He reflected that it made perfect sense on paper that Emily be teamed up with Sergeant Candena, but there were still some unanswered questions about his motivations and these homicide cases.
Rick stopped abruptly. Jordan almost ran into him.
“What’s wrong?” Jordan whispered.
“Nothing I guess. It doesn’t feel right.”
“It’s dark. Studies show that when people are left in the dark for long periods of time their perspectives can delineate and become…” He stopped talking.
A fluttering in the trees appeared to be only the restlessness of some wild animals.
Rick spotted the office twenty yards away and picked up the pace. He noted that Jordan seemed to finally shut up, obviously he too felt the uneasiness of the darkness and jungle surroundings. “C’mon, let’s hurry up.”
The makeshift office was similar to the construction of a backyard tree house. A large shingled roof, simple windows trimmed with plywood, and a bright red door decorated with photos of tourist enjoying themselves. The well-worn plexiglass made it difficult to read.
“I can’t quite make out what it says.”
Jordan began, “Did you know that in 1933 the German chemist Otto Röhm patented and registered the brand name Plexiglass?”
Rick turned to Jordan and gave him a stern look.
“Okay then.” He changed the subject. “It looks like the hours of operation and something that appears to be the business license or member of the Better Business Bureau. How ironic, an ex-con and a member of the BBB.”
Rick retrieved his flashlight from his pocket, flipped it on, and examined the windows around the frame. Only a few nails held the trim in place. In a small leather case, he had several small screwdrivers that fit together for many types of applications. In a matter of seconds, he pried the trim and was able to jimmy the window open.
Both men waited and expected to hear an alarm, but it was unnaturally quiet.
Rick knew from experience as a police detective that many times criminals hid important, incriminating stuff in plain view, but not in their own residences or cars.
Jordan had wandered away and was interested in some of the foliage. With his shirtsleeve, he pulled a stack of brush into view. “What do you make of this?” Several coconut husks, unusual branches of a mixture of varieties of island plant life, and a string of shark’s teeth were stashed just out of view.
“If I hadn’t seen those photos from Sergeant Candena of the creepy totem at the first crime scene, I would say nothing, but now...” Rick looked closely, but there didn’t seem to be other evidence attached like woman’s jewelry or clothing. “Do you have those bags?”
“Yeah.” Jordan fished out a plastic bag from his pocket. He unfolded the neatly pressed bag, carefully deposited the pieces of evidence into it, sealed it, and then tucked it into his fanny pack.
Rick stashed his burglar tools into his cargo pant pocket and fastened the button to keep from loosing them.
“Okay, who goes?”
Looking at Jordan’s freshly laundered white shorts, Rick said. “I think you should go.” He smiled.
“Fine.” Jordan placed his hands on the splinter-ridden windowsill that was used for a haphazard ticket window, hoisted his body up, and leaned inside. The window was too small to swing a leg over, so he went head first, feet straight up in a handstand.
Crash.
“Crap!”
“Jordan, you okay?”
Silence.
The freshly painted door unlocked and opened. “I guess so.” Jordan frantically dusted his shorts and dark t-shirt. A distinct dark spot smeared the front of his shorts. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to just pry the door open?”
“Maybe, but we don’t want anyone to know we’ve been here.” He pushed by him and began to systematically search the office.
As both men were inside, the door slowly shut. They stopped and listened. The jungle steadied to a quiet and somber existence.
“Look over there.” Rick instructed.
Jordan rummaged around through loose paperwork.
Rick noted that there were receipts on the old oak desk from maintenance and supply companies to keep the cables in shape. There weren’t any personal photos or unusual locked boxes, just a messy array of small business paperwork. He opened drawers and hoped to find something from the victims or a map of the body dump locations.
Then he saw a small locked box, something that would hold a firearm, hidden underneath the last file in a makeshift filing cabinet. Shining the flashlight directly on it, he could see that the box was heavily used.
“What do you have?” Jordan looked over Rick’s shoulder in his usual annoying, inquisitive way.
“Not sure. Looks like a gun box or maybe a money lock box for credit card receipts.
The sound of several large truck engines cut through the night, as high beams danced through the windows and off of the trees.
Putting the box back to its original location, Rick ducked down. “Shit.”
Jordan peered through the crack of the front door. He whispered, “Two trucks, four people, they’re parking at the end of the lot.” He turned to Rick. “C’mon, we can make it without them seeing us.”
Rick and Jordan stealthily moved across the threshold and shut the door with a clunk and a distinct squeak.
Anxious voices rattled through the trees from the parking lot.
“We can’t go the way we came in. Let’s go this way.” Jordan whispered.
The men ran as fast as they could in the opposite direction. Jordan stopped, climbed the ladder up to the platform.
“What are you doing?” Rick asked.
“It’s the fastest way out of here.”
“We don’t know if it’s safe or if it drops off over a cliff.” Rick followed Jordan and hated to admit he was right. As he got to the top, Jordan had already hooked up the harness and gave one to Rick.
The voices drew near and louder. They were already at the office and knew that someone had broken into it.
Rick glanced in the direction of the office and saw the noticeable glint of what he assumed was a firearm. They were sitting ducks like in a shooting range.
Both men, locked in, ready to go.
Jordan regarded Rick and decided to forge ahead and go first. He clipped himself to the pulley contraption and pushed himself off the platform.
Rick saw him disappear into the darkness with a soft whizzing noise that reminded him of repelling in a SWAT team exercise early in his police career. He followed the exact example, pushed off from the platform. The welcoming breeze blew past his face and body. At first, he felt like he was falling rather than gliding across the elevated landscape.
His feet dangled as he gripped the metal pulley holding him high in the air. The smooth ride gained momentum, but he still couldn’t get a visual on Jordan. It was like he had vanished into another dimension.
Rick could vaguely see the outline of the treetops, but anything below was an unchartered, black abyss, a place he didn’t want to fall into. Without seeing the direction ahead, his stomach did a sideways jig as a wave of nausea swarmed his intestines.
Swinging slightly from side to side, Rick tried to anticipate the end and basically how it would drop. The only noise he could hear whizzed in his ears. He wondered if the approaching men were fast on their tail or just considering it was mischievous kids with nothing better to do.
He thought he heard a noise from below, but couldn’t be sure because the sound could play tricks on perception in such a large, dark landscape. His instincts kicked into high gear as he scanned every possible area below from his vantage point. It was difficult not to let the shadows play cruel tricks on him.
The pulley jerked with force, not like the way the ride should end. It dropped down several feet, spinning Rick in the opposite direction. He fought the vertigo illusion, squeezed his eyes shut several times, clenched his jaw, and swung his feet to swivel in the right direction.
Down, down, down, Rick fell.
The fragrance of fresh ginger and Hawaiian blossoms along with familiar wet tree smell passed by and disappeared.
He continued to freefall into an unknown territory.
The tree branches grew more pronounced by the second, instead of grazing Rick’s body, they thumped, pounded, scraped, and pummeled.
Whump.
Rick rested on the soft saturated earth and took a moment to catch his breath. With a quick assessment of his body, nothing appeared to be broken or dislocated. His chest felt strangely heavy.
A gunshot rang out in the jungle.
Unclear of where the sound reverberated from, Rick looked around for Jordan, hoping he wasn’t stuck up in a tree. He whispered, “Jordan?” Scrambling to his feet, pain shot up between his shoulder blades.
Rick took several steps forward to find a hiking path and Jordan. As he took the next step, he fell twenty feet down.
* * * * *
Chapter Thirty-One
Wednesday 2230 Hours
Excruciating pain radiated from the back of Emily’s head and down the base of her neck. She opened her eyes, but there was nothing, only complete darkness. It was the kind of pitch black where you didn’t know if you were standing or lying down. At first she thought that she had gone blind from her fall, but when she reached out her fingertips there was a solid metal barrier barely a foot away from her face.
The heat from her body caused a reaction similar to a sauna, humid and confining. She moved her hands around and realized that she was in a box or a coffin. As her memory returned, she recognized that she must be on a body slab at the morgue.
Her pulse increased.
She focused on her pounding headache and not her panic. She heard the ragged sound of her own breathing echoing all around her.
“Stop… Calm…” She said softly and closed her eyes, taking a deep, cleansing breath.
Emily knew that there was a way to free herself with a safety release. She counted slowly from one to ten, and then back again. Systematically, she used her hands to feel her way around the enclosed tomb.
Turning over her body so that she was on her stomach, banging her elbows on the sturdy sides, Emily found a small button with a vertical latch. She fumbled with the release for a tense moment, pulled, pushed, and then the door popped open letting some dim light inside.
The morgue examination room was just the way she had left it and the smell still strong with cleaning solutions.
Slowly pushing open the steel door, she slid out and jumped to the floor. The room swayed as she took a couple of steps to the doorway. She stopped, got her bearings, and listened for Lani. Her instincts told her that he was in trouble and needed her help, even thought her analytical mind also took into consideration that he might be the one to look out for.
Her headache increased and made it difficult to think clearly.
Emily checked her cell phone and discovered that it had been crushed, most likely due to her fall. Trapped like a rat, she thought to herself.
With the throbbing pulse from the back of her head, Emily put her right hand to the inflicted area. Blood stained her hand, but it looked like it had stopped flowing.
Emily was at a disadvantage waiting on someone else’s turf. It could mean the difference between life and death.
She walked over to the examination area and pulled open one of the stainless drawers. Inside, even in the dim emergency lighting, she could see the gruesome instruments used to cut open and dissect bodies: various saws, tongs, and scalpels.
Crash.
There was an altercation going on somewhere inside the building.
Glass shattered.
Without another thought, Emily took a scalpel and pushed the drawer closed.
* * * * *
Lani crashed through the observation window and hit the sterile, cold floor, rolling a couple of feet to lessen the fall. Pieces of glass showered all around him. His left arm sliced along the forearm bled. He felt the sting of several smaller cuts and bruising developing on his face.
An unknown assailant wearing dark clothing and a black ski mask had ambushed him. Judging by the approximate build, Lani didn’t recognize him, except he was large and had been trained in self-defense and fighting maneuvers.
Lani scrambled to his feet and went through another door to find the man and stop him, or at least arrest him. Theories streamed through his mind of this being the serial killer or someone hired to kill him. Both the rational and irrational ideas continued to flow at lightening speeds.
The hallway was deserted and occupied the familiar hum of the electrical current running through the facility. With his back against the wall, he systematically looked left and right, inched down to the area where he was first flanked and out maneuvered. Lani couldn’t believe that he didn’t have a firearm with him, but entering the morgue didn’t seem to indicate a death-defying move.
As he moved into the storage and filing area, papers and files were strewn around every corner. Two filing cabinets were toppled and dented.
Where was the intruder?
Lani pondered if he should call for back up, but he’d have too much explaining to do at the moment, including taking a supposedly dead civilian along. He would put everything in place and construct a story that he happened to be driving by and saw some strange activity. There was no reason that the department wouldn’t believe him.
Lani let down his guard for a few seconds as a phone cord, slipped over his head down his face, wrapped tightly around his neck causing him to suck in available air. The large hands held the garrote tightly and Lani could hear the heavy breathing from him as the sickly, sweet smell of his breath reeked.
Lani’s hands immediately went to his neck to lesson the compression. The beefy arms of the assailant almost overpowered anything that Lani could do from the attack.
Pushing back with all of his strength, taking three steps, Lani slammed the man against the wall. There were sounds of the falling framed diplomas and art smashing to the floor. Lani felt the man gain momentum with strength and in a few moments he would be unconscious or dead.
Without anything else to lose, Lani pulled the man forward off balance and the noose loosened a little bit around his throat. He could hear his gasping breath as the only sound in the room.
A rattling, metal clatter noise interrupted the one sided confrontation with a huge bang and collision. The intruder let go of Lani and stumbled from the impact of the rolling gurney that collided into his backside.
Lani looked in the direction and saw Emily charge the unknown man with a scalpel raised high, slicing into his left shoulder.
Screaming in pain, the man slammed the toppled gurney into Emily and Lani barely escaping down the hall.
Stunned for a moment, both Emily and Lani regained their balance, chased after the man but they were too late. The low security buzz sounded as the man had already pushed out the emergency door.
The stunned, winded team ran into the parking lot, but it was empty except for Lani’s truck.
It began to rain.
* * * * *
Chapter Thirty-Two
Thursday 0000 Hours
The sour smell of moldy, stagnant water confronted Rick’s senses making him grimace. He had fallen straight down into an ancient hole and a rocky crag had caught his fall before he plummeted into the infinity of the enormous lava tube.
The moonlight shone bright enough to give the grim details of his situation. The layered rocks of all different sizes fit together like a primeval jigsaw puzzle. From erosion and heavy rainfall, there were several mini platforms to gain foot and hand holds. It was pure luck that Rick had landed squarely on one of them.
Unhooking his zip line harness, he dropped it into the hole. It took several seconds before he heard it hit water.
Estimating the ledge condition, he wouldn’t last long.
It started to rain. The water ran directly into the unco
vered hole bypassing Rick, but made it extremely slippery and unstable. He tried not to think about the consequences.
“Psst… Rick?” Jordan whispered. He dropped a small rock down, hitting Rick squarely on the head.
“Ouch.” Rick looked up and could see the outline of Jordan’s face peering down at him.
“What are you doing down there?”
Rick imagined interesting ways to kill Jordan when he got out of this situation – blowtorch, dropped out of an airplane, wood chipper. “Get me out of here now.”
“Do you have any rope in the car?”
“I don’t think so. C’mon Jordan you were a kick ass FBI agent. Improvise.”
Jordan grumbled something inaudible and disappeared.
Rick waited.
The rain surged in a powerful downpour and then stopped as quickly as it had started.
He pressed his back flat against the interior of the well; it chilled his backbone and saturated his shirt. The moist algae was slick and stringy. Rick tried to keep his arms at his sides and not against the rocks.
Several gunshots boomed in the night.
Rick waited and hoped he wasn’t going to be like a fish in a barrel.
Hoots and hollers yelled out. It sounded like a posse getting ready for a hunt.
Rick pressed his eyes shut, tried to imagine anything else except being in the moment.
It seemed like an hour since he had spoken to Jordan. Taking a breath, Rick decided to move to his right arm in order to gain a better handhold.
Maybe he could climb out?
Roots protruded from the ancient walls and provided minimal, if any, support.
Just as Rick decided to move, he lost his right footing. In between gasps and fast footwork, he managed to remain on the jetted, rock landing.
An aching pain shot through his wrist and up his right hand. He dared to slowly raise his right hand toward his face and noticed his right thumb looked peculiar – dislocated. As he fixated on the lumpy appendage, his vision waved in weird distortions of the hand and his surroundings.
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