A Heartbeat Away - Michael Palmer [86]
“Sylvia? Sylvia, please. Are you there?”
The shadow ahead seemed to waver slightly. Angie could make out the shape of long arms and fingers. As frightened as she was, she was also transfixed.
“Please?” she said, her voice now little more than a whimper.
She took another half step toward the shadow, then another, pausing to listen and to check between the shelves on either side, as well as behind her. She had reached the end of the aisle. The shadow extended almost to where she was standing, although a shelf blocked her from seeing the source. Jaws and fists clenched, she peered around the shelving. Then she gasped. Sylvia Chen was hanging by an electric cord wrapped around her neck. The toes of her black work shoes, pointing down, were several inches off the concrete. The other end of the cord had been tossed over an exposed pipe, and then secured to a nearby steel support column.
The scientist’s head was bowed, obscuring her face. Angie moved numbly to Sylvia’s side and took her hand. Her skin was warm.
Could she still be alive?
She lifted Sylvia’s head using two fingers underneath her chin. Immediately the flash of hope gave way to anguish and revulsion. Angie recoiled at the sight of the dead woman’s tongue protruding out between her lips. Sylvia’s face was swollen and dark, and even in the gloom, Angie could see that her bulging eyes were spotted red with burst capillaries—a sign, she knew, of strangulation. She swallowed back a jet of bile and allowed Sylvia’s chin to drop back against her chest.
Calming herself with deep breaths, Angie examined the method used to hang the woman. The overhead pipe supplied the leverage to hoist her off the ground. The knot around the pipe seemed expertly done. Was she strangled before she was hung?
Two thoughts occurred to Angie at that moment. First, that this was murder, not suicide. There was no chair or box Sylvia could have used. Somebody powerful had to have pulled on the cord to lift her off her feet. The second thought sent a chill through her. When she first stepped into the basement and listened she’d had a strong sense that she was not alone.
Instantly, Angie was overwhelmed by the need to get out of the building and into the alley. She whirled and dashed back up the aisle.
She had made it halfway when the heavy steel door ahead of her swung shut.
CHAPTER 38
DAY 5
11:15 P.M. (EST)
Before Angie could react, a man emerged from the shadows beside the door, and stepped into the aisle, blocking her path. He was tall—six feet or more—and thin, but broad at the shoulders. Even in the dim light she could tell that his aquiline face was probably handsome at one time. Now, dominated by a huge, jagged scar running down his forehead, across his eyebrow, and over his cheek, it was utterly terrifying. He wore a black leather jacket, black watch cap, and black leather gloves. Dangling loosely from his right hand was a meat cleaver. What little light there was glinted off its broad blade.
“Welcome to hell, Senorita Fletcher,” he said, his perfect English tinged with a Hispanic accent.
React! Angie’s mind screamed. Now!
She swept her arm across the shelf by her shoulder, sending a barrage of cans and cartons flying into his chest, belly, and groin. The impact wasn’t much, but the surprise gave her what she needed—enough time to whirl and bolt back down the aisle.
“No chance, senorita,” the man called out in a singsong voice.
Angie screamed for help, frantically wondering where she might find another way out. If there were a stairway, she would have to pass by Sylvia’s body to find it.
“Help!” she screamed again. “Someone please help!”
“I promise it will be painless for you, senorita,” the man called from behind her. “Dr. Chen was kind enough to part with her papers. Now, I just need a few answers from you. Thank you for leading me to her, by the way. I’ve been with you all the way from Kansas, and now I feel as if we are sort of buddies.”
He was close.
Angie turned her