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She did. In, out. Eyes open, looking at the disk of light ahead of her, relief a mile ahead. No, not that. Evidence. Look for evidence. That's your job. Her gaze took in the metal shell, inches away.
And the sting of panic began to detach. Not vanish completely. But it grew loose.
Okay. She continued through the tunnel, rolling for trace, collecting scraps, intentionally moving more slowly than before.
And finally her head emerged. Shoulders.
Birthing, she laughed to herself, a pallid sound, and blinked sweat from her eyes.
Then she rolled quickly into the larger tunnel; it seemed like a concert hall by comparison. Rising to a crouch, drawing her Glock.
But no intruders were aiming weapons her way, not in the immediate area at least. The spotlights over the body were blinding and there might have been a threat in the blackness beyond but she immediately shone her Maglite in that direction. No threat.
Rising, Sachs tugged the gear bag out of the tunnel. She gazed around and saw that the diagram from Rhyme's database was accurate. This tunnel resembled a mine shaft, about twenty feet square. It disappeared west into the darkness. She knew it had been used, a century ago, for transporting wheeled carts of goods to and from factories and warehouses. Now the damp, moldy passageway served only as New York City infrastructure. There were large iron pipes overhead and smaller aluminum and PVC ones, perhaps for electrical cables, running through old battered junction boxes. Newer conduits sprouted from bright-yellow boxes secured with thick padlocks. These were embossed with the letters IFON. She didn't know what that meant. The iron pipes were stamped NYC DS and NYC DEP - Sanitation and Environmental Protection, the agencies that handled the city's sewage and water supply, respectively.
She realized it was utterly quiet and turned up the volume of the radio.
'--the hell is going on?'
'Sorry, Rhyme,' Sachs said. 'Had to concentrate.'
He was silent for a moment. Then he seemed to get it - her wrestling with the breadbasket. 'All right. Well. The scene secure, as far as you can tell?'
'The immediate scene.' The tunnel was bricked off to the east but she glanced again at the darkness to the west.
'Turn one of the spotlights that way. It'll blind anybody trying to target you. And you'll be able to see him coming before he sees you.'
The first responders had brought two halogen lamps on tripods, connected to large batteries. She turned one in the direction Rhyme had suggested and squinted as she examined the receding tunnel.
No indication of threats.
Sachs hoped there'd be no firefight. The big pipe overhead, newly installed, it seemed - the one stamped DEP - appeared to be thick iron; her rounds in the Glock, hollow-points, wouldn't break through the metal. But if the unsub returned with guns a-blazing he might be loaded with armor-piercing slugs, which could pierce the pipe. Because of the huge water pressure inside, she imagined, a rupture might create an explosion like a massive load of C-4.
And even if he had regular bullets, the ricochet off metal and the stone and brick walls could kill or wound as easily as a direct shot.
She peered up the tunnel again and saw no movement.
'Clear, Rhyme.'
'Good. So. Let's get going.' He'd turned impatient.
Sachs already was. Wanted to get out of here.
'Start with the vic.'
She's more than a victim, Rhyme, Sachs thought. She has a name. Chloe Moore. She was a twenty-six-year-old sale clerk in a boutique that sold clothing with loose strands escaping the stitching. She was working for near minimum wage because she was intoxicated on New York. On acting. On being twenty-six. And God bless her for it.
And she didn't deserve to die. Much less like this.
Sachs slipped rubber bands on her booties, the balls of the feet, to differentiate her footfalls from those of the perp and the first responders - whose footgear she would photograph later as control samples.
She walked closer to the body. Chloe lay on her back, her blouse tugged up to below the breasts. Sachs noted that even in death her round, pretty face was distorted with an asymmetrical grimace, muscles taut. It was evidence of the obvious pain she'd experienced, pain tapering to death. She'd frothed at the mouth. And vomited copiously. The smell was vile. Sachs mentally moved past it.
Chloe's hands, under her body, were secured in cheap handcuffs. With a universal key Sachs removed these. The victim's ankles were duct-taped. With surgical scissors Sachs clipped the tape and bagged the gray, dusty strips. She scraped beneath the young woman's deep-purple fingernails, noting fibers and bits of off-white flecks. Perhaps she'd fought him and if so bits of valuable trace, even skin, might be present; if her killer was in the CODIS DNA database, they might have his identity in hours.
Rhyme said, 'I want to see the tattoo, Sachs.'
Sachs noted a small blue tattoo on Chloe's neck, right and near the shoulder, but that had been done long ago. Besides, it was easy to see which one the killer had done. She knelt down and trained her eyes, and the camera, on Chloe's abdomen.
