Michael Palmer - A Heartbeat Away

“Sylvia?” Angie called out.

Nothing.

She was forced to clear her throat to speak again.

“Sylvia, are you here?”

But for the wind down the alley, the silence was absolute.

Floor-to-ceiling metal shelving, stocked with dried goods and restaurant supplies, created the feeling of claustrophobia that Angie had recently found so disturbing. Ahead of her, the shelves split to form three narrow aisles, two of which were dark. Angie took a tentative step down the center one, then another. Ahead, she could now make out a bare, low-wattage bulb, suspended on a short cord. A shaft of light from the bulb cast a long, distorted shadow across the cement floor. Angie’s heart was hammering now. She sensed another presence in the basement. She wanted to leave—to simply turn and run. Instead, she took another step forward.

“Sylvia? Sylvia, please. Are you there?”

The shadow ahead seemed to waver slightly. Angie could make out the shape of long arms and fingers. As frightened as she was, she was also transfixed.

“Please?” she said, her voice now little more than a whimper.

She took another half step toward the shadow, then another, pausing to listen and to check between the shelves on either side, as well as behind her. She had reached the end of the aisle. The shadow extended almost to where she was standing, although a shelf blocked her from seeing the source. Jaws and fists clenched, she peered around the shelving. Then she gasped. Sylvia Chen was hanging by an electric cord wrapped around her neck. The toes of her black work shoes, pointing down, were several inches off the concrete. The other end of the cord had been tossed over an exposed pipe, and then secured to a nearby steel support column.

The scientist’s head was bowed, obscuring her face. Angie moved numbly to Sylvia’s side and took her hand. Her skin was warm.

Could she still be alive?

She lifted Sylvia’s head using two fingers underneath her chin. Immediately the flash of hope gave way to anguish and revulsion. Angie recoiled at the sight of the dead woman’s tongue protruding out between her lips. Sylvia’s face was swollen and dark, and even in the gloom, Angie could see that her bulging eyes were spotted red with burst capillaries—a sign, she knew, of strangulation. She swallowed back a jet of bile and allowed Sylvia’s chin to drop back against her chest.

Calming herself with deep breaths, Angie examined the method used to hang the woman. The overhead pipe supplied the leverage to hoist her off the ground. The knot around the pipe seemed expertly done. Was she strangled before she was hung?

Two thoughts occurred to Angie at that moment. First, that this was murder, not suicide. There was no chair or box Sylvia could have used. Somebody powerful had to have pulled on the cord to lift her off her feet. The second thought sent a chill through her. When she first stepped into the basement and listened she’d had a strong sense that she was not alone.

Instantly, Angie was overwhelmed by the need to get out of the building and into the alley. She whirled and dashed back up the aisle.

She had made it halfway when the heavy steel door ahead of her swung shut.

Before Angie could react, a man emerged from the shadows beside the door, and stepped into the aisle, blocking her path. He was tall—six feet or more—and thin, but broad at the shoulders. Even in the dim light she could tell that his aquiline face was probably handsome at one time. Now, dominated by a huge, jagged scar running down his forehead, across his eyebrow, and over his cheek, it was utterly terrifying. He wore a black leather jacket, black watch cap, and black leather gloves. Dangling loosely from his right hand was a meat cleaver. What little light there was glinted off its broad blade.

“Welcome to hell, Senorita Fletcher,” he said, his perfect English tinged with a Hispanic accent.

React! Angie’s mind screamed. Now!

She swept her arm across the shelf by her shoulder, sending a barrage of cans and cartons flying into his chest, belly, and groin. The impact wasn’t much, but the surprise gave her what she needed—enough time to whirl and bolt back down the aisle.

“No chance, senorita, ” the man called out in a singsong voice.

Angie screamed for help, frantically wondering where she might find another way out. If there were a stairway, she would have to pass by Sylvia’s body to find it.

“Help!” she screamed again. “Someone please help!”

“I promise it will be painless for you, senorita, ” the man called from behind her. “Dr. Chen was kind enough to part with her papers. Now, I just need a few answers from you. Thank you for leading me to her, by the way. I’ve been with you all the way from Kansas, and now I feel as if we are sort of buddies.”

He was close.

Angie turned her head to gauge how close, and slammed into Sylvia’s body. The woman’s corpse swung away, then back, striking Angie and dropping her to one knee. She cried out and, scrambling to her feet, shoved Chen at the killer, who was now near enough to connect with the cleaver had he chosen to do so.

Instead, he stepped to one side of the aisle, twirling the weapon like a drummer’s stick. They were no more than three feet apart. Even in the deep gloom, the grotesque, irregular scar stood out like a lightning bolt. There was nothing in his expression that suggested it was worth trying to negotiate.

“Enough,” he said. “We need to talk. Your friend Sliplitz understood. He answered my questions. You do the same and I promise you won’t feel any more pain than he did.”

“You son of a bitch!”

“Believe it or don’t, Senorita Fletcher, you are not the first one to call me that. Now…”

Cradling the cleaver in his right hand, he took a half step toward her and reached out for her arm. Angie’s response was immediate. She swept her fist overhead, shattering the lightbulb and throwing the basement into absolute darkness. In the same motion, she grasped one of the metal shelving units, bringing it crashing down on the man.

The killer grunted and cursed, and Angie felt certain he was on the floor. Instead of turning to run, she leapt forward, stepping on boxes and the shelving, and stomping on what might have been the killer’s chest. Then, holding her arms out to her sides to maintain contact with the shelves, she moved ahead as rapidly as she dared, back toward the steel door.

One step through the blackness, then another.

Behind her she heard the man throwing aside the debris, and working himself out from under the shelf.

The door had to be directly ahead.

Angie was trying to visualize which side the handle was on when she slammed full face into a steel support beam. She heard the bone in her nose shatter. Blinding pain exploded through her head. Instinctively, she wrapped her arms around the post, keeping herself from going down. Her nose filled with blood. Tears flooded down her cheeks.

At that instant, the killer’s hand closed on her ankle.

Fueled by adrenaline, Angie kicked frantically, and connected. The grip on her leg vanished. Dazed, she plunged ahead. Two more steps and she hit the steel door forehead first, snapping her neck back. Another blast of pain. More dizziness and nausea. More tears. She slowed momentarily, then fumbled blindly for the door handle.

Again she felt the man’s hand shoot out through the darkness and close on her ankle, but in that moment, her own fingers closed on the door handle.

She jammed the handle down. Immediately the door yielded, and she was in the alley, which was only marginally better lit than the basement had been. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that her pursuer was on his hands and knees. He had clearly lost some of his composure. His lips were pulled back in a snarl.