Fair Is Foul and Foul Is Fair (The Malone Mystery Novels Book 2)

Chapter 4

Someone had killed the power. Inside the interior office with no access to ambient light, it wasn't just dark. It was pitch black as a coal mine. It reminded me of the time my parents had taken me to tour Carlsbad National Caverns on a vacation when I was a child. At one point during the tour, while we were inside a large room inside the cave, deep underground, the lights were turned off to illustrate just how utterly dark it was inside the caverns. I remembered holding a hand in front of my face until it touched my nose and I still couldn't see it. This was the same.

The hair on the back of my neck was standing on end now. My heart had started to race, and my palms were growing sweaty as I again pulled the Glock from its holster. Someone was in the building with me. The problem was I didn't know who. I believed I had cleared the interior and determined the killers were gone. Maybe they weren't. Somehow I had missed something, or else someone had entered the building after I'd walked through it.

The only consolation was if the killers were inside the building with me, they couldn't see anymore in the darkness than I could. That considerably lowered the odds that I was going to get a bullet between the eyes the way the other victims had. Still, I felt an almost overwhelming urge to get out of the office and out of the building, out of the inky blackness, as quickly as possible.

Chances were, I was safe enough at the moment I thought. The power had obviously been shut off at the main electrical panel. The logical location of that panel was in the room at the rear of the suite where the phones were. I had two choices. Neither of them was good. I could try to find my way out through the darkness to the front of the building where I had entered, or I could take my chances and try to feel my way through the back room to the door that exited onto the alley at the rear of the building.

Several minutes had passed, and I knew that the cops were probably already responding to the 911 open line call. By the time I could get to the front of the building, depending on how far away the police units were when dispatched, I might run right into the arms of the responding officers. I really didn't want that. I'd be tied up for hours answering questions that I didn't want to answer. I also had to find Evania and fast. Based on what I had seen, I had to assume the killers knew where she lived now. I couldn't afford a delay likely to last for several hours.

The other option was just as bad, maybe worse from the standpoint that I had to pass through the same room where someone had accessed the electrical panel to kill the power. If it was the killers, they could be waiting there. The only explanation for why the power had been shut off was because whoever was in the suite of offices with me now was aware of my presence. I made a decision. While it was the more dangerous option, I decided to try to get out through the back.

Gripping the semi-automatic tightly in my right hand and holding it close to the front of my body pointing outward, I used my left to slowly find my away around the desk to a wall by feel. I had to be quiet.

If it was the killers inside with me, there was no guarantee they would be content to simply wait in the back room on the chance that I'd choose to try and get out that way. I could just as easily try to get out through the front. They couldn't know about my intent to avoid the police so attempting to exit the front door might likely seem the more logical choice from their perspective. Even now, maybe they were silently moving along the interior hallway towards the office I was in, listening intently in the darkness for me to make a sound that would betray my general location. Like me, they too might be tightly gripping a gun in a sweaty palm, ready to fire blindly in the direction of any sound that gave away my location.

My stomach was in knots as I gingerly felt my way along the perimeter of the walls, working my way toward the doorway. To me, the sound of my own breathing sounded like a freight train. I lightly shuffled my feet to avoid tripping over something or bumping into something that would make noise. I was pretty sure I was moving clockwise around the room, but I couldn't be certain. The first thing that happens when you're suddenly thrust into sight depriving blackness is you lose orientation. If I were following the wall in the other direction, I'd have to be careful not to trip over Wilson's corpse.