Tess Gerritsen - Presumed Guilty

“I won’t do it.”

Annie gripped the gun with both hands and pointed it at Miranda’s chest. “Then you’ll die here. I had to kill you, you see. I found you planting the typewriter in Jill’s office. You had a gun. You ordered me into the stairwell. I tried to grab the gun and it went off. A tidy end for everyone involved.” Slowly she cocked back the pistol hammer. “Or would you rather it be the roof?”

I have to buy time, thought Miranda. Have to wait for a chance, any chance, to escape.

She turned and gazed up at the last flight of stairs.

“Go on,” said Annie.

Miranda began to climb.

Fourteen steps, each one a fleeting eternity. Fourteen lifetimes, passing, gone. Frantically she tried to visualize the roof, the layout, the avenues of escape. She’d been up there only once, when the news staff had gathered for a group photo. She recalled a flat stretch of asphalt, punctuated by three chimneys, a heating duct, a transformer shed. Four stories down — that would be the drop. Would it kill her? Or was it just high enough to leave her crippled on the sidewalk, a helpless mound of broken bones, to be dispatched with a few blows by Annie?

The door to the roof loomed just above. If she could just get through that door and barricade it, she might be able to buy time, to scream for help.

Only a few steps more.

She stumbled and fell forward, catching herself on the stairs.

“Get up,” said Annie.

“My ankle—”

“I said, get up!”

Miranda sat on the step and reached down to massage her foot. “I think I sprained it.”

Annie took a step closer. “Then crawl if you have to! But get up those stairs!”

Miranda, her back braced firmly against the step, her legs wound up tight, calmly kept rubbing her ankle. And all the time she thought, Closer, Annie. Come closer….

Annie moved up another step. She was standing just below Miranda now, the gun frighteningly close. “I can’t wait. Your time’s run out.” She raised the gun to Miranda’s face.

That’s when Miranda raised her foot — in a vicious, straight-out kick that thudded right into Annie’s stomach. It sent Annie toppling backward down the stairs, to sprawl on the third-floor landing. But even as she fell she never released the gun. There was no opportunity to wrestle away the weapon. Annie was already rising to her knees, gun in hand. Her aim swept up toward her prey.

Miranda yanked open the rooftop door and dashed through just as Annie fired. She heard the bullet splinter the door, felt wood chips fly, sting her face. There was no latch, no way to bolt the door shut. So little time, so little time! Fourteen steps and Annie would be on the roof.

Miranda glanced wildly about her, could make out in the darkness the silhouette of chimneys, crates, other unidentifiable shapes.

Footsteps thudded up the stairs.

In panic Miranda took off into the shadows and slipped behind a transformer shed. She heard the door fly open, heard it bang shut again.

Then she heard Annie’s voice, calling through the darkness. “There’s nowhere to run, Miranda. Nowhere to go but straight down. Wherever you are, I’ll find you….”

Chase spotted it from a block away: Miranda’s old Dodge, parked in front of the Herald building. He pulled up behind it and climbed out. A glance through the window told him the car was unoccupied. Miranda — or whoever had driven it here — must be in the building.

He rattled the front door to the Herald. It was locked. Through the glass he saw a lamp burning on one of the desks. Someone had to be inside. He banged on the door and called, “Miranda?” There was no answer.

He rattled the door again, then started around to the back of the building. There had to be another way in, an unlocked window or a loading door. He had circled the corner and was moving down one of the alleys when he heard it. Gunfire.

It came from somewhere inside the building.

“Miranda?” he yelled.

He wasted no more time searching for unlocked entrances. He grabbed a trash can from the alley, carried it around to the front of the building and hurled it through the window. Glass shattered, flying like hail across the desks inside. He kicked in the last jagged fragments, scrambled over the sill and dropped onto a carpet littered with razorlike shards. At once he was running past the desks, moving straight for the back of the building. With every step he took he grew more terrified of what he might find. Images of Miranda raced through his head. He shoved through the first door and confronted the deserted print shop. Newspapers — the next issue — were bundled and stacked against the walls. No Miranda.

He turned, moved down the hall to the women’s lounge. Again, that surge of terror as he pushed through the door.

Again, no Miranda.

He turned and headed straight into the women’s rest room, pushing open stall doors. No one there.

Ditto for the men’s room.

Where the hell had that gunshot come from?

He ran back into the hall and started up the stairwell. Two more floors to search. Offices on the second floor, storage and news file rooms on the third. Somewhere up there he’d find her.

Just let me find you alive.

Miranda hugged the side of the transformer shed and listened for the sound of footsteps. Except for the hammering of her own heart she heard nothing, not even the softest crunch of shoes on asphalt. Where is she? Which way is she moving?

Quickly Miranda glanced to either side of her. Her eyes had began to adjust to the darkness. She could make out, to the left, a jumble of crates. Right beside them were the handrails of a fire escape. A way off the roof! If she could just make it to that edge, without being seen.

Where was Annie?

She had to risk a look. She crouched down and slowly inched toward the corner. What she saw made her pull back at once in panic.

Annie was moving straight toward the transformer shed.

Miranda’s instinct told her to run, to attempt a final dash for freedom. Logic told her she’d never make it. Annie was already too close.

In desperation she scrabbled for a few bits of gravel near her feet. She flung it high overhead, aiming blindly for the opposite end of the roof. She heard it clatter somewhere off in the darkness.

For a few terrifying seconds she listened for sounds — any sounds. Nothing.

Again she edged around the corner of the transformer. Annie was following the sound, toward the opposite edge of the roof, stalking slowly toward one of the chimneys. A few steps farther. One more…

Now was her chance — her only one! Miranda ran.

Her footsteps sounded like drumbeats across the asphalt roof. Even before she reached the fire escape she heard the first gunshot, heard the whine of the bullet as it hurtled past. No time to think, only move! She scrambled for the fire escape, swung her leg over onto the first metal rung.

Another gunshot exploded.

The bullet’s impact was like a punch in the shoulder. Its force sent her toppling sideways, over the roof’s edge. She caught a dizzying view of the night sky, then felt herself falling, falling. Instinctively she reach up, clawed blindly for a handhold. As she tumbled over the edge of the fire escape landing, her left hand closed around cold steel — the railing. Even as her legs slipped away, dangling beneath her like dead weights, her grip held. She tried to reach up with the other arm but it wouldn’t seem to obey her commands. She could only raise it to shoulder height, and then her hand closed only weakly around the outside edge of the landing. For a second she clung there, her feet hanging uselessly. Then she managed to brace one foot against the brick face of the building. Still alive, still here! she thought. If I can just pull myself over the rail — get back onto the landing…