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.
CHAPTER 23
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.
CHAPTER 24
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.