It took Erin Ramos a few minutes to pull the wooden boards off the doorway. She walked into the vestibule holding her nightstick like a club. The smell was suffocating, like an unwashed hospital bedpan. She propped the front doors open with the boards to let the air in. The streetlights illuminated the vestibule and some of the lobby. Rain streamed in behind her-it felt good, natural. There was something about this building besides the odor that gave Erin the heebie-jeebies. The first thing she noticed was the cold, as though someone were running an air conditioner in the middle of winter. She was glad it was still Cal’s turn to flush out the perp. Since they alternated the task, Cal could have claimed he’d done his turn at the last building. A pang of guilt came over Erin about letting Cal go through the roof alone. It was a good thing her partner was a man without any known fears.
Finding Cal’s phobia turned into a mission at the precinct. Everyone had one thing that spooked them, but MacDonnell’s fear eluded the gang. During a nightcap at a local bar, Cal admitted the only thing he dreaded was losing his family. His coworkers razzed him. They wanted to hear he was afraid of snakes, heights, or clowns. Sergeant O’Malley made a crack about wishing someone would make his own wife and kids disappear. Cal was angered by the remark, and it almost came to blows. He refused to speak to O’Malley the rest of the night. The others refused to believe he wasn’t afraid of anything. Just the AIDS test alone every time a suspect bled on you was enough to make even the toughest cop balk. Erin knew better. Cat and Bree were as much a part of Cal as his limbs.
Erin walked past a line of battered mailboxes. The floor was inlaid with white and black hexagonal tiles, many of them chipped and cracked.
“Four-One Ida, what’s your status? Over,” the radio blared.
“Eighty-five is still requested, Central,” Erin responded. “What’s the ETA? Weren’t they supposed to be here by now?”
“Four-One Adam unable to respond due to vehicular accident en route-redirecting Four-One David to your location. ETA is ten minutes. Recommend you wait for backup, over.”
“Negative, Central. Officer already in pursuit, over and out.”
Erin was not happy with the turn of events. Ten minutes could be an eternity. A shadow at the top of the stairs dissolved into the darkness. If Cal had scared out the perp and he spotted her, then he’d be looking for another exit. Her plan was to sandwich the suspect between herself and Cal. Erin took out her Maglite and crept up the stairs.
At the top of the stairs she shone her light across the landing. Nothing.
She walked across the hall to the second set of stairs and put her foot on the first step. She heard a creak behind her. Before she could turn, there was a swish, like the sound of a switch whipped through the air. Then silence. Not a drop of rain, not a squeak; someone had pulled the plug on the whole world. She realized she was tumbling forward, only because the floor raced toward her. An odd sensation, like gravity had been turned off. She was floating. The moment slowed (a Hollywood special effect) and her view rotated, like clinging to a ball in flight, past the floor and back to the scene behind her. Her temple bore the weight of the fall, hard-she couldn’t move. A beautiful man with long dark hair and bronzed skin had one arm across his chest, and in his hands he held a gleaming sword parallel with the ground. He was the second-to-last thing she witnessed before everything went dark. The last thing Erin Ramos saw was her headless body falling toward her.