by Margaret Carter, Crystal Green, Erica Orloff, Patricia Rosemor
I got busy taking orders, all the while my brain going over what had just happened with Blaise. And with his declaration that he could take care of Desiree if she presented a problem—which she didn’t, because she was nowhere to be seen.
But the new undercover cop was. Officer Fred Duran’s own mother wouldn’t recognize him in black leather pants and jacket and a long black wig. He sat at the bar, about halfway down. I knew he was the plant by the way he too casually swept his gaze over the room, letting it come to rest on me for a significant moment before looking away. He was too close to where I placed my orders for my comfort. I didn’t want him overhearing anything personal between Jake and me. Assuming anything personal went down.
Thinking I would simply have to make sure it didn’t, I avoided lingering at the bar. As I approached a table of straight customers, I was reminded of Annie. I looked around but didn’t see her tonight. Smart girl.
“What can I get for you?” I asked.
No sooner did I place an order than I approached another table, then returned to the bar and traded a new order for the filled one.
An hour of this and Jake said, “Are you trying to make most-efficient-waitress-of-the-year or what?”
“Wow, I didn’t know efficiency was frowned on around here.”
“Avoiding me is.”
I glanced sideways to the cop, hoping he was far enough away that he hadn’t heard Jake’s throaty reply.
“Not here,” I said, my jaw clenched.
“Sounds promising. Where, then?”
I felt as if Officer Undercover were staring a hole through me. And beyond him, Desiree had appeared from somewhere, and she was staring at us, too.
In a slightly raised voice, I said, “Make that Bloody Cosmopolitan a double.” Then I took my tray and moved off to deliver the drinks.
With a reduced crowd, I couldn’t keep up the busy-waitress routine, so I decided a break was in order. No one was in the ladies’ room, so I took refuge in there.
The ladies’ room was downstairs in the basement. There was a lounge area sharing space with the furnace, which at this time of year was off. I had to go through there to get to the stalls.
I did my business and was about to come out when I heard, “Elvie told me the lair is something else,” and I froze.
I recognized the voice as belonging to the fuchsia-haired Goth named Sheena.
“Where is this place?” a second voice—one I didn’t recognize—asked.
“He said the entrance is on Lake Street. You know, the boarded-up meat market,” Sheena said. “I think we ought to check it out.”
“Without the guys?”
“Why not? Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“I don’t know….”
“I don’t want to go alone,” Sheena complained.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t go at all.”
The voices faded off and I came out of the stall.
Lair. What kind of lair? One that interested Elvin Mowry. And with a nearby Lake Street address.
Maybe tonight I would find out what happened to Thora Nelson and LaTonya Sanford.
Chapter 13
After I left the ladies’ room, I went to find Desiree. I found her in her office. She lay back against her chair, looking weak and wan. At my knock, she lifted her head as if with great effort.
“Silke, what is it?”
Wondering if she was ill—or perhaps simply weak from starving herself to stay so thin—I said, “I need to leave a little early tonight.”
I thought to slide out the back way. I didn’t want one of the other cops following me and screwing up my plan. I meant to check out the place Sheena had been telling her friend about, and if my guess was right about its use, I would call for backup and do everything by the book. But I didn’t want to jump the gun and have my colleagues getting their chuckles at my expense once again.
“You may leave as you wish if you will work late for me tomorrow night. A private party at my place.” She stood and walked over to me. “You will be well compensated.”
I didn’t see how I was going to get out of agreeing to do the private party, so I said, “Sure. No problem.” Unless I solved the case tonight, of course.
If we were on her private turf, I might get some useful information out of the bar owner. I wondered, though, if she really was going to be able to hostess that party. I noted how sunken her cheeks were, how pale her skin, how dull her eyes.
We left her office together to the sounds of a commotion—raised voices, knocked-over chairs. Jake was standing in the middle of two half-drunk half-wits—a Goth and a neighborhood regular who were going at each other. The Goth was bleeding profusely from his nose. He ignored any pain he was in as he tried to get past Jake to jump the other patron. Jake put out a hand and stopped him cold.
So fast that I didn’t see it coming, he grabbed them both by the backs of their shirts and yelled, “Enough!”
The contentious men started to swing at him, but Jake somehow managed to hold them far enough away from himself and each other so they couldn’t do more damage.
I glanced at the cop halfway down the bar. He was watching the altercation closely, but he couldn’t break his cover. From somewhere, a tall bouncer I hadn’t seen before appeared. Jake handed over the two men to him.
I relaxed. At least I did until I got a good look at Desiree. Still next to me, she’d frozen, her gaze fixed on one of the men—I was pretty sure it was the one whose nose was undoubtedly broken. The blood was pouring from it. Desiree’s mouth was open and she darted out her tongue to her top lip as if she wanted to taste it; she was practically drooling. Then she covered her mouth and rushed back inside her office.
It was almost as if she were turned on by the sight of blood. Could she be a member of a vampire cult, too? That would explain why she ran a place like this.
All that vampire nonsense was getting to me. I desperately needed to figure out if Mowry and company were responsible.
Taking Desiree at her word that I could leave, I decided to head out now. I could probably check out the lair and make it back to the bar well before closing. Then Jake and the undercover cop could think whatever they wanted about my absence.
When Jake’s back was turned, I grabbed a small flashlight from the bar and dropped the slender metal stick into my skirt pocket. I delivered the last order I’d had filled, then slipped out into the hall, checking to make certain no one—including the cops watching the place—noticed my departure. I quickly crossed to the rear exit that took me to an alley.
The day’s heat had remained trapped between buildings, and coming out into it was like opening a furnace door. Either that or my rising adrenaline level was roasting me from the inside out. Fear slid down my spine as I set off, my gaze continually roaming as I searched in vain for other signs of life.
A moment later I was on Lake Street, where I crossed under the elevated tracks and approached the boarded-up meat market in question. The place looked deserted. I took a deep breath to center myself and checked around me to make certain I hadn’t missed anything. I was alone. I circled the building and checked for an alarm system—there was none—and for any easy entry.
The windows were nailed down tight and the doors were bolted, including the one on the shipping dock. In frustration, I struck out at it and the bolt swung out slightly, making me realize it was hanging from its latch without actually being engaged.
The door opened easily. I clicked on the flashlight and entered quietly. The space was open and empty and smelled slightly of old, dried blood.
Of course…a meat market.
My stomach lurched anyway, and I swallowed hard to settle it.
I half held my breath and walked around the large open area, finding nothing of interest. Then I swept my intense beam across the floor that was thick with dust…all except for what looked like a pathway to a far door.
My pulse raced along my veins as I made my way across the room, all the time conc
entrating on picking up the slightest sound.
No way was I going to be ambushed again.
I slowly opened the inner door and saw a set of steps. I followed them down to a basement that looked as if it had been used for storage. At the far end of the room was an old wood elevator cordoned off with a heavy chain-link barrier.
Apparently, someone hadn’t wanted anyone using the elevator. Perhaps the structure had grown dangerous with age.
I flashed the light along the elevator. Swinging the flashlight’s beam to the floor, I found the lock had been smashed, and further inspection of the area in front of the doors revealed more dust had been disturbed.
Someone had been using the elevator.
My pulse picked up. Had I found it, then? Would this lead me to the lair that Sheena had been so anxious to see?
I thought to stop right then. To return to the bar and get backup. But a noise from below made me hesitate. I listened hard and swore I heard what I thought was a cry cut short.
I should call for backup. I flipped open my phone and saw I had no signal. Damn!
What if someone was in danger? I listened hard but heard no further sound. Maybe what I’d heard was an animal. Rats?
Even so, I slipped through the chain-link barrier. I had to check it out, just in case….
My hand shook slightly as I slid open the doors and quickly swept the inside of the car with the beam. Empty. I walked in and closed the door behind me, then cocked a rotating handle to power the elevator down. The rest of me shook inside when the groan of the old machinery bellowed around me. Not that it was really that loud. Every sound seemed magnified, starting with the blood that rushed through my head.
I had my gun on me, which calmed me a bit.
When the car stopped and the doors opened, I shone my light into the dark hole before me and listened hard. But if there was a woman in pain down here, she was quiet now. This wasn’t a subbasement as I had expected, but an oval-shaped tunnel about six feet wide and eight feet high. Steel tracks swept down the tunnel floor.
What in the world…?
Then it hit me. The tunnel was part of the crazy quilt of intersecting freight and mail tunnels built forty feet below street level in the late nineteenth century.
I knew the network ran under the entire Loop area. Everyone in Chicago probably knew about them after the flood. A decade ago, there’d been a leak in a wall banking the Chicago River. The wall had given, and not only had the entire Loop network flooded, but subbasements of buildings, as well. Interest in the abandoned tunnels had been high, and the story had been heavily covered by the media.
I remembered reading that spur lines extended west under and then beyond the river for another half mile or so because of the fish and meat markets that used to occupy this area. The tunnels had been sealed off for more than half a century, but apparently someone had found use for them once more.
The tunnel floor was mostly smooth, but in places it was strewed with debris, chunks of decomposing wall and ceiling. I was careful to keep to the middle area between the tracks, and to avoid stepping on anything that might twist an ankle.
Ahead the tunnel split in two. I took the right branch. And when it split again, again I went right. I kept careful track of every twist and turn. The last thing I needed was to get lost in this maze.
This dark, dank and ultimately deserted maze. My gut was telling me to head back and call for backup. I was risking my life because I couldn’t sleep at night without a visit from LaTonya. But ending up dead wouldn’t do anyone any good.
Suddenly feeling not so brave, I began tracing my way back the way I’d come.
But before I could get there, I heard something that sounded like loose material skittering along the ground—some of the detritus from a crumbling wall that I’d come across before. Was that a natural sound? The decomposition of the tunnel? Or something human?
Then I swore I heard the whisper of footsteps along the tracks somewhere ahead.
The idea of unexpected company made my mouth go dry. I stopped and clicked off my flashlight and tried not to breathe. Did my best to listen, to pin where that sound had come from. My best effort was met with silence.
No aura of light came from anywhere down the shaft.
How could anyone get around in such absolute darkness?
I removed my weapon from its holster and held it firmly in front of me, aimed into the dark.
Still nothing.
I waited yet another interminable moment before going on, my flashlight low and close to me—a roaming beam would be a warning signal should someone else be in the tunnels. I would have clicked it out, but then what? I needed to see where I was going. All the while I crept back the way I came, I kept my inner radar at alert. I didn’t hear another sound, but for reasons I couldn’t explain, I felt another presence.
Call it instinct, call it experience, call it anything that fit, but I knew that whatever it was that I’d come looking for tonight was within my reach.
I made another turn, got that much closer to where I’d entered the maze, when my foot landed on loose matter and I would have done the splits if my boot hadn’t smacked up tight against an old train rail. I threw out my arms to catch myself and loosened my grip on the flashlight. It went flying, hit the tunnel wall and with a smack, went out.
Damn!
I didn’t dare curse aloud…didn’t dare breathe…didn’t dare take another step until I reconnoitered.
I strained for an entire minute at least, listening for some reaction. But the tunnel remained eerily silent.
Pent-up air flowed from my chest, and I blindly sought the flashlight, crouching and running my hand along the ground. Finally my hand nicked loose metal, spinning the flashlight out of reach.
I reached farther, finally closing my fingers around the comforting tool.
As I snatched it up, a feeling of triumph filled me. But my relief was short-lived because the light wouldn’t turn on. I tried snapping it. Shaking it. Begging silently with it. Nothing worked. It remained adamantly dark.
Great, because that’s just how I was going to have to get out of there—in the frickin’ dark!
Bemoaning my fate, I was about to stand to feel my way to the next tunnel split, when I heard a scuffle behind me. I started to whirl but something hard hit me in the side of the head and I staggered to my knees. I must have accidentally squeezed the trigger, because my gun went off with a resounding boom and sharp flash of blue light that illuminated a dark silhouette. But one whose identity I couldn’t penetrate.
I couldn’t focus my eyes.
Couldn’t focus my mind.
Couldn’t make my body cooperate.
A kick to the head did it every time. But this was the first time I was experiencing it myself.
Before I could recover, my head exploded with more pain—another kick—and my body went numb. Both the gun and the flashlight dropped from my fingers, which went slack.
And then my internal lights went out….
Sometime later I came up from a deep, dark void, someplace far, far away.
My head was still fuzzy and I was floating.
My head hung back as if over the edge of a bed. My legs dangled in space. And one arm hung loose and bobbed a steady rhythm as I moved. But I couldn’t move the other arm; it was up against something solid and covered with cloth.
Someone was carrying me! To where? To what? Thoughts raced through my still fuzzy mind as I stirred and tried to fight whoever it was.
His hold tightened. “Shelley, ease up.”
“Jake?”
“Yeah, so relax until we get out of here.”
How was I supposed to relax when I’d been knocked unconscious only to wake up in his arms? How did I know he hadn’t been the one to do the head knocking?
I shoved at his chest. “Let me down!”
He did.
I concentrated on coming up through the cottony-minded world that still cocooned me. Wondering if Jake had fol
lowed me or if he’d had his own reasons for entering the underground labyrinth, I said, “I left the bar without you knowing.”
“Making assumptions was your first mistake.”
I clenched my jaw so I didn’t say something I would regret. How many mistakes did he think I had made?
“Did you see who kicked me in the head?” I asked, vaguely uncomfortable because for all I knew, it really could have been him.
“Whoever it was had gone by the time I got to you. Must have heard me coming.”
“Damn! My gun—”
“I have it on me. The flashlight, too.”
Apparently, the cotton was dissolving, for it suddenly hit me that we were still in complete and utter dark. “How did you know where I was without a light?”
“I saw your beam ahead until it went out.”
“Well, there is no light now.”
I was dizzy and my head hurt—it felt as if someone were drilling through my skull—and I still couldn’t see. But I could feel my way along the wall, so that’s what I did.
Directly behind me, Jake asked, “Whatever possessed you to do something so reckless?”
“I don’t have to justify myself to you.”
“Surely you answer to someone. Or do you? Could it be you just go off on your own because you think you’re the only one who can do whatever it is that needs to be done?”
Words similar to those that I had been hearing from Mom and Silke and Al. What was this? Beat-up-on-Shelley week? Heat shot through me and I walked faster.
“Careful, you don’t want to crash into the elevator. It’s just ahead.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“I can see in the dark.”
“All those carrots your mother force-fed you as a kid?”
“Not exactly.”
He had to be joking, of course. Only I didn’t think it was funny. Just irritating.
And the feat seemed mind bending until he admitted, “I counted turns in the tunnel. We passed the last one just before I let you down. Be careful or you really will run into the doors.”
I took his warning seriously and, while keeping one hand sliding along the wall, I reached forward with the other just in time to touch the wall of the elevator.