Out Of The Deep I Cry

“Good God.” She had to fight not to gag. The dark empty space reeked of urine and human waste.

“I know.” He shifted forward into the darkness, thump-step, thump-step. The wooden planks beneath them were uneven, swollen with age and soaking up things Clare didn’t want to imagine. “This is one of the hidey-holes for the hard-core homeless in the area. Every six months or so, we come in here, roust everybody out, and cart them off to shelters or the hospital. It’s useless, of course. There aren’t enough beds in the addiction unit or the mental-health facility for people asking for help, let alone for these guys, who don’t want anything to do with it. We only round ’em up because the aldermen are scared someone’s going to wreck himself up here and sue the town.”

There was a creak ahead of them and Russ froze. Clare stood still behind him, letting the rain drip off her. “C’mon,” he said.

“There doesn’t seem to be anyone here now,” she whispered.

“We were down here in early March. There’d been a fight, and one guy cut another one up real bad. We had the ambulance, a fire truck, the works. Usually they stay away awhile after something like that. They don’t want to get caught if we show up again.”

“What happened to the man?”

“Which one?”

“The one who was hurt.”

“He got patched up in the ER and then hung around town for a while. He had some sort of chronic illness. TB? He hung around the clinic for a while, getting treatment. Yeah, it must have been TB. Of course, as soon as he was well enough, he vanished.”

They came to an open doorway. The waterfront wall to their right was pierced with glassless windows, but the rain and the hour seemed to slow the gray light, so that it sluggarded across the floor and died before it reached the middle of the room.

“I’m going to go through that door and back up against the wall on the right-hand side.” He pitched his voice just above a whisper. “I want you to point the gun in front of you right after I’m out of the way, then step in beside me. Got it?”

“Yeah.”

The handle of the gun was slippery in her hands, from rain and nervous sweat. Russ thudded through the doorway and sideways, the rubber crutch-tips squeaking in protest, and she braced the gun and stepped forward, sweeping it in front of her, lurched to the side, and slammed against the wall, jarring loose a powdery shower of dried birdshit on both of them.

“I bet you watched Starsky and Hutch when you were a kid.” His voice was dry. “C’mon, there’s no one in here.”

They crossed the warped, bulging floor to the next doorway. Russ peered around its edge. “End of the line,” he said. He held his right hand out. Clare gave him the gun. Russ crutched through first, Clare tight behind him. Where the other rooms had soared high into the musty darkness, this ceiling was barely high enough for Russ to pass without ducking. Open-case stairs pierced the low ceiling on the left-and right-hand walls. Below each stairway, trap doorways yawned, revealing two other stairs, leading to the cellar. From the amount of mouse droppings and dirt encrusting the doors, Clare suspected they had lain open a long time.

“Police,” Russ said, in a voice that cracked with authority. “Put your hands up in the air and walk out into the open.”

Silence.

“He has to be here, right?” Clare whispered. The glass was broken out of the windows tucked near the stairs, but the narrow wooden crossbars, the lights, were intact. The wall opposite them was solid, featureless.

“No other way out.” He pointed toward the room overhead. “A couple of vents under the eaves up there. Too small for a human. Cellar down there’s beneath the stone foundations.”

“What are we going to do?” She looked at Russ’s cast.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to go dashing up after him.” He glanced at the dark rectangle swallowing the cellar stairs. “Or down.”

There was a splash. Clare swiveled toward the right-hand stairs. “What was that?”

“Sounded like something in the cellar.” He crutched closer, until he stood next to the long side of the open trap door, like a graveside mourner. “It’s well below the waterline. Probably pretty wet down there.”

Another noise. Sloshing. Movement.

“You there in the cellar,” Russ shouted. “Come to the foot of the stairs with your hands up. There’s no way out.” His voice warmed a shade. “I can promise you it’s a hell of a lot warmer and drier at the station than it is here.”

Clare went around him and squatted at the head of the stairs. She could see them descending straight down into the gloom of the cellar. Like the other stairs in the building, these were open case, simple boards nailed to risers, no railing. “You can tell they constructed this before OSHA was around,” she said. In the single patch of gray light that made it to the bottom, she could see a flash of black water and the skeletal remains of a barrel. “Do you want me to go down? There’s no way you can maneuver those stairs.”

He stared at her. “You’re kidding, right?” He shook his head. “You’ve read too damn many Nancy Drew mysteries. No, you don’t get to go down into the creepy cellar where the bad guy lurks. Alone, unarmed, and without a light. Don’t be an idiot.”

More splashing. Rhythmic. Not like someone walking through water. The sound of something slapping against the water. Dropping into it.

“This is the nonidiot way to get the bad guy.” Russ kept his voice casual, but he moved closer to the edge of the opening, his crutch tips bracing against the hinges of the trapdoor. He watched the darkness below as he spoke. “I’m going to stand in the door to this room with my gun out and ready. You’re going to go back to the car, call the station, and have them send a couple units out here. Then you’ll stay in the car until they arrive.” She opened her mouth, but he cut her off. “It’s not just to keep you safe. If anything happens to me, or if the suspect gets past me, you’ll be able to see where he goes and call for help.”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out her cell phone. “I forgot all about it.” She grinned up at him. “I’ve still got your phone on the line. I’ll be using up my minutes-”

The sound was like the ceiling falling in, rumble, pound, bash, and she swung her head and saw the man, already halfway across the room, hat tumbled off in the rush, hard-soled shoes slicing the floor, and Russ twisting around, tangled in his crutches, raising his gun, and she was rising from her crouch shouting, “No!” and the man leaped, he bounded, his arms crossed before him, smashing into Russ, the crutches clattering away and Russ was falling into the tomb-shaped opening, and she dove forward without thinking, to block his fall, to catch him, her fingers closing on his arm and she was yanked off balance and it was too late. Let. Go, her brain said, but in the time it took to flash the message to her hand she had smashed shoulder and hip against the stairs and hit the floor with the force of a car wreck, icy cold water parting beneath the slap of her body, then clapping over her, soaking her to the bone in an instant. The blow knocked the breath out of her, and she inhaled too quickly, panicking, swallowing more of the scummy water, choking and sputtering. She jerked upright, hacked, and gasped. Above her, the rectangle of gray narrowed. She looked up. The trapdoor was ready to drop, propped up by the man’s stiff and trembling arm. It was too dim to make out his expression. Only the pale whiteness of his face.

“No!” she cried. “Don’t!”

“I’m sorry,” Allan Rouse said. Then he dropped the door.

Chapter 37

NOW

The darkness clapped shut over them like the lid on a coffin. There was a thunk as the bolt slid home, locking them in. The raw horror-story sound of it pulled an involuntary whimper out of her throat. Then Rouse’s footsteps crossed the floor overhead.

The other stairway. She exploded out of the water, seeing, now, with precious seconds wasted gaping at the