The man was hunched down, sneaking underneath the rusted stairs of a fire escape, staying along the far wall. He was about twenty feet from the alley’s exit. He froze and stayed low in the shadows, apparently unaware that Tully had seen him.
Maggie thumped the back of her hand into Tully’s arm. Racine stopped cold.
“So the body was by the Dumpster,” Maggie said casually, keeping her gait steady, her voice even.
Each of their steps came with a crunch, telegraphing their approach. Had the arsonist come back? It wouldn’t be the first time. He must have been waiting around and thought they were finally finished.
Racine reached inside her jacket. Maggie touched her elbow and shook her head. She waved her thumb over her shoulder and Racine got the hint.
“Hey, I’ve got to make a call,” she said. “I’ll catch up with you two later.”
She turned a bit too quickly on the balls of her feet, but otherwise Tully thought she did a fine acting job. Racine had just cleared the corner to the entrance when they got to the Dumpster.
The guy started slithering along the wall again, and Tully wanted to stop him. If he got to the exit a few strides ahead, he might get away. Tully tried to remember what was on the other side of the alley. Another street. He could hear the traffic.
He didn’t need to make the decision. The guy stood and broke into a full-throttled run. Tully did, too. The guy was fast. Not so fast that he couldn’t sling a backpack under Tully’s feet, and Tully came down hard. His elbow smashed against the pavement with a sick crack. Pain shot up his shoulder, all the way to his back molars.
CHAPTER 22
Maggie hurdled over Tully’s long sprawled legs. She glanced back and heard him yell, “Go, go. I’m okay.”
His face was contorted in pain and Maggie knew he wasn’t okay, but she kept going.
“FBI, stop,” she yelled at the man as he got to the end of the alley.
He didn’t even flinch. Slowed just enough to skid around the corner.
Maggie followed. Depending on which building Racine was coming around it could be Maggie’s footrace to lose.
The man looked over his shoulder. He saw how close she was and jolted into the street. He danced through traffic. Brakes screeched. Horns blasted. The hydraulics of a Metro bus whined and the man bounced off its bumper. He didn’t look hurt. If anything, it had propelled him a few steps more ahead of her.
Once back on the sidewalk the guy broke into a sprint, weaving and shoving his way through. There weren’t many people. Most were homeless. They moved slowly or simply stood and watched. Maggie was a runner, tracking ten to twenty miles a week. Ordinarily this footrace would be a cakewalk. Not today. The thump in her head was accompanied now by a ringing in her ears. But she stayed with him.
He darted around a corner. Just as Maggie got there a shopping cart came barreling into her. She grabbed the front. Kept the cart from tipping and spilling all the tattered possessions inside. Its owner came next. The poor woman screamed at Maggie, fists raised, ready to do battle. Maggie swung the cart over to her and started running again. She had taken her eyes away for only a second or two, but now she couldn’t see the man.
She stopped. Waited. Let her eyes check over the door wells. There were no alleys in this block. He couldn’t have made it around the corner and she didn’t see him across the street.
She was breathing hard. Adrenaline pumping. Ears now a high-pitched hum. The thump at her temple had accelerated. Between it and the hammering of her heart, she couldn’t focus. Her vision blurred a bit. She leaned a palm against the cold brick building. That’s when she realized that she could see her reflection on the windows across the street.
She started out again, slower this time. Walking and watching the reflections ahead of her. She stayed close to the building. Still, she didn’t see him. Could he have darted into one of these buildings?
She craned her neck to look for a business sign and noticed there weren’t any fire escapes on this side, not even a rusted ladder. There were no low windows. Only one doorway, and it looked bolted. All of these buildings appeared to be warehouses or storage facilities.
How could he have just disappeared?
Maggie bent over, hands on her knees, catching her breath, trying to quiet the rumbling in her head. That’s when she realized she was spending too much time looking up.
Steam billowed from the grates of a manhole cover. Steam was always billowing up from the District’s sewer system, especially on chilly days like today. But this cover lay askew, the lip overlapping the concrete. Someone hadn’t set it back correctly. Someone in a hurry.
Maggie stared at it for a moment, then looked up and down the street one last time. She noticed an old woman going through a garbage receptacle, picking out aluminum cans. Across the street a man in coveralls leaned against the corner of a building, tapping on his cell phone. Another man was chaining his bicycle to a lamppost. Otherwise there was no one else around. Even traffic had been intermittent.
She stood with hands on her hips. Stared at the manhole cover again. Why would the guy run if he wasn’t the arsonist? Did he come back to see if the dead body had been removed? The one that he put there. If he got away now, they might never catch him.
Maggie released a long sigh. Then she squatted down to shove off the manhole cover, letting the metal clank and thump against concrete. Just as well let the bastard know she was coming down after him.
CHAPTER 23
He wanted to tell her the guy with the backpack was a waste of her time. He was a nobody. One of those street people, a real loser. Still, he’d been keeping his eye on the man since before the fire. He hadn’t realized that he had used the poor bastard’s home—a crappy cardboard box—for his dump site. So he’d been keeping an eye on the raggedy man, though the guy hadn’t even noticed him.
In fact, he had sort of forgotten about him, until the footrace.
Wow! She could sprint.
Her body looked like it was used to running, prepped and trained for the chase. He wondered how much faster she could run if she was the one being chased. There was that tingle again and suddenly he wanted very much to watch that. To see what her stride would look like when fear propelled her.
He didn’t need to follow too quickly. He knew exactly where the homeless man was going. He knew his routine. Wasn’t like the guy was bright enough to change it up. And usually when someone was frightened he always resorted to the predictable. That was one of the reasons he had started doing a double now and then. Of course, the conditions had to be right for doubles but that just added to the challenge.
By the time he rounded the corner she was already there—exactly where he knew the guy had dropped into his underground world. Actually an interesting world. He had followed the guy once before. A bit too confining for his taste, and the squirrelly bastard didn’t add much to the game. He moved like one of the displaced sewer rats, always looking over his shoulder. Nosier than hell. He was too annoying and stupid to kill. Much more fun to follow, let him know that he was being followed, then watch him squirm.
Just as he tucked himself into a dark shadow ready to observe, the woman cop did something he hadn’t predicted. She dropped down into the hole.
CHAPTER 24
Maggie texted Tully and Racine. She gave them her location. Told them she was going down under. She should wait for back up but the guy would be long gone by then. She could still hear the crack of Tully’s elbow hitting the pavement. Did that constitute assault? He was certainly fleeing after an order to halt.
No, she couldn’t wait. She gave one last glance around and then she started her descent down the brick-lined hole that reminded her of an oversize drain.
God, how she hated closed-in spaces.
