Last Breath

50

“You want to know why I married you, C.J.?”

The question, bizarrely irrelevant, echoed through the crawl space. She didn’t answer.

“Want to hear what really turned me on about you? It was the fear in you. The fear you’re always fighting, always denying, always overcompensating for. I could sense it. And I liked it.”

I was never afraid of you, she thought fiercely. And I’m still not.

She expected him to say more, but instead she heard the BMW’s engine rev up, then a crunch of tires on gravel.

What was the plan? Did he intend to ram through the crawl space? It made no sense.

She tightened her grip on the hammer and waited.

The car pulled away, then maneuvered briefly before easing toward the crawl space again. This time the motor noise sounded different, and she caught a glimmer of red light from outside.

The engine resumed idling as the car shifted into park.

“I told you why I married you.” Adam’s voice was startling like a slap. “Now you want to know a bigger secret? Why do you suppose you married me?”

I thought it was love, she answered inwardly.

He surprised her by responding as if she’d spoken aloud. “It wasn’t love, not really. It was need.” He made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a chuckle. “You need protection. You thought if you could just feel safe enough, the fear would go away.”

She wanted to deny this, at least to herself, but she knew it was true.

“You weren’t aware of that, were you?” Adam taunted.

Yes, she had been-but she’d never known that he’d been aware of it also. She had thought better of him than that. Now she saw that he’d been on the prowl right from the start. Like a predatory animal he had sniffed out her fear and vulnerability, tasting the scent and relishing it.

“You didn’t feel strong enough to face your fears alone,” he was saying. “And when you arrived in LA, you were alone-all alone-for the first time in your life.”

No, not quite the first time. She remembered that other night when she had huddled in a dark crawl space.

“You were alone and scared,” he went on, “and you latched on to the first nice guy you met, the first guy who treated you with respect.”

It was true-even if the respect had been an illusion, even if the nice guy had turned out to be a control freak and a cheat and, now, a psychopath. She shut her eyes, wishing he would stop talking and just go away.

“You think you’re so independent, so self-reliant. It’s all bullshit. You’re weak, too weak to face the future by yourself. I’m the only one who sees it. That nickname your cop friends gave you-what a joke. You’re no killer, C.J.” Another grunt of laughter. “But I am.”

She opened her mouth to tell him she was glad not to be a killer and she hated that damn nickname-but what came out was a cough, hoarse and racking.

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.