It was hard to breathe. The air in here… the air…
Then she knew what he’d been doing with the car. He had turned it around-the red light had been the glow of brake lights-and backed it up against the crawl space. Now, as the engine idled, the tail pipes were pumping fumes into this narrow, airless place.
He meant to asphyxiate her. Or more likely, drive her out into the open where he could finish her with his own hands.
She shrank away, retreating into the deeper recesses where the fumes had not yet penetrated.
A stopgap measure only. Before long, carbon monoxide would fill the entire passageway.
I have the hammer, she thought desperately. I can crawl out, take him by surprise…
It was hopeless. Half-asphyxiated, she would be unable even to defend herself, much less to attack.
He had outplayed her. He had won. Unless the security system really was monitored by an outside agency. If it was, the police might be on their way, or if not the police, then a private security patrol-the rent-a-cops she and her colleagues in uniform always looked down on. She wouldn’t cast aspersions on them now, if they came. If anybody came.
But no one would. The truth hit her hard, robbing her of strength. She coughed again, doubling over, as the air thickened around her.
Adam would know if the alarm system was monitored. It was exactly the kind of detail he would check-Adam, with his lawyer’s mind, his eye for detail, his careful planning.
Had help been on the way, he would have fled already. But he hadn’t fled. He knew there was no danger.
“Getting a little woozy in there, C.J.?” he called. “This LA smog is getting worse all the time.”
God, she hated him. She ran her fingers over the steel hammerhead, the large striking surface and twin-pronged claw. She wished she could bury it in his skull. She wished The hammer.
She glanced upward, touching the low ceiling that was actually the floor of the building above.
A plywood subfloor, not a concrete slab. Three-quarters of an inch of plywood, if standard specifications had been met.
She knew all about this stuff. She remembered shadowing the building inspector as he checked out the bungalow she and Adam had purchased. The bungalow, too, had a crawl space under a plywood subfloor. She had forced herself to belly in there with the inspector, overcoming her fear of the confined area and the memories it roused. To distract herself, she asked many questions, and he answered patiently, perhaps intrigued to find himself in the presence of a young, pretty woman with an interest in plywood underlayment.
Above the subfloor, there would be a second floor-hardwood, nailed or glued down. Another three-quarters of an inch. One and a half inches in all.
Could she batter her way through one and a half inches of wood before the fumes finished her off?
She could try.
With new determination she retreated to the farthest corner of the crawl space, navigating around lumber posts and plumbing pipes. She flipped on her back and groped upward, touching thick lumber girders that traversed the subfloor and provided additional support. Perpendicular to the girders ran the thinner floor joists, and in the spaces between the joists she felt the plywood sheets of the subflooring itself. She searched for a wood seam between the sheets-the weakest spot, or so she hoped.
Finally she found a seam and attacked it in a flurry of hammer blows.
Behind her, a burst of light. Something small and tubular rolled on the gravel in the center of the crawl space, sputtering brightly.
A flare, one of those roadside emergency things. Adam must have taken it out of the BMW’s trunk. He’d heard the pounding and wanted to see what was going on.
The flare came to rest a few yards away. Its light barely reached her. She didn’t think Adam could see her yet.
She kept on swinging the hammer. Wood splinters rained on her face.
More light. A second flare.
This one rolled nearer. It stopped just out of her reach, close enough to cast its light on her. Its glare reflected off the interwoven plumbing pipes at her back and threw crazy shadows on the subfloor, illuminating plastic strips of vapor barrier stapled to the joists.
Her hammer swung again, and this time it punched through the wood and was momentarily imbedded in the gap until she wrenched it free.
She’d made a hole. Only a couple of inches in diameter, but it could be widened.
She attacked the hole with the hammer’s claw, peeling off chips of wood. Six inches wide now.
Gunshot.
It thundered in the crawl space, the blast of a pistol.
Adam had fired at her.
And missed. He was still outside, far away, and she was dimly illuminated and half-hidden by the plumbing.
Still, he might not miss again.
She gave up using the claw and pounded the edges of the hole, breaking off chunks of plywood that pattered on the gravel where she lay.
Twelve inches wide now.
Adam fired again. She heard the pistol’s report and the bullet’s ricochet in the same instant.
The shot had struck the plumbing pipes behind her.
She was pushing her luck. Needed to get out of here right now.
Another swing of the hammer, and something snapped.
The hammer. Its head had broken off.
And the hole was still too narrow.
A third shot. Gravel sprayed her face. The round had landed close.
And the fumes were reaching her now. She started coughing again. Her eyes watered.
“You’re not getting out, C.J.!” Adam screamed.
She wanted to tell him to fuck himself, but she didn’t have any air in her lungs, only sawdust and toxins.
Had to widen the hole, or she was dead. No hammer. Okay, improvise.
She braced herself against the copper pipes, then pistoned her legs upward, slamming her sneakers into the subfloor.
Loose wood at the rim of the hole broke away. She kicked again. More debris.
The hole was wide enough now. She twisted into a crouch and grabbed the edges of the hole, ignoring the bite of splinters in her palms. She pulled herself up.
Gunshots behind her. She didn’t think she’d been hit. Couldn’t be sure. Veteran cops had told her that sometimes you took a bullet and didn’t feel it till you saw the blood, touched the wound.
She hoisted herself all the way out, into a corner room with two windows letting in the moonlight.
Knelt for a moment, wheezing, fighting for air until her lungs were clear and she could raise her head and see where she was.
It was a kitchen. A break room, more accurately, for the benefit of the office workers who would inhabit this building. Sink, dishwasher, counter space. The floor was parquet, lustrous in the moonlight, a small touch of elegance that explained the plywood subfloor. Parquet flooring on a concrete base would absorb moisture from the stone, then buckle and fail. Another thing the building inspector had told her.
She struggled to her feet, unlocked a window and raised it. An alarm went off. Every building in the complex must be wired. It was okay. Adam already knew she was inside.
She glanced again at the floor-so shiny-then at two cans with hinged metal handles resting in a corner. She sniffed them both, then picked up the second one and hauled it through the window as she climbed out.
Adam was coming. She could see the brightening glow of the BMW’s headlights.
She ran, lugging the can. It was heavy, gallon-sized, and it slowed her down, but she would not abandon it.
It might be just what she needed to turn this battle in her favor-and give her ex-husband a very nasty surprise.
51
“So how do we get in?” Brand asked, pacing the office while a cold wind howled and bleated outside. “We don’t have time for a low-and-slow, and if we bombard them, they’ll get their guard up right away.”