Dangerous Games Read Free

Crandall said. “If she’d stayed where she was, we never would’ve found her.”
    “A search team would have discovered the body eventually.”
    “I doubt it. The storm-drain system is huge. We’re talking hundreds of square miles, and she could’ve been anywhere. Unless a maintenance crew stumbled across her…”
    Tess thought about the handcuffs. “I suppose you’re looking into the S-and-M angle?”
    “Sure. Doesn’t narrow it down much. Lotta pervs in this town.”
    Her gaze traveled to the outfall on the far side of the channel, which had leaked a vomitus of dirty water down the concrete. “There’s no grate over that opening,” she said.
    “A grate would get clogged with debris.”
    “How many openings are there like that?”
    “Hundreds, thousands, along the length of the river.”
    “So our man can enter the system virtually anywhere.”
    “That’s right. Although he probably uses one of the larger access points. We figure he drives the victim into the tunnels.”
    She nodded. The report had mentioned that some of the storm lines could accommodate a vehicle for maintenance purposes. This one couldn’t. It was big enough for a person, though.
    Tess stared at the outfall for a long moment. “You have a flashlight?” she asked.
    “Why?”
    “Do you?”
    He patted his jacket pocket. “Penlight.”
    “So do I. Let’s look inside.” She pointed at the outfall.
    Crandall looked stricken. “In there?”
    “Why not?”
    “There are approximately a million reasons I can think of.”
    “I need to get a feel for it. For what it’s like in there. What it was like for her—and for him.”
    “I told you, we don’t even know she came out of that outfall.”
    “I’m not looking for evidence. I just want to see what she saw. Walk in her shoes. One passageway is probably the same as another.”
    Crandall studied her. “You’re not doing this to impress me, are you?”
    “Why would I want to impress you?”
    “Just asking.”
    She ascended the embankment, then lowered her head and stepped into the outfall. Sunlight reached only a few feet inside. The floor was slimy with moss, thick and velvety, a green carpet squishing under her shoes.
    She took out her penlight and angled its beam down the passageway. A long, grim stretch of concrete faded into blackness. The tunnel was wide enough for a person and nearly tall enough to allow her and Crandall to stand upright.
    “In the mood for some spelunking?” she asked as he stepped into the passage behind her.
    “I hope that’s a joke, Agent McCallum.”
    “Wherever she was kept, she certainly wasn’t within sight of daylight. We need to go in deeper if we want to get a feel for her last hours.”
    “I’d be happy using my imagination.”
    “Neither of us has enough imagination for this. Come on.”
    “We’re on a tight schedule, you know.”
    “Five minutes. Just to look around.”
    She pressed forward into the dark, led by the twin beams of her flashlight and his.
    “If it starts raining,” Crandall said, “we could get trapped in here.”
    “There’s no rain in tonight’s forecast. You ought to know that.”
    “I do. I was hoping you didn’t.”
    A chill had settled in the tunnel, the permanent chill of a place where light could not reach. Tess found herself thinking of the catacombs haunted by the early Christians, of mausoleums and crypts. Places of hiding, places of the dead. Where she was now was a little of both.
    “What kind of person are we up against?” she asked.
    “I’m not a profiler.”
    “Me neither. But we can guess, can’t we?”
    “He’s smart,” Crandall ventured. “And careful.”
    “And very sure of himself. He wants to challenge both the municipal and federal authorities. He wants to run with the big dogs.”
    “That’s our thinking, too. Delusions of grandeur, megalomania. Which narrows it down to only half the population of LA.”
    Tess smiled. “I’m starting to like you,