Oh. That…that was actually a pretty good idea.
Stavros put his hand back up to the bridge of his nose.
His headache had started again.
Gauntlet
CHAPTER 1
Detective Paxton Prover hauled ass behind the suspect. Okay, so it was really a case of the suspect hauling ass and Paxton gasping for breath, just trying to stay within sight of the guy. Jack Daniels, so much his BFF last night, was not his friend this morning. Paxton wanted to loosen his tie, to give himself the extra air he desperately needed, except his pumping arms were providing nearly fifty percent of his speed.
Why the hell had he start this foot pursuit? He’d forgotten two blocks ago. Hell, he wasn’t even on duty yet. He should have been sipping his latte, shooting the breeze with the uniforms before his shift started, telling old war stories about back when he could actually run a four-minute mile. Fine. A five-and-a-half-minute mile.
Yet here he was, ruining his good leather shoes and staining his shirt’s armpits. All for a stupid purse-snatcher. One that had been dumb enough to snatch a purse right in front of the coffee shop Paxton frequented every morning. Anywhere else, Paxton would have pretended he didn’t hear the shouts for help. Ignorance, even feigned ignorance, was bliss.
Unfortunately for Paxton, he really liked the no-chai-no-foam real coffee at that particular shop. A place where you could just order a large cup of joe and the clerk knew what the hell you were asking for. Everyone else was trying to push some caramel grande frappe crap at him. And yes, call it a cliché, but the shop made the best cake donuts, too. Always with sprinkles.
They thought him a hero. So, damn it, Paxton had to at least give the pursuit a try.
Now, though? They were far out of sight of the shop. Paxton could just give up and say the guy got away, which, honestly, was only a few seconds from being true. So why was he still running? Because the punk had pissed him off. Paxton did not want to be this hot, uncomfortable, and smelly for nothing. He wanted that purse.
The alley ended in a “T” not far ahead. If the guy went to the left, Paxton might still have a shot. If he went to the right, there was no chance. The alley opened up into a literal maze of tenement buildings. The punk could easily lose himself in the labyrinth.
And damn if the kid wasn’t angling right. Paxton might as well take his foot off the pedal.
Then a figure launched from the left alley, tackling the punk to the ground. Paxton pulled his weapon even as he wondered what in the hell was going on. Some kind of gang war? The Stupids against the Imbeciles?
The punk threw a punch, landing it on his attacker’s jaw. The attacker’s head snapped around far enough for Paxton to realize it wasn’t another gangbanger—instead, the attacker was a woman. And by the way the badge on her waist glistened, she was a cop.
Seriously, this morning could not get much worse.
Before the woman could recover from the punch, the kid leapt up, racing off again. Before Paxton could reach her, the other detective was already on her feet, wiping the blood from her lip. Then she sprinted after the perp. A real go-getter, that one.
He had to risk a coronary to catch up with her, and she was in heels.
“Detective Ruth Matte,” the woman said.
Paxton puffed out some kind of introduction.
The woman smiled as she ran, which seemed impossible to Paxton. How could you smile and run? “I’m your new partner.”
There must have been some kind of bump in the pavement, as Paxton stumbled, nearly falling to the ground. Only a hand at his elbow kept him upright and moving forward.
Partner? Paxton didn’t do partners anymore. Just ask his last three.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll get him.”
Actually, that was the problem, wasn’t it? This freaking chase was going to go on and on and on. There was a witness to the pursuit. His new partner no less. And she didn’t seem like the quitting type. In front of them, the punk leaped in the air, then fell through the ground. No, seriously. He disappeared.
They ran up to the spot to find the manhole cover removed. The kid had jumped, nearly full speed, into the hole. Why the hell would he do that?
Ruth flicked on her flashlight, scanning the vertical drop. “Looks like there’s a mattress down there.”
Paxton had both hands on his knees, hunched over, pretending to check out the tunnel, when really he just wanted his ears to stop ringing from the lack of oxygen. “So this was planned,” he croaked out, hoping he sounded somewhat coherent.
“Yep,” Ruth said, then backed up a step. Finally the woman had come to her senses. Or at least that’s what Paxton had hoped, until she added, “Cover me.”
His gun wasn’t even in position when she leapt into the hole. Why had she leapt into the hole? He peered over the side to find her already standing up, holding her gun straight-armed, checking her corners.
“Clear.”
Great. Just great.
* * *
Ruth kept her back against the concrete wall, pointing her light down the long corridor that led away from the manhole. Mottled shadows were all she found. How far ahead had the perp gotten?
She glanced over her shoulder as her new partner climbed down the steel ladder. Ruth had heard about Paxton Prover. The once-promising career that had tanked. The sting of partners either injured or off the force. The rumor mill called him the career killer. No one wanted to partner with the guy. Especially after his brother-in-law’s death. The loss had accelerated an already painful spinout.
No matter his past, it was his present, rather slow decent that had her worried. They couldn’t wait much longer before following in pursuit. Paxton stepped off the last rung with a heave.
“Old football injury,” he said, rubbing his right knee.
Obviously he didn’t realize that she’d read his file. There was no injury. He’d been kicked off his college team for not maintaining a three-point-zero grade point average. “I thought you were a baseball man?”
Paxton’s forehead knitted together as his eyes swept over her face. He was caught in a lie, and they both knew it. Her partner gingerly stepped on his right leg, doubling down on his story. “I went into baseball after the injury.”
Ruth’s eyebrow went up. Was he really thinking she was buying this? “So, what?” she asked as she stepped out into the tunnel. “You tore a meniscus in Pee Wee football?”
“It happens,” Paxton defended, but she noted that he gave up the limp.
A clang sounded overhead. The light level plunged as the manhole cover was replaced. So the punk had an accomplice.
“Effers,” Paxton hissed, and went to climb back up the ladder. But Ruth beat him to it.
“Better let me,” she said as she climbed. “Wouldn’t want to aggravate that knee.”
Scaling the rungs, Ruth got to the top quickly. She pushed up on the cover, but it was weighted down. Putting her shoulder into it, the damn thing still wouldn’t budge. They were trapped down there. Shoving off the wall, she fell to the mattress below and then rolled off in one fell swoop.
“We’re trapped down here.” Before Paxton could answer, or, more likely, grouse, Ruth checked her phone. No bars. Paxton checked his as well.
“Like I said. Effers.”
“You called in your pursuit, though, right?” she asked.
By the way Paxton wouldn’t meet her eye, the answer was a big, fat, no.
“What started the chase?” Ruth asked.
“Purse-snatching,” Paxton said as he loosened his tie. His rumpled suit looked like it might have been well-fitting…about thirty pounds ago. He tried to smooth out a button straining to burst open. “A freaking purse-snatching.”
That didn’t make any sense. Why would a purse-snatcher put together this elaborate an escape? With an accomplice? One thing she’d learned on the job, though, was that not a lot of what criminals did was logical. The only thing she could figure out for sure was how to get out of this t
unnel system.
“Guess we find an exit?” she suggested.
Paxton let out a long breath. “Guess so.”
As water dripped down from a pipe, Ruth stepped out into the tunnel. The place smelled of mold and mildew. Her shoes sloshed in several inches of water. Her flashlight was the only source of illumination.
“Can you turn yours on?” she asked. When there was no answer, Ruth turned to her new partner. “Well?”
“Look,” Paxton retorted. “I wasn’t expecting to go down a tunnel and get trapped this morning. It just wasn’t on my calendar.”
Ruth didn’t bother to mention the fact that carrying a flashlight was considered standard operating procedure. Because guess what? Seldom did you plan on getting trapped in a tunnel. Hence why you would want to have a flashlight in your pocket all the time. But she didn’t voice any of this. If she and Paxton were going to figure out how to be partners, they would have to take this slowly. Figure out how each other worked. There was no need to rush.
A scream, agonized and high pitched, came from down the tunnel, then stopped abruptly. Ruth’s gun flew up and, to Paxton’s credit, his did as well.
“I’ve got the right,” he said as they rushed down the tunnel.
Ruth picked up the pace as the scream repeated, equally short. How had a purse-snatching gone this awry? They came to a three-way junction. She cocked an ear, trying to still her breath and ignore the pounding in her ears. Which way had the screams come from?
“I say straight ahead,” Paxton said.
She wasn’t so sure. Sounds could bounce off the walls, obscuring the source.
“Whatever is going on,” her partner added, “they want us to find it.”
Another scream, louder and more pained, came from in front of them. Charging forward, they ran down the tunnel. Ruth snapped off her gun’s safety. She had yet to discharge her weapon in the course of duty. Maybe it was the claustrophobic tunnels, or the rank smell, or the ghastly scream, but Ruth feared today would be the day.
Her flashlight cut bobbing bands of light into the darkness. She could see something ahead, but couldn’t make it out. Was it a huge spider’s web? And what was in the center?
Before she realized it, Ruth’s feet had stalled. The dawning realization of what lay before her made her reluctant to move forward. However, move forward they must, as Paxton nearly ran into her back.
“What’s—”
He, too, had recognized that what lay ahead was no spider web. It was barbed wire. No, it was worse. It was razor wire. The sharp mini-blades glistened in the low light.
And that was no fly trapped in the middle of it all. It was a young woman.
“God, I hate the weird ones,” Paxton whispered beside her.
Ruth overcame the horror of it all and surged forward. The girl was cut in a hundred different places. Clearly, she had fought against the restraint. The sewer water at her feet was a bright, stark red. Ruth reached out, careful to avoid the sharp wire, and checked the victim’s pulse.
There was none.
“We’ve got to get her down.” They couldn’t perform CPR, not until they got the poor girl out of the wire entanglement.
“No,” Paxton said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
Maybe the stories about her new partner were true. That he’d lost his nerve. That he couldn’t be trusted in a crisis. He grabbed hold of her wrist, pulling her away from the girl.
Ruth jerked her hand away. “She’s not much older than my son.”
“And not a lot older than my niece and nephew,” Paxton stated, grabbing her arm again. “But there’s nothing we can do for her.” He indicated to the floor. “That’s more than three liters. Way more than three liters of blood down there.”
“She was just screaming,” Ruth argued, although that was a lot of blood on the floor.
Paxton shook his head. “I don’t think that was her…”
No matter, they had to get the girl down. They had to try.
Then Ruth’s gun arm stung. Her hand flew to the wound. A line of blood soaked into her blouse. “What the—”
“Move!”
CHAPTER 2
Paxton shoved Ruth down as a line of razor wire streaked through the air, coming right for them. The blade grazed his hair, giving him an unwelcome trim. Another line came from the other direction, snagging his jacket.
This is how the girl was caught. Paxton was not going to let that happen to him. He shed the jacket and it sailed away, carried by the wire, attaching itself to the wiring around the girl. Like a snake that had brought back a trophy to its lair.
“Go!” he shouted at Ruth.
The detective seemed to snap out of it, and had turned to exit back the way they had come when a doorframe came down from the ceiling, blocking their exit with rows upon rows of razor wire.
Effing industrious punks.
Although Paxton was beginning to suspect that they weren’t just punks, but whack jobs. Even worse.
“This way,” Paxton said, ducking under one line and stepping over another. There was barely enough room between the blades for his Double-Double-sized torso. It was like that scene from Entrapment, except Ruth wasn’t Sean Connery and Paxton definitely wasn’t Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Another flying line zipped by, cutting off the lower edge of his pant leg. Luckily, he had never really liked this suit. Ruth dove in the other direction, barely missing decapitation.
Who the hell had built this thing? And couldn’t they take a break right about now?
As a blade sliced across his midriff, Paxton guessed not. Sucking in his gut, he slammed his body against the wall, trying to minimize his profile. Lot of luck there. Then he saw it. An opening. The only problem? It was three feet over his head. Minor detail.
He grabbed his ripped pant leg and tore at the fabric. Then he repeated the process, getting himself two strips. Grabbing the end of one with his teeth, he wrapped the cloth over his palms.
“Ruth!” he shouted above the whistle of the metal strands. “Up!”
He showed her what he meant by starting the climb himself. Grabbing at a section of wire that did not have a razor-sharp blade, Paxton heaved himself up. He placed his foot against one of the low wires and rose another foot. It was like climbing a pair of monkey bars, only you ran the risk of slashing a major artery and bleeding to death before you got to the top.
Glancing over, he realized that Ruth was way ahead of him, already through the hole. The chick’s go-to attitude was really starting to piss him off. Finally, he reached the opening, and he made it to the other side just as a line whizzed across, right where he was a second ago. Paxton hurled himself off of the razor wire, landing hard on his shoulder.
His partner offered him a hand. He did not take it.
Pissed, sweaty, and sore, Paxton got to his feet.
They were in luck, if you could call it that. The flying razors were restricted to the other side of the dead girl.
“Have anything on you that could cut through that thick of wire?” Ruth asked.
“What?” Paxton countered. “You don’t?”
Okay, even for being pissed, sweaty and sore, that was a little harsh. Paxton felt sorry, although not sorry enough to apologize. Plus, his eyes kept wandering. She, too, had not only lost her jacket, but the top two buttons from her blouse. Each time she turned, she flashed a little cleavage. Paxton really wished he wasn’t such a dog that he noticed that during a life-threatening situation, but no matter his tragic love life, his Y chromosome was still active.
Ruth didn’t seem to notice, though, as she frowned, taking one last look at the girl’s form, still dripping. “Maybe they didn’t expect us to get this far.”
That, Paxton seriously doubted—and Ruth didn’t seem any more convinced than he.
* * *
Ruth swallowed back her fear. It had no place here. An image of her son, scowling at her because she wouldn’t buy him the latest Halo video game, made her resolve waiver.
Since his father had left, Evan only had her. She couldn’t die in some godforsaken tunnel. She had to pull it together.
Therefore, her fear had to go. She needed to be clearheaded to face the danger lurking ahead. Despite her hope that the threat was behind them, Ruth knew better. No one went to that kind of trouble without something to back it up.
Paxton stepped out ahead of her, his gun pointed forward. He squinted, trying to see past her flashlight’s beam. Neither was moving down the tunnel any too quickly.
Another scream echoed off the tunnel, wrapping the pain it carried all around Ruth. Her instinct was to run to the source of the scream, but after the slice-and-dice fest behind them? They had to exercise caution. Paxton didn’t flinch beside her. He kept their forward movement slow and steady.
For all the rumors about the man, Ruth wasn’t finding them to bear out. According to the gossip mill, Paxton should be blubbering like a baby by now, abandoning her to her fate. Yet here he was, saving them from the razor wire and, now, taking point.
“How freaking long is this tunnel?” Paxton grumbled in front of her.
He knew the city better than she did, but Ruth would guess these tunnels sprawled outward under the city. At some point, though, they had to reach another junction. Where there would be more options. So they could find a way to reach whoever was being screaming and get the hell out of here.
That was the hope, anyway.
“Whoa,” Paxton said as he slipped and slammed up against the wall.
“Be careful,” Ruth said. “The concrete is slick.”
Her partner looked over his shoulder with a look as sullen as her fourteen-year-old son. “Thanks for the tip.”
Then, much like her son, Paxton didn’t heed the advice and skidded again, this time knocking his head on the wall. Before Ruth could comment, Paxton pointed down. Her flashlight illuminated small steel ball bearings scattered over the floor. They had been so worried about what was in front of them, they hadn’t looked down.
“Doesn’t that seem a little Wile E. Coyote?” Paxton asked.
“Yeah,” Ruth admitted. “It does.”
Down & Dirty: A McCray Crime Collection Page 47