Face to Face (6 page)

He had crouched at the opening of a plumbing access panel, low in the wall and had climbed halfway inside. "It's the only way. It's not far now."

She waved the light, trying to make the two-foot square manmade tunnel appear larger. It didn't. In fact as the light was swallowed by the darkness, the area looked smaller. And a lot more deadly. Jagged spikes of copper piping jutted from every surface—just waiting to impale her, trap her. Tagger had no compunctions. He slid on his stomach through the opening as easily as Alice down the rabbit's hole.

"Hurry," his high-pitched voice echoed from the darkness.

Cassie sighed, clamped the flashlight between her teeth, and pushed the backpack before her, stalling for one more breath of air before she entered. How the hell had a pregnant woman gotten through this? There had to be a back way to where her patient lay. Had damn well better be, because no way in hell were any paramedics going to find them through here.

Her thoughts and Tagger's urging kept her mind occupied, helped her ignore the bile churning her gut and burning her throat as her claustrophobia ambushed her.
Just a little farther
, became her mantra. Accompanied by a refrain of: Drake was going to kill her if he ever heard about this.

She realized her cell phone was in the charger in her car, protected from the drywall dust. If this was some kind of elaborate trap, if Tagger was using her to score points with the Gangstas…

No. He seemed honestly scared, wanting to help the woman, despite the fact she chose to have her baby in Ripper territory. He risked his life coming back here with so many Rippers around. No, it wasn't Tagger she had to worry about. It was everyone else. Not to mention the building falling down on her.

Or figuring out how the hell she was going to get Tagger and a pregnant lady out of here.

Beware what you wish for, Rosa would say. Cassie had been searching for a path out of the purgatory her resignation from Three Rivers had exiled her to, had been yearning for a way back into medicine.

Got what she wanted, in spades.

The backpack slipped from her grasp as the floor vanished beneath her.

CHAPTER 6

Drake sat in the unmarked Intrepid's passenger seat as Jimmy parked a few doors down from a brick Tudor on the wrong side of the demarcation between trendy Shadyside and not-so-desirable East Liberty. He didn't move, relishing the cool breeze emerging from the car's AC vents. Jimmy turned the ignition off. Drake inhaled one last time to savor the crisp oxygen. The air outside shimmered as if alive, beckoning them with deadly intent.

Jimmy circled around to the sidewalk. Drake waited until the last possible moment before exiting the car. No good. The blast of heat still swamped him, made him feel as if he'd fallen into quicksand. Air you could cut like a knife, drown in.

Even Jimmy, the impervious former Marine, was flushed and sweating by the time they climbed to the top of the stoop. Drake hid his smile. Misery loved company. The front door stood wide open, inviting any hint of a breeze and any two-bit push-in artist to enter.

"What floor?" Drake asked.

"Fourth, top."

"Figures." He looked up the narrow steps sporting frayed carpeting. The entire house smelled of cabbages and cigarettes. "Flip you for it?"

"Nah. You work the scene, I'll start banging on doors."

It was their usual division of labor, each following their strengths. Drake could read a crime scene better than any of the detectives on the squad while Jimmy could make anyone talk whether they wanted to or not. Still, Drake felt a prickling behind his neck as he began up the first flight of stairs. 

It was a dead end burglary, nothing to get so excited about. Just nerves. Not sleeping for four days would put anyone on edge. Didn't help that Burns lived in the same neighborhood as Pamela. In fact, Pamela's building was just a few blocks from here.

He pushed aside all thoughts of Pamela and tried to concentrate on the case. Instead, all he could think about with each step was a cold breeze coming in off the Lake, water lapping against him as he ducked his head under, emerging to find Hart beside him, her fingers tracing the beads of water down his chest and moving lower still...

The top of the steps came all too soon. Drake shook his sexy daydream away, promising himself to revisit it at his next available moment, and knocked on Monica Burns' door.

She opened it and stood there for a long moment, arm against the doorjamb as if she posing for a perfume ad. She'd changed into a black midriff tank top and filmy, gauze skirt, both of which clung to her, revealing every jutting angle of her emaciated ribs and sunken abdomen. In contrast, her full breasts strained the tank top's spaghetti straps. 

Did other guys really find that attractive? Give him Hart with her well-formed muscles, compact breasts that fit oh-so-well into his hands, her narrow hips and tight abdomen—trimmed by work, not from starvation.

He focused his eyes on Burns' face, kept his gaze expressionless as she slowly lowered her arm and stepped back inside, motioning for him to follow. Instead, he squatted, examined the locks on her door. No dead bolt. Only a simple snap lock anyone with a credit card could spring and the chain she'd already admitted to not using.

"Might want to think about investing in a dead bolt." He straightened. She'd moved to stand where the light from the window backlit her, effortlessly cutting through the thin fabric of her skirt. What the hell? He remembered the way she'd brushed against him at the station house. Was she coming on to him?

"Yes, sir," she replied. Then stood there, silently, expectantly.

Drake felt his forehead knot into a frown and cursed himself. Burns was pissing him off with her demur glances and silent invitations. She just wasn't his type. 

A stirring in his pelvis begged to differ. He couldn't pull his eyes away as she inhaled deeply, her breasts swelling, straining the fabric of her top. Burns
was
exactly his type, a cookie-cutter image of so many women he'd been with.
Before
Hart. 

The tall, Barbie-doll blonde before him was Hart's opposite in so many ways, he couldn't even begin to list them. Just as Hart was Pamela's opposite—

Shit. Back to Pamela. Focus, damn it, he was on the job here.

"Where were the items taken from?" He swallowed to clear the gravel that clogged his voice.

"The bathroom." The bathroom was through the apartment's sole bedroom. She led the way, stopping short so he bumped against her. From her expression, he had the feeling that was her intention. 

"I'm sorry, I guess I shouldn't have touched anything," she said, standing in the open doorway. "But it's the only bathroom."

Drake entered the tiny space. Teal green and black tile on the walls, black and white tiles on the floor, claw foot tub, commode and pedestal sink. The single small window above the toilet was open, but no air moved in the cramped room. Burns joined him, her body adding to the heat. The scent of almonds and apricots swirled around him, thick like an exotic liqueur. Sweat glued his shirt to his chest and back as he turned around to survey the area.

Actor would have had to come through the bedroom to reach the bath. No way anyone could have gotten in through the window. "Are you a heavy sleeper?" 

"Yes, why?" Then her eyes went wide as if she'd just now realized the implications. "You mean he was in my bedroom." She shuddered dramatically. "Anything could have happened."

Drake wasn't surprised when she grabbed his arm. Like some kind of knight in shining armor. Jeezit, did she have the wrong cop. He looked at the empty porcelain cup that sat on the back of the toilet. "That's where the rings were?"

"Yes. And my bracelets were beside them in the saucer." She jangled her wrists and raised one golden chain clad ankle to demonstrate. "Usually these are all I sleep in, so he didn't get these. But I had some others—sterling silver and turquoise, one carved coral—a whole bunch."

"You touch anything—" he started. Of course she had. He amended his question. "The cup or saucer?" 

A pretty frown creased her brow as she concentrated. "No. Just the flusher, the sink, the door handle," she spun around in the cramped quarters, brushing against him once more, releasing another wave of the fruity fragrance, "and the bath tub. That's all."

That was enough. Something about this didn't feel right. Escaping the confines of the bath, he exited into her bedroom. The bed was rumpled with brightly colored mismatched sheets, and silk pillows of every size and shape. Instead of curtains, mosquito netting was draped over a rod at the window. Candles festooned every available surface. Drake moved to the open window, searching for a morsel of fresh air. Burns followed as if worried he'd miss a vital clue.

No fire escape, the actor would've come from inside, through the front door. Walking right past the stereo, TV, and DVD player just to snag some cheap rings and bracelets? And risk waking the resident? Didn't make much sense as a burglary.

His breath caught as his gaze snagged on the building opposite. They faced the rear of an apartment building. A building he knew well. Against his will, the hairs on his neck prickling, he counted windows until he reached the fifth floor. And found himself staring into what had once been Pamela Reynolds' bedroom.

The last place he, or anyone, had seen her alive.

CHAPTER 7

Cassie toppled into space. The flashlight dropped, clanging as it spiraled down. Her hand slammed against a concrete step. The darkness gave the illusion she'd fallen a great distance, but in reality it'd only been a few feet. Just enough to disorient her. She pulled the lower half of her body from the hole in the wall and crawled the rest of the way into a stairwell. Tagger grabbed her flashlight and guided her with its beam. 

Her lungs felt as if they'd been squeezed tight. Sweat and grime covered her. "How far did we come?"

Tagger retrieved her backpack. "Dunno. We was in the walls behind a kitchen and bath. The hallway has holes in the floor so I thought this way would be safer. That all right?"

He looked at her with a worried expression that said he'd forgotten she was an old person. Cassie ignored him as she did a mental calculation. Kitchen and bath—maybe twenty feet they'd crawled through? Seemed as if she'd tunneled beneath the entire Allegheny Plateau.

She felt her way down the steps to join him. She'd done it, made it through, that was what counted. "How did you find this?"

"Rippers chased me in here one day." He shrugged, the light bobbing with his movement. "It's not so bad here once you get used to it. I can think, do my art. Lots quieter than home."

"With your aunt?" Another silent nod. "Why, what happened?"

They moved into a relatively intact basement area surrounded by cement block walls covered in Tagger's artwork. His reply came to her from the darkness as if that was the only way he could share secrets like this one.

"Ever since Rodney died, she's been going out lots more. One of her friends—she's gots lots, always bringing them by—he came into my room..." His voice trailed off.

Cassie could guess what happened next. "He tried to touch you?"

She barely caught the nod of his head and shrug of his shoulders. But the sniff as he wiped tears away echoed loud through the darkness. "Tried to make me…anyway, I bit him. Hard." Pride edged his voice. "He cried like a baby and hit me. Then he hit my aunt and left, and she came after me, hollering that I was spoiling everything. Then she was trying to beat up on me, so's I left, too."

"How long ago was that?" she asked as she bent low to avoid a sawed-off pipe. Scavengers, taking anything they could.

"Two-three days. S'all right, I can take care of myself." He turned one more corner in the maze. "C'mon. She's in here."

There was a click as he turned on a portable lantern hanging from a twisted piece of rebar in the ceiling. Cassie blinked in the unexpected brightness. They were in the basement laundry area, a windowless room where Tagger’s art covered every surface. Part of the ceiling was collapsed at the far end, legs of a kitchen table straddling the opening. The faint sound of whimpering punctuated by gasps came from behind a fallen piece of charred drywall to one side of the collapse.

Tagger moved toward the sound. Cassie rushed to join him, her gaze raking over the precariously stacked debris. Through the hole, a faint glimmer of sunlight from the apartment above dared to part the shadows. The entire wall looked like it might tumble down on top of them with one wrong breath.

Then she saw her patient. This was no woman. This was a girl. Thin. Much too thin for someone so far along in their pregnancy, cheeks and eyes sunken in a finely boned face, ebony complexion marred by a wicked scar burned into her forehead. 

Cassie had seen similar scars in people grazed by a bullet. It didn't look very old, maybe a week or two. Pink granulation tissue still glistened in the center of the wound.

This girl looked maybe fifteen, sixteen, tops. What had she done to be shot at, then abandoned here to have her baby alone? What kind of hell had this girl already survived?

"Told you I'd get help, Athena." Tagger squeezed the girl's hand as he knelt at her side. "This is Doc Cass. She's the best."

"You know her?" Cassie assessed her patient's pulse, noting the signs of dehydration as well as the clear fluid puddled on the floor beneath the girl's hips.

"Athena was Rodney's girlfriend," he said. His brother who'd been killed two weeks ago. 

The girl's eyes fluttered open and she gasped in fear, tried to pull away. Cassie grabbed a water bottle from her pack and held it to the girl's lips. 

"Drink, slow," she urged. The girl complied, so weak Tagger had to lift her head.

Cassie wished she had IV fluids, but all she had in her pack were basic first aid supplies. "How far apart are your contractions?" 

"Baby Jane and I had a talk, she's gonna wait," the girl said. "They've slowed down."