The Skin Collector

‘Got it, Rhyme. No worries.’

Knuckle time …

It’s not that long, she reassured herself. Twenty three feet. That’s nothing. Though, for some inexplicable reason, Sachs found herself passionately resenting that extra yard past twenty. As she approached, her palms began to sweat fiercely; her scalp too, which itched more than normally. She wanted to scratch, dig her nails into her skin, her cuticles. A nervous habit. The urge rose when she was unable to move – in all senses, physically, emotionally, mentally.

Static: How she hated that state.

Her breath came in short intervals and shallow gulps.

Orienting, she touched her Glock 17, which was strapped to her hip. A slight risk of contamination from the weapon, even if she didn’t blow anyone away, but there was that security issue again. And if any perp had a good scenario for hurting a crime scene officer, it would be here.

She hooked a nylon tie down to her evidence collection gear bag and the other end to her weapon belt, to drag it behind her.

Moving forward. Pausing before the opening. Then on her hands and knees. And into the shaft. Sachs wanted to leave the headlamp off – seeing the tu

Click.

Under the halogen beam, the metal coffin seemed to shrink and wrap its steel shell around her.

Get. Going.

She extracted a dog hair roller from her pocket and swept the floor of the tu

She thought of a joke, a Steven Wright routine from years ago. ‘I went into the hospital for an MRI. I wanted to find out if I had claustrophobia.’

But the humor and the distraction of the task didn’t keep the panic away for long.

She was a third of the way through when fear stabbed her gut, a frozen blade.

Get out, get out, get out!

Teeth chattering despite the intense heat around her.

‘You’re doing fine, Sachs.’ Rhyme’s voice in her ear.

She appreciated his baritone reassurance, but didn’t want it. She dialed down the volume on the headset.

Another few feet. Breathe, breathe.

Concentrate on the job. Sachs tried. But her hands were unsteady and she dropped the roller, the clang of the handle on the metal skin of the tu

And then the madness of fear snagged her. Sachs got it into her head that the unknown subject – the unsub – was behind her. He had somehow perched on the ceiling of the utility room and dropped to the floor after her. Why didn’t I look up? You always look up at crime scenes! Fuck.

Then a tug.

She gasped.

It wasn’t the gear bag tethered to her. No, it was the perp’s hand! He was going to tie her down here. And then fill the tu

No!

That this scenario was improbable at best didn’t matter. Fear made the unlikely, even the impossible, more than plausible. Fear itself was now another occupant of the tu

She raged at herself: Don’t be crazy. You’re in danger of getting fucking shot when you climb out the other end of the tu

But then that image itself – snake and pi

Shit. I’m going to lose it. I’m going to fucking lose it.

The end of the tu

Also: Moving faster out of the tu

Her personal mantra – which she’d also learned from her father – was: When you move they can’t getcha.

But sometimes, like now, they’ll getcha when you do  move.

So, stop, she commanded.

And she did. Came to a complete halt. And felt the perverse arms of the tu

Panic, cresting like waves. Panic, stabbing like that frosty knife.

Don’t move. Be with it, she told herself. Face it. Confront it. She believed Rhyme was speaking to her, the whisper of his faraway voice perplexed or concerned or impatient. All of those, probably. Down went the headset volume to silence.

Breathe.

She did. In, out. Eyes open, looking at the disk of light ahead of her, relief a mile ahead. No, not that. Evidence . Look for evidence. That’s your job. Her gaze took in the metal shell, inches away.

And the sting of panic began to detach. Not vanish completely. But it grew loose.

Okay. She continued through the tu

And finally her head emerged. Shoulders.

Birthing, she laughed to herself, a pallid sound, and blinked sweat from her eyes.

Then she rolled quickly into the larger tu

But no intruders were aiming weapons her way, not in the immediate area at least. The spotlights over the body were blinding and there might have been a threat in the blackness beyond but she immediately shone her Maglite in that direction. No threat.

Rising, Sachs tugged the gear bag out of the tu

She realized it was utterly quiet and turned up the volume of the radio.

‘–the hell is going on?’

‘Sorry, Rhyme,’ Sachs said. ‘Had to concentrate.’

He was silent for a moment. Then he seemed to get it – her wrestling with the breadbasket. ‘All right. Well. The scene secure, as far as you can tell?’

‘The immediate scene.’ The tu

‘Turn one of the spotlights that way. It’ll blind anybody trying to target you. And you’ll be able to see him coming before he sees you.’

The first responders had brought two halogen lamps on tripods, co

No indication of threats.

Sachs hoped there’d be no firefight. The big pipe overhead, newly installed, it seemed – the one stamped DEP  – appeared to be thick iron; her rounds in the Glock, hollow points, wouldn’t break through the metal. But if the unsub returned with guns a blazing he might be loaded with armor piercing slugs, which could pierce the pipe. Because of the huge water pressure inside, she imagined, a rupture might create an explosion like a massive load of C 4.