A Heartbeat Away - Michael Palmer [88]
In what seemed like slow motion, the ladder swung down.
Her foot was on the second rung when she felt the killer clawing at her leg once more. This time, she pulled away easily and climbed upward toward the first landing. She screamed and screamed again for help, aware that any misstep now would mean her death.
To her dismay the windows on the building remained dark and closed. By the time she reached the first landing, the man was on the ladder. The windows facing the landing were barred. From now on it would be stairs—slatted, freezing metal that would make every step treacherous.
At the second-floor landing the windows weren’t barred. She considered and quickly abandoned the notion of smashing one of them, and trying to climb or dive inside someone’s apartment. The killer was way too close, and two people had already died because of her.
Keeping her hands in contact with the railing, she pounded upward past one landing, then another. Blood sprayed from her nose with every frozen breath. She pawed at it with the back of her hand and coughed it from the back of her throat. Still, the distance between her and the killer seemed to be widening. Perhaps his sodden clothes were slowing him down. Perhaps he was hurt. Perhaps it was all those hours she had spent on the stationary bike.
God, but she missed her apartment.…
Her dizziness was getting more intense, and her breathing was growing more difficult, but she could hear that her pursuer was laboring also. She was reconsidering smashing a window, when she looked above and saw movement. A woman was poking out from one of the windows on the next landing.
“Help me!” Angie cried out to her. “Please!”
The woman slipped back inside the room, but the narrow window remained open. Angie dove through it, landing awkwardly, hitting her already battered forehead and smearing the hardwood floor with blood. A wizened woman stood in a corner, illuminated by a small bedside lamp. Angie suddenly realized where she was. Riverside! She’d explored the place just hours ago. She knew the room and she knew its occupant.
It was Chen Su—Sylvia Chen’s mother.
CHAPTER 39
DAY 5
11:30 P.M. (EST)
“Mrs. Chen, hide! You’ve got to hide!”
Angie heard the killer on the landing. It had been a mistake to lead him in here. Now she had to lead him away.
To her right, the aged woman stood placidly, her Alzheimer’s disease apparently shielding her from the terror of the situation.
“Go!” Chen Su ordered suddenly. “Go quickly!”
Angie hesitated, then raced from the room at the moment she heard her pursuer climbing through the window.
“She not here! Not here!” she heard Chen cry out.
“Shut up, old woman!” the man snapped.
“Not here … not here … not here!”
Chen’s room was at the end of the sixth floor, nearest to the freight elevator. The long corridor to the other rooms was totally deserted. Angie headed for the elevator, hoping to use it to escape. As she reached it and pulled the doors apart, she remembered that Mei Wu had used a key to start it. Counting on the relic had been a dumb idea in the first place.
“I said SHUT UP!”
The killer’s furious words echoed out into the hallway.
A moment later, Angie heard the woman get slapped and fall to the floor.
She sickened at the sound.
It had been wrong to put Chen Su in harm’s way. Now, it was time to end it. It was time to surrender before the poor woman or anyone else got killed. Angie took a step back toward room 603. Then she stopped.
Even without the key, the elevator could be of use.
Angie took a single step inside. The perilous