by Hunt, Angela
“The same way we were going to climb up when Eddie was here. Look.” She bends and scoops up the tangled harness. “This is still attached to something up there, so you can’t fall if you put it on. Two of us will boost one up—that one will wait on the roof and help the second one. Then we’ll lower the harness again and the two of us will pull the third one up and out.”
Gina closes her eyes so tightly her face seems about to fold in on itself. “I’m not getting on top of this car. We all know what happened to that man, and conditions are even worse now.”
“Eddie was caught by surprise,” Michelle says. “We’ll know to hang on. Sure, the wind’s blowing, but everything that can fly through those doors is probably long gone.”
“What about the roof?” Gina interrupts. “The roof is blowing off, and who knows what will fall down this shaft.”
Michelle ignores Gina and gives Isabel a bright smile. “We’ll climb out, we’ll hang on to each other, and we’ll go to the stairwell, like Eddie said. We can ride out the storm there.”
Gina refuses to open her eyes, but a faint line appears between Isabel’s brows. “You think we will be okay?”
Michelle softens her voice. “I don’t know anything for sure. But I don’t think we can be comfortable here without food or water, and Gina’s right about the roof being vulnerable. The cables might hold the elevator, but they might not. Besides—” she smiles “—I would appreciate access to a bathroom. So I’m climbing out.”
Isabel glances at Gina, then shakes her head. “I am not sure.”
“What a fool,” Gina whispers. She opens her eyes and jerks her chin toward the ceiling. “What if the power comes back on while you’re walking around on the top of this thing?”
“Eddie said the car wouldn’t move as long as the cover’s off the hatch.” Michelle picks up the harness and tries to make sense of the loops. “How do you get into this getup?”
“You should stay put.” Gina crosses her arms. “That’s what I tell my kids—if you’re lost, frightened or in trouble, get someplace safe and stay put.”
“You think this car is safe?” Michelle lowers the harness and meets Gina’s gaze head-on. “Look, I know this has been a day none of us will want to remember. I know we’re upset because Parker and Eddie are dead and we’re probably alone in this building. But before we lost him, Eddie said the way out was through that opening in the ceiling. I choose to believe he knew what he was talking about.”
Gina’s brows rise, graceful wings of scorn. “You’d trust a man who couldn’t even save himself?”
“Absolutely.” Michelle bends to pick up her purse, then glances over her shoulder. “Isabel, last chance. Are you coming with me?”
The cleaning woman’s face clouds with worry, then she nods. “Sí. I must think of Carlos and Rafael.”
“If you love them, you’ll stay put.” Gina’s creditable attempt at confidence is marred only by the unsteadiness of her voice. “Someone will come to rescue us eventually. By now my kids have realized that Sonny and I are missing. They’ll call someone to find us as soon as the roads are passable again.” She reaches for Isabel’s arm and clings to it with surprising desperation. “Sonny and I are important people. The authorities will come for us right away.”
Isabel glances from Gina to Michelle, then lifts her gaze to the opening that leads to freedom. “I am going up.”
When Gina’s lower lip quivers, her fear becomes visible—brittle in her cheekbones and haunting in her eyes. Michelle stares at the woman across the car and realizes that Parker’s wife is terrified of being left alone. She is hard, but she is not strong. Not without her husband.
“Gina—” Michelle softens her voice “—would you please reconsider?”
Despite her fear, Gina has apparently withdrawn into a place no one can reach. “I’m not moving,” she says, crossing her arms. “I’m staying here…where I know I’ll be safe.”
Michelle swallows hard. “Will you at least help us out?”
The redhead hesitates only a moment, then she pushes herself up from the floor. “Let it be noted,” she says, woodenly stepping to Isabel’s side, “that I predicted you would kill yourselves within the hour.”
Eddie opens his eyes. He’s not dead…so he must not have outlived his expiration date.
“Why not?” he asks the darkness. “Why not take me now? This storm is probably going to usher a lot of people into eternity, so why not add me to the guest list? You haven’t left me with a lot of other options.”
He listens, but hears only the sound of the bawling wind and the flutter of debris outside the shaft.
So…the Almighty is going to hold his tongue today. This is going to be one of those work-it-out ventures. One of those experiences his grandfather would have called soul-strengthening.
Eddie groans and brings his hand to his forehead. At this moment, his soul needs strengthening about as much as a pig needs a manicure. What he needs is a way out and the strength to rescue the women whose quandary brought him to this place.
Because gray light is coming through the open doors at the twenty-eighth floor, his eyes adjust to the gloom. The thin light outlines the women’s car first, then touches the back wall before creeping almost imperceptibly across the hoistway. There it blends with the murk of the yawning shaft overhead and submits to the greater darkness of the depths.
But it is enough. Eddie draws a deep breath and stares at the rail at the side of the car. The vertical beam, which runs from the basement to the building’s highest floor, is one of a pair designed to steady the elevator cab. With its twin, located on the opposite side of the car, the rail prevents any horizontal movement. A divider beam near every landing extends from the front wall to the back, anchoring the rails.
He’s never climbed up a rail before, but he’s heard stories of other elevator mechanics who were forced to scale them in order to escape a hoistway. In none of those daring tales, however, were any of the heroes suffering from cracked ribs and a broken leg.
Eddie wipes the dust and moisture from his palms, then grips the vertical steel beam at his side. He can’t remember the last time he tried to do pull-ups, but he figures he can do at least thirty before his arms give out. If necessary, he can pause to catch his breath on the horizontal divider beams positioned about every ten feet throughout the shaft.
If he can climb thirty feet, he can reach the narrow divider beam at the twenty-fifth floor. From there he can cross the steel rail and reach the hoistway sill, where he can stand on tiptoe and cling to the wall while he unlocks the doors.
Theoretically, it’s a credible plan. Any Olympic gymnast could manage it.
Eddie tugs on the beam, then struggles to get his good leg under his weight. He manages to place his left foot squarely on the cab, but when he strains to pull himself up, the broken bone of his right leg scrapes across the bent edge of the crosshead at the center of the car.
He cries out in dazzled agony as a flashbulb explodes behind his eyes. His strength fails as his body sings with pain, then he folds gently at the waist and crumples onto the dusty rooftop, letting the darkness claim him.
Gina runs her hand down her throat as she watches Michelle slip into the nylon harness. Though it’s a hard truth to admit, she can now see why Sonny desired the younger woman. Michelle tackles challenges with capable confidence, yet she disarms people with friendliness. This beautiful young woman must have swept Sonny off his feet, binding him to her with smiles and laughter and an absolute refusal to make demands.
When he was with her, he must have felt as free as an eagle.
Yet Gina knows her husband, and, given complete information, she has always been able to predict his behavior. If Michelle had told him about the baby and insisted that he marry her, he would have refused. He would have broken off the relationship, and probably come clean about his existing marriage.
So perhaps this elevator mishap has been a mercy. Now Michelle will never have to know the sting o
f Sonny’s rejection or the pain of his betrayal. And though earlier Gina told the woman that Sonny would never accept another child, now she would like to recall those words. Not for Sonny’s sake…but for Michelle’s.
Sonny Rossman was a lout…but he was also much loved. In fact, some still-functioning part of Gina’s brain marvels that his mistress could even think about climbing out of this elevator to rejoin the world. She ought to be bowed with grief and stunned by loss.
She couldn’t have loved him, not really. If she had, she wouldn’t be able to imagine a world without Sonny.
Michelle snaps the buckle across her chest, then tugs on the line that dangles through the opening. “Okay, it’s secure.” She absently pats the pockets of her jeans, then her gaze falls on her purse. She crouches, pulls out the cell phone and her keys, and slips them into her pockets. “I guess I’m ready.”
Gina bends her knees and catches a breath as Michelle places a sneakered foot in her locked hands. Isabel whispers something in Spanish—a prayer?—while Michelle leans on their shoulders.
“Okay,” she says. “I know this is the hard part, but I need you to straighten and lift me as high as you can. I don’t think I’m strong enough to pull myself up otherwise.”
Gina catches Isabel’s eye. “Ready?”
The maid nods and Gina counts: “One, two, three!” They stand and launch Michelle upward. The effort requires less strength than Gina imagined, and she blinks when Michelle catches something beyond the opening and pulls herself onto the top of the car.
Gina steps back, impressed. The girl is stronger than she looks.
“Wow,” Michelle calls, her voice like an echo from an empty tomb. “It’s creepy up here. And dirty.” She dusts her hands, then looks down at Isabel. “Want me to give you the harness?”
Isabel considers the question, then shakes her head. Apparently she’d rather fall than repeat her previous experience.
Gina retreats to her corner by the door. Those two young women have more energy than brains. They may climb out of the shaft, but this is a tall building and at any corner they could be blindsided by a piece of flying shrapnel or accosted by a crazed homeless person. She, on the other hand, might spend another forty-eight hours in this car, but she’ll be safe when the hurricane is over. When power is restored she’ll ride the elevator to wherever it lands, then step onto a solid structure, alive and well.
But alone.
A new sound catches her ear, a hum that seems to come from overhead. She frowns. “You hear that?”
Beside her, Isabel stiffens. “The wind?”
“I don’t think so.”
From somewhere above them, Michelle calls, “Hang on. I see a toolbox—”
The overhead lights come on, blinding Gina with sudden brightness, but though she can hear the sounds of movement in the shaft, their car does not rise. She reaches for the railing, bracing for a delayed reaction, but the elevator refuses to budge.
She looks toward the escape hatch, which looks far less promising in the light. Of course! The mechanic said the elevator wouldn’t move if the hatch—
Before she can finish her thought, darkness overtakes the car again. An instant later, the emergency light flickers and begins to glow.
The bulb, however, seems less bright than before. Is it dying, too?
5:00 p.m.
CHAPTER 24
Eddie dreams of bees. They surround him in an angry swarm, stinging his chest, his leg and his ankles as they carry him off. He feels the breath of movement on his face and swats at the buzzing creatures, but not until he strikes his breastbone does a dart of pain bring him back to reality.
He’s still on the elevator, and it’s moving. Startled, he reaches for the solidity of the crosshead, then he laughs, not at all surprised to hear a note of hysteria in his voice.
Whoever decided to bury Tampa’s downtown power lines deserves a medal. Despite the fury of this storm, electricity is flowing and the elevator is descending. After so many outages, the controller has undoubtedly lost its awareness of the cab’s position so, like the others, this cab will descend to the lobby to reestablish the connection.
Eddie’s laughter halts as suddenly as the elevator. The electric hum ceases, the car stops, and the brakes clamp down, holding the car firmly in position. Eddie pushes himself up and studies the front wall of the shaft. His brief ride carried him in the wrong direction, so now he’ll have to climb sixty feet, not thirty.
But he will climb…because apparently his arms, legs and soul need a vigorous workout.
Before turning again to the rail, he leans across the car and hits the Stop button—no sense in risking any further movement of the car. He reaches for the guide rail with both arms and pulls himself upright, ignoring the shaft of pain that rips through his wounded leg. Hopping on his left foot, he swipes his damp hands on his jeans, then grips the rail again.
“I’m comin’, Sades.”
He lifts his gaze to the horizontal divider beam a few feet above his head and pulls himself upward. His broken tibia protests, but he braces himself against the pain and tries to remember how good it felt to finally reach the top of the rope in his middle-school gymnasium.
Ten strong pulls should take him to the first resting place in this concrete crypt. Ten individual efforts, then he can swing his good leg onto the beam. The broken bone will hurt like a mule’s kick every time it strikes the rail, but at least he’ll be able to use the muscles of his thigh on the climb. And his ribs—well, he has to breathe. His lungs will have to withstand the pain.
He climbs until the muscles of his arms and thighs burn, then he reaches the divider beam. His ribs stab at his lungs with every gasping breath, but he manages to shift his weight to his good leg and cling to the vertical rail with one hand, allowing the other arm to rest.
Despite the warm humidity of the shaft, a chilling thought threatens to freeze his scalp to his skull. This climb may be the most difficult ordeal of his life. Once he reaches the twenty-fifth floor, he will have to maneuver along a horizontal beam crowded with vertical hoistway ducts. It’d be a tricky maneuver under the best of circumstances, but he’ll be exhausted, wounded and wet from the trickle of rainwater that persists in falling from above.
Eddie closes his eyes and lets his forehead fall to the steel in front of his face. It’d be so easy to let go. A quick plunge down the shaft would bring an end to this agony and might even earn him some kind of posthumous award for service beyond the call of duty. A plunge to the bottom of the shaft would end everything—his regrets about his marriage, his guilt about Panama City and his doubts about the future.
But this life…is not his to throw away. He didn’t create it, and despite a desperate willingness to hand it back, he’s still here.
The drowned boy, the women in the elevator, even himself…how presumptuous to think he could wield the power of life or death over any of them.
He can only commit to his present task and do the best he can. The Creator of life, and storms, and seas, will have to do the rest.
So he won’t give up. Sadie’s out there waiting for him, along with three women who shouldn’t be in the building, but are. Because one of them looked up at him with trust and confidence shining in her eyes, he will keep climbing.
Maybe she needs her soul strengthened, too.
Michelle is trying to untangle the lanyard from a beam at the top of the car when a new sound causes her to freeze—could that be the whoosh and hum of a moving elevator? Beneath her, the car brightens and for an instant her soul floods with hope, then she remembers what Eddie said: as long as the escape hatch remains open, their car isn’t going anywhere.
When the lights go out and the electrical hum fades into the hurricane howl, she leans toward the opening in the roof. “Isabel? You ready?”
The corners of the housekeeper’s mouth are tight, but she nods and moves beneath the hatch. She shoots a timid glance at Gina, who stands next to the elevator panel, the emergency lig
ht sparking in her red hair.
“Gina, if you can boost Isabel to the railing, it’ll support her weight until I can pull her up.”
When the redhead compresses her mouth into a thin line, Michelle is afraid the woman will refuse to help. She has no real reason to balk, but no one wants to be left alone.
But Gina squares her shoulders and moves forward, bending her knees as she laces her fingers together. “I still think you’re making a mistake,” she says.
A flicker of uncertainty creeps into Isabel’s expression, but she places one foot into Gina’s linked hands.
“This is going to be a little tricky, but we can do it,” Michelle says, straddling the sturdy crossbeam. In front of her dangle a half dozen cables as thick as a man’s fingers. The hatch lies to her right, but to her left, a pair of open doors lead to the twenty-eighth floor and freedom.
Eddie’s pet, she realizes with mixed feelings, has apparently given up its vigil at the doorway. Though Michelle has never had a single sympathetic feeling for a canine, she finds herself admiring the dog. The animal has exhibited more courage than she has, because she can’t bring herself to look down the shaft that claimed Eddie.
With the lanyard and one leg hooked around the crossbeam, she bends at the waist and extends her right arm into the opening. “Ready when you are.”
Isabel nods, her countenance immobile, and Gina yells, “Now!” Isabel stretches upward; Michelle clasps the girl’s wrist and Gina staggers beneath the cleaning woman’s weight. Michelle pulls, straining until nearly every bone in her body feels out of joint.
Somehow, Isabel gets both arms out of the car and braces them on the edge of the hatch. Michelle helps the girl hoist one leg onto the roof, then Isabel rolls against the center beam and stares up at the collection of cables that stretch into the darkness like some kind of industrial-age beanstalk.
