CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Rachel doubled back toward the T-junction, moving as fast as the low ceiling would allow, her shoulder catching against the wood on either side with every other step.
She kept her flashlight low, sweeping it across the floor in front of her rather than ahead, trying to make out the path Novak had taken when he'd split off toward the right branch.
"Novak," she whispered, as loud as she dared. Nothing answered her but the faint hum of the building settling around her.
She checked her phone again, but no new message had come through.
The tightness had started to build in her chest somewhere around the second minute of moving, and it hadn't let up since.
The ceiling felt lower than it had on the way in, the walls closer, the air thinner and harder to pull into her lungs no matter how deep she breathed.
Her heart had picked up a hard, uneven rhythm she recognized from years of pushing through bad situations, and she made herself name it silently rather than fight it, the way she'd been taught long ago.
This was anxiety, not danger, at least not yet.
She forced herself to keep her hand steady on the flashlight and her feet moving forward as she also held her Glock out, not sure what to expect.
She reached the right branch and turned into it, ducking lower as the ceiling dropped another few inches.
The passage curved almost immediately, doubling back the way the first one had, and she had to stop twice to get her bearings, running her free hand along the wall to feel for a junction or a panel she might have missed in the dark.
"Novak," she whispered again, but he still didn't answer.
The bad feeling that had been sitting low in her stomach since the thudding sound sharpened into something closer to dread.
She moved faster, ignoring the way her shoulders scraped against the studs now, ignoring the dust that had worked its way into her throat and made her want to cough.
She kept the beam moving, sweeping it left and right as the passage narrowed further…
and then it caught something pale on the floor ahead of her.
It was his hand.
Rachel closed the last few yards in a crouching run and dropped to her knees beside him.
Novak was on his side, half curled, his eyes open but unfocused, blinking slowly up at the beam of her flashlight as if he couldn't quite work out where the light was coming from.
Blood had matted the hair at the back of his head and tracked down along his neck.
It was dark against his collar, and a smear of it had already soaked into the dust beneath him.
"Hey. Hey, look at me." She kept her voice low but firm, getting her hands under his shoulder to roll him gently onto his back. "Novak. Can you hear me?"
His eyes drifted toward her, slow and heavy. "Surprised me," he said, the words slurred at the edges, like he was either drunk or very tired. "Corner. Pipe."
"Okay. Okay, I've got you." She ran her fingers carefully along his scalp, finding the gash above his ear, swollen and still bleeding. He was conscious, his pupils tracking her even if sluggishly, and that mattered more than anything else right now. "We need to get you out of here."
"M'fine," he mumbled. But he didn't resist when she got an arm under him and started pulling him up. This, too, was a difficult feat in such a tight space, but she was able to do it by using the closed-in walls for support.
It took both of them working together to get him moving.
Novak's legs were unsteady beneath him as Rachel guided him back the way she'd come. Most of his weight was braced against her shoulder, which slowed them considerably. Rachel wasn’t worried about going back to Irene Baxter’s apartment; she was just looking for the nearest panel, which turned out to be only a few yards from where she'd found him.
She came to the straight seam, almost pencil-thin but standing out quite harshly against the otherwise unbothered wooden surface.
She had to work at it a bit, but the panel popped outward, this one not on a track.
When the panel was out and fresh, cool air greeted them, she helped him duck down, nearly folding his body in half to get out of the passage.
He practically fell onto the floor what Rachel thought was a coat closet.
She followed after him, her knees groaning as she climbed through.
Her back scraped the top of the panel exit as she sucked in glorious, cooler air.
She bumped against a stack of shoeboxes to fully free herself from the passage.
I bet we’re about to scare the hell out of someone, she thought.
“You good?” she whispered.
Novak nodded as he propped himself against the wall of the closet to get to his feet. Rachel slowly reached out and opened the closet door.
The apartment beyond was quiet and dark.
There were no lights on, and there was no sound of anyone moving through the rooms. Rachel left Novak propped against the closet wall just long enough to check the rest of the unit.
She moved quickly through the kitchen and living room, finding both empty. It appeared that no one was home.
She came back and helped him out of the closet, though it seemed he was mostly fine to walk on his own for the time being.
She walked him to the kitchen sink, where she ran water over a wad of paper towels and pressed them gently against the wound at the back of his head.
He winced but held still, letting her work, one hand gripping the edge of the counter to keep his balance steady.
"This needs stitches," she said, dabbing at the blood along his neck.
"I know."
"I'm calling an ambulance."
"I'm fine, Rachel." He straightened up a little, steadying himself against the counter. "It's a cut. I've had worse."
"You were unconscious inside a wall."
"I wasn't unconscious. I was…surprised." He grinned but it looked weak.
He took the paper towel from her hand and pressed it himself, his color coming back slightly now that he was upright and moving under his own power.
Rachel saw that his eyes still tracked a half second behind whenever he turned his head.
She walked him out to the hallway rather than leave him sitting in a stranger's apartment, easing the door shut behind them so whoever lived there wouldn't come home to find an FBI agent bleeding on their kitchen floor.
The hallway was empty, the carpet runner muffling their footsteps as she got him settled against the wall near the elevator.
"I'm going back in," she said.
"Rachel, no." Novak pushed off the wall, swaying slightly before catching himself, one hand braced flat against the wallpaper. "You're not going back in there alone. Not after what just happened to me."
"He's in there. He's moving through those walls right now and if I wait, we lose him."
"You don't know where he is. You don't know what he's got in there with him, or what he used on me."
"I know enough." She looked at him steadily, though she knew he was right. But if Pruitt was still inside the walls and she could cut him off, he was essentially trapped. It was an opportunity she didn’t want to let breeze by.
"You can barely stand,” she added. “I'm not waiting around for backup to clear this building floor by floor while he finds another way out. "
He held her gaze for a long moment, his jaw tight, and she could see him weighing whether to keep arguing or not. He didn't look happy about it, but he didn't try again.
"Call Purcell," Rachel said. "And local PD. I need the back exit covered…every way out of this building that isn't the front door. If he comes out anywhere down there, I don't want him getting past us."
Novak nodded, already reaching for his phone with the hand that wasn't holding the paper towel to his head. "Got it."
"You stay right here until they get here. Don't go anywhere."
"Yeah, that’ll be easy." He gave her a short nod, his eyes still slightly unfocused but steady enough now that she trusted him to make the call. "Go on, then."
Rachel turned and went back through the apartment door, moving quickly to the closet and pulling the panel open again.
She climbed through into the passage, the stale air closing in around her once more.
Dust still hung thick from her first pass through as she pulled the panel shut behind her.
It fit in easily and stayed, resolute thanks to the tight fit of tongue and groove design.
She stood still for a moment, listening, her back pressed against the inside of the closet panel and her breathing held as quiet as she could manage.
At first there was nothing, just the low building hum she'd heard all afternoon.
Then, faintly, she caught it: a footfall, careful and deliberate, somewhere above her.
Pruitt was moving upward, away from the floor she was on.
This struck her as strange given how late in the day it was and how exposed he should have known he was after this morning.
She was sure he would have started working his way down in order to get away from them.
Unless he thought Novak was alone, she thought.
She found the nearest ladder a short distance from the closet panel, the iron rungs cold under her hand.
With her heart thudding hard in her chest, she started up, keeping her movements slow and quiet, testing each rung before putting her weight on it.
As she climbed, she could hear Pruitt more clearly now, his breathing audible somewhere ahead and above her.
Rachel kept climbing, her eyes fixed on the dark above her, and moved toward the sound.