammed into Sylvia’s body. The woman’s corpse swung away, then back, striking Angie and dropping her to one knee. She cried out and, scrambling to her feet, shoved Chen at the killer, who was now near enough to connect with the cleaver had he chosen to do so.

  Instead, he stepped to one side of the aisle, twirling the weapon like a drummer’s stick. They were no more than three feet apart. Even in the deep gloom, the grotesque, irregular scar stood out like a lightning bolt. There was nothing in his expression that suggested it was worth trying to negotiate.

  “Enough,” he said. “We need to talk. Your friend Sliplitz understood. He answered my questions. You do the same and I promise you won’t feel any more pain than he did.”

  “You son of a bitch!”

  “Believe it or don’t, Senorita Fletcher, you are not the first one to call me that. Now…”

  Cradling the cleaver in his right hand, he took a half step toward her and reached out for her arm. Angie’s response was immediate. She swept her fist overhead, shattering the lightbulb and throwing the basement into absolute darkness. In the same motion, she grasped one of the metal shelving units, bringing it crashing down on the man.

  The killer grunted and cursed, and Angie felt certain he was on the floor. Instead of turning to run, she leapt forward, stepping on boxes and the shelving, and stomping on what might have been the killer’s chest. Then, holding her arms out to her sides to maintain contact with the shelves, she moved ahead as rapidly as she dared, back toward the steel door.

  One step through the blackness, then another.

  Behind her she heard the man throwing aside the debris, and working himself out from under the shelf.

  The door had to be directly ahead.

  Angie was trying to visualize which side the handle was on when she slammed full face into a steel support beam. She heard the bone in her nose shatter. Blinding pain exploded through her head. Instinctively, she wrapped her arms around the post, keeping herself from going down. Her nose filled with blood. Tears flooded down her cheeks.

  At that instant, the killer’s hand closed on her ankle.

  Fueled by adrenaline, Angie kicked frantically, and connected. The grip on her leg vanished. Dazed, she plunged ahead. Two more steps and she hit the steel door forehead first, snapping her neck back. Another blast of pain. More dizziness and nausea. More tears. She slowed momentarily, then fumbled blindly for the door handle.

  Again she felt the man’s hand shoot out through the darkness and close on her ankle, but in that moment, her own fingers closed on the door handle.

  She jammed the handle down. Immediately the door yielded, and she was in the alley, which was only marginally better lit than the basement had been. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that her pursuer was on his hands and knees. He had clearly lost some of his composure. His lips were pulled back in a snarl.

  Angie charged ahead. The killer, scrambling to his feet, might have gotten her right there, had he not slipped and fallen heavily into a puddle of garbage mixed with freezing slush.

  Still, with the man quickly regaining his feet, Angie knew the chase was almost over. She was too far from either end of the alley to make it.

  “Help!” she screamed. “Someone help me, please!”

  Her cries were swallowed by the dense winter night.

  A fire escape seemed her only chance. The way up to the nearest one was the built-in rungs on the side of one of the narrow Dumpsters, standing no more than eight feet away.

  Gasping for breath, Angie grasped the top rung and hauled herself up until she was standing on the rim of the Dumpster, six feet from the ground and another six feet or so from the steel ladder at the base of the slatted stairway.

  “End of the line, senorita,” the man said, breathing heavily.

  He reached for her ankle, but just as he did, Angie took a single deep breath and launched herself upward. The cold air and her winter jacket held her back, making the difficult leap almost impossible. She was certain she had missed, and was already wondering what she could possibly do next when the fingers of her right hand hit against the edge of the lowest rung of the fire escape ladder and curled around the metal. There was no way she would be able to hold on for more than a second or two, but that was enough. Her weight began to pull the rusted ladder down, far enough so that her feet reconnected with the rim of the Dumpster. She adjusted her grip, hooked the fingers of her other hand around the icy metal, and pulled with all her strength.

  In what seemed like slow motion, the ladder swung down.

  Her foot was on the second rung when she felt the killer clawing at her leg once more. This time, she pulled away easily and climbed upward toward the first landing. She screamed and screamed again for help, aware that any misstep now would mean her death.

  To her dismay the windows on the building remained dark and closed. By the time she reached the first landing, the man was on the ladder. The windows facing the landing were barred. From now on it would be sta
irs—slatted, freezing metal that would make every step treacherous.

  At the second-floor landing the windows weren’t barred. She considered and quickly abandoned the notion of smashing one of them, and trying to climb or dive inside someone’s apartment. The killer was way too close, and two people had already died because of her.

  Keeping her hands in contact with the railing, she pounded upward past one landing, then another. Blood sprayed from her nose with every frozen breath. She pawed at it with the back of her hand and coughed it from the back of her throat. Still, the distance between her and the killer seemed to be widening. Perhaps his sodden clothes were slowing him down. Perhaps he was hurt. Perhaps it was all those hours she had spent on the stationary bike.

  God, but she missed her apartment.…

  Her dizziness was getting more intense, and her breathing was growing more difficult, but she could hear that her pursuer was laboring also. She was reconsidering smashing a window, when she looked above and saw movement. A woman was poking out from one of the windows on the next landing.

  “Help me!” Angie cried out to her. “Please!”

  The woman slipped back inside the room, but the narrow window remained open. Angie dove through it, landing awkwardly, hitting her already battered forehead and smearing the hardwood floor with blood. A wizened woman stood in a corner, illuminated by a small bedside lamp. Angie suddenly realized where she was. Riverside! She’d explored the place just hours ago. She knew the room and she knew its occupant.

  It was Chen Su—Sylvia Chen’s mother.

  CHAPTER 39

  DAY 5

  11:30 P.M. (EST)

  “Mrs. Chen, hide! You’ve got to hide!”

  Angie heard the killer on the landing. It had been a mistake to lead him in here. Now she had to lead him away.

  To her right, the aged woman stood placidly, her Alzheimer’s disease apparently shielding her from the terror of the situation.

  “Go!” Chen Su ordered suddenly. “Go quickly!”

  Angie hesitated, then raced from the room at the moment she heard her pursuer climbing through the window.

  “She not here! Not here!” she heard Chen cry out.

  “Shut up, old woman!” the man snapped.

  “Not here … not here … not here!”

  Chen’s room was at the end of the sixth floor, nearest to the freight elevator. The long corridor to the other rooms was totally deserted. Angie headed for the elevator, hoping to use it to escape. As she reached it and pulled the doors apart, she remembered that Mei Wu had used a key to start it. Counting on the relic had been a dumb idea in the first place.

  “I said SHUT UP!”

  The killer’s furious words echoed out into the hallway.

  A moment later, Angie heard the woman get slapped and fall to the floor.

  She sickened at the sound.

  It had been wrong to put Chen Su in harm’s way. Now, it was time to end it. It was time to surrender before the poor woman or anyone else got killed. Angie took a step back toward room 603. Then she stopped.

  Even without the key, the elevator could be of use.

  Angie took a single step inside. The perilous gap in the floor at the rear of the car was as she remembered.

  There was a second slap from room 603 followed by the sound of the armoire doors being yanked open.

  “Not here!” she again heard Chen say. “No one here! No one here!”

  Angie set her red knit cap on the floor of the car, a foot from the gap. Then she grabbed one of two wheelchairs resting against a nearby wall, and ducked around the corner beyond the elevator, looking back toward room 603. A moment later, the killer emerged, dragging the old woman by her hair.

  “Come out, senorita, or I kill this nice lady right here, right now,” he said. “Scream and she dies too.”

  Angie kept perfectly still. Then she heard the man laugh.

  “End of the line,” he said.

  Angie could hear him moving toward her and the elevator.

  Chen Su was still continuously whimpering, “Not here.… Not here.…”

  Angie took a chance and craned around the corner enough to see that the killer had let the woman go and was now approaching the gloomy elevator car with little caution. At the door, he paused, scanning inside. Then he spied her bright cap and stepped in toward it.

  Angie hesitated just a beat. Then she swung the wheelchair around the corner and began a sprint toward the car. The man was on one knee, picking up the cap and then peering over the edge of the gap in the floor. He turned when she was just a few feet away, but he was twisted and off balance, and his reaction was far too late. The wheelchair slammed into his mid-back, and he went down. A second ramming, and he was into the gap.

  At the last possible moment, the fingers of his gloved left hand gained a hold on the edge of the steel floor … then, as Angie watched from above, he swung his right hand up and those fingers tightened over the rim as well.

  Glaring up at her, not saying a word, he swung one leg back and was able to gain purchase with it against the brick wall of the shaft. He pushed himself up one inch … then another. Now, one hand was over the rim and flat on the floor of the car.

  Even at such a disadvantage, his scar was menacing.

  Angie had never physically hurt another human being let alone murdered someone. Dizzy and battered, she stared down at the man. Good or bad, she was thinking, there had been far too much killing already. Far too much death.

  The killer’s leg continued to give him support. Now, his second hand was fully on the steel floor, inching forward.

  Angie wondered how she could control him if she helped him up.

  “Where did you put Sylvia’s notes?” she asked.

  “No … notes.… She … had … nothing.”

  The man’s expression softened. It was as if he had gotten a read on her and knew she did not have it in her to kill.

  Another inch.

  Angie knelt on one knee and stared into his eyes, trying to match his fierce, defiant expression with one of her own.

  “Tell me again,” she demanded. “Where are the papers?”

  At that instant, Chen Su appeared by Angie’s side. Dark blood trailed from the corner of her mouth. Without hesitating, she cried out and began stamping on her assailant’s hands again and again with surprising force.

  “Wait!” Angie cried.

  But it was too late.

  The man’s right hand dropped to his side. One final blow, and his left hand went as well.

  The killer made the six-story fall without uttering a sound.

  An awful thud from below punctuated the silence.

  CHAPTER 40

  DAY 5

  10:30 P.M. (CST)

  Would it be worth it? Griff asked himself.

  Not surprisingly, he began thinking about his sister, Louisa, and the promise he made to himself after her death. He knew from the moment the meningitis claimed her that he would dedicate his life to hunting cures for deadly microbes. He would become the Orion of the CDC or NIH, or whatever lab would have him—a one-man crusader against death. At the time, he never considered animal testing taboo. How many primates or sheep or cats or canines or purebred white rats would equal his sister’s life? But then, Louisa’s dog—a spirited mixed breed named Moonshine—forever altered his thinking.

  At Louisa’s funeral, Moonshine, probably more golden retriever than anything else, sat vigil on the stairs outside the church. With the unexpectedness of her mistress’s death, no preparations had been made for the three-year-old’s care. But Griff knew the animal was happy, well trained, and his sister’s greatest love.

  “My future husband will simply have to share me,” Louisa would joke whenever questions arose regarding her devotion to Moonshine.

  After the funeral, there was no question Griff would take the dog as his own.

  From almost the moment Moonshine and Griff returned home, she was different. Her appetite diminished, then soon a
ll but vanished. She drank only minimally, became lethargic, and never wanted to play for long. Eventually, when her weight loss became obvious and alarming, Griff took her to a respected, highly recommended veterinarian. The vet’s diagnosis of depressive disorder both shocked and saddened him. At the time, Griff had no idea canine depression was a real condition. But even more distressing, it hurt him to realize that Moonshine missed Louisa as much as he did, and that there seemed to be absolutely nothing he could do about it.

  “What can I do to help?” he had asked the specialist on a return visit.

  “The danger of death is very real,” the doctor explained. “You’ve got to find a way to make life fun for her again.”

  And so Griff tried. He bought her toys. He took her to the dog park near his house every night. He hand-prepared gourmet food and even tried antidepressants prescribed by the vet. But nothing he did slowed Moonshine’s dramatic deterioration. More and more he feared for the dog’s life. That was when he called Andrea Bargnani—Louisa’s best friend, who had moved away a year or so before.

  “I don’t know what I can do,” Andrea, a teacher, had said. “I saw Moonshine almost every day when I was living here, but since I moved, I’ve only seen her every couple of months.”

  “You were Louisa’s closest friend. Maybe if you just came by for a day or so. Andrea, Moonshine’s going to die from this. I’m certain of it.”

  When the teacher showed up at the house, the dog reacted almost immediately. She picked her head up and barked—once, and then again. It was the first bark that Griff had heard since the funeral, and the joy in the sound was apparent. Within minutes, the Shiner, as Louisa called her, was up on all fours, her tail flicking wildly. She nuzzled against Andrea’s legs and tried to climb into her arms, as though she could not get close enough. Griff had no doubt at all that Louisa was somehow alive in the animal.

  Andrea felt the same thing. Even though, at the time, she was living in a small apartment, she gladly agreed to take the dog.