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didn’t move. Heard her heart thudding.
    ‘Sachs.’ Rhyme’s voice sounded in her ear.
    She didn’t respond.
    He said softly, ‘I understand. But.’
    Meaning: Get your ass going.
    Fair enough.
    ‘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 urgerose 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 goodscenario 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 tunnel would be more troubling than concentrating on the goalat the end of it – but she was afraid she’d miss some evidence.
    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 tunnel as she went forward. She knew that because of the confining space and presumably the perp’s struggling with the victim, it was likelythat he had shed evidence, so she concentrated on seams and rough spots that might dislodge trace.
    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, afrozen 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 clangof the handle on the metal skin of the tunnel nearly making her gag.
    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 gearbag tethered to her. No, it was the perp’s hand! He was going to tie her down here. And then fill the tunnel with dirt, slowly, starting with her feet. Or flood it. She’d heard dripping water in the utility space; there’d been pipes. He’d undo the plug, open a valve. She’d drown, screaming, as the water rose and she couldn’t move forward or back.
    No!
    That this scenario was improbable at bestdidn’t matter. Fear made the unlikely, even the impossible, more than plausible. Fear itself was now another occupant of the tunnel, breathing, kissing, teasing, sliding its wormy arms around her body.
    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 tunnel, not getting suffocated by some nonexistent perp with a nonexistentshovel. There is no way the tunnel’s going to collapse and hold you as tight as a mouse in a snake’s grip. That’s not. Going. To.