To Catch a Killer(52)

I stiffen as she noses her car all the way up to the barricade. “Spam, you can’t—”

“Relax. I just want to see if there’s someone around that I can ask.”

“Hey! Back it up.” A distorted male voice barks instructions through an amplified speaker. Suddenly, Chief Culson appears at the front of Spam’s car, waving one arm and talking into a bullhorn.

Spam rolls down her window. “Hi. Excuse me,” she says. “But we have office equipment to deliver to the green building down the block. How can we get there?”

Chief Culson walks up to the window. “Sorry. There’s no access today. The mayor just finished a little ceremony and as soon as we get him out of here, we’re under orders to clear the whole block so they can bring it down.” He peers in the window and spots me. “Hey, Erin. I didn’t know that was you.”

“Hi, Chief.” I give him a small wave.

“Is there any way?” Spam pleads. “Erin and I just need forty-five minutes to deliver this stuff and set it up. It’s for my dad’s store.” She glances in the backseat. “Actually, I could probably even do it in twenty minutes.”

The chief gnaws on the corner of his lip, contemplating her request. He checks his watch. “I can give you twenty minutes. But you have to park your car behind that Dumpster and walk it in. Can you do that?”

“Yes.” Spam jumps at the offer. “Absolutely. We’ll be in and out. You won’t even know we were here.”

Spam backs her car up and parks behind the Dumpster, where the chief directed her to park. Then she loads a stack of boxes containing computer components into my outstretched arms. “That’s enough,” I say, once the stack reaches my chin. “I have to be able to see.”

“I’ll guide you.” Spam tucks a couple of boxes under her arm and slings her tool bag over her shoulder. Her idea of guiding is for me to listen to her tapping footsteps in front of me and try to follow them.

With my chin clamped down on the stack of boxes to keep them stable, my field of vision is limited. I can see up and slightly right or left. But that’s it. The only way to see directly in front of me is to stop and turn sideways. Glancing to the side, I see the chief in front of the barricade, talking into a walkie-talkie.

“Thanks, Chief,” Spam calls out.

He nods and points, instructing us to take a different—more secluded—route.

Spam happily follows his directions. “He’s only letting us in because of you.”

“That’s not true,” I say.

“It is,” she insists. “His whole attitude changed when he saw you were in the car with me.”

“Whatever.” I’m not going to argue with her about it.

The route the chief pointed us to is a man-made walkway that skirts along the back of the hotel. It’s essentially a tunnel constructed of plywood and scaffolding. One side is an open, steel grid and the other side is lined with solid sheets of protective plywood. The floor is made of wobbly strips of wood.

The tunnel is easily as long as a city block and we’ve barely traversed half of it when I hear a loud “all clear” shout in the distance.

Immediately, there’s an ear-shredding buildup of vibrations and mechanical noise.

“What’s going on up there?” I shout to Spam. “Is everything okay?”

It’s so loud I no longer hear her heels tapping ahead of me. I strain to peer over and around the boxes. She’s walking … and texting.

“Spam. Pay attention. What’s going on up there?”

“What?” She continues staring at her phone.

I turn sideways and rest my armload of boxes against the steel railing to get a better view of what’s happening ahead of us.

Just then, the protective wall about ten feet in front of Spam splinters without warning as the blade of a giant earthmover breaks through the barrier and grinds toward us.

“Spam!” I ditch the computer stuff and grab for her at the same moment she’s grabbing for me.

We try to squeeze through the steel grid but the openings are too narrow.

We grab the grid and shake hard. It’s too sturdy.

We have no choice but to turn and run.

It seems like we should be able to outrun an earthmover, but the freaking thing literally stays just a few feet behind us. As it chews through the tunnel we have to duck the chunks of wood and debris it flings at us. Even the wobbly floor rips apart under our feet.

The only way to continue moving forward is to pull each other along.

“Help! Stop!”

We scream, but no one’s going to hear us. I can’t even hear us over the shrill whine of ripping wood and mechanical feeding.

I choke and cough on dust that collects in my throat.

I can’t scream and I can barely run.

This is more surreal than any bad dream I’ve ever had. But Spam’s nails biting into my skin and the absolute certainty that we’re about to die keeps me fully aware that this is no dream.

The earthmover continues to advance, literally chasing us down the narrow chute by nipping away at the wood under our feet. Our only chance to escape is to outrun him and we still have half a block to go.

As my legs melt into rubber and my lungs refuse to gulp another speck of dust, Chief Culson suddenly appears on the path in front of us.