She looked to her right, to the iron rungs cemented into the wall. Her only way out of this hole. She looked up at the doors above her. It had to be twenty-five feet. That didn’t sound like much if the distance was horizontal, but the distance was vertical and more than three times the height of the average household ladder.

Gina had the use of one arm and one leg. Her left arm hung useless at her side. Her right ankle was so badly broken the foot was turned perpendicular to the shinbone.

You have to do it, Gina.

I know.

You have to do it now.

I know. I know! I KNOW!!

Get mad!

I AM!!!

To prove her point, Gina lunged to the right with her upper body, caught hold of one rung, and pulled as hard as she could, a roar of fury and pain and frustration tearing her throat raw.

Her body moved a matter of inches. Her consciousness dimmed. She pulled in a deep breath that burned in her left shoulder and ribs, and pulled again at the rung as hard as she could. She swung her left leg to the side and with the toe of her foot pushed off the wall, shoving herself another few inches closer to the ladder.

She had moved herself a total of two feet. Exhausted, she let go of the rusty iron rung and fell against the filthy wall, banging the side of her head on the next rung down.

She was sweating and weak. All over her body tiny erratic electrical impulses were causing individual muscles to twitch and tick.

And she had twenty-five feet to go ... straight up.

Chapter 55

55

Mendez stood in the middle of the road, hands on his hips as he stared at the skid marks. It was still raining enough to be miserable, though the storm system had blown out its worst effort during the night.

“Looks like just one car,” Vince said. “That’s a pretty good skid.”

“She definitely had an accident,” Mendez said. “Nobody doubts that. The question is why.”

“Where’s the vehicle?”

Milo Bordain’s car had been removed from the scene, but the marks where it had sunk into the shoulder of the road remained.

Mendez gave him a sly look. “I’m sure Mrs. Bordain had it moved so some Mexican wouldn’t come along and steal it.”

“Present company excluded,” Vince joked, “who would want to do her harm?”

“That’s the thing. She may be irritating, but that’s not a motive for murder—or for sending mutilated body parts to her in the mail.

“She had dinner with her husband and her son at Barron’s last night. She had a couple of glasses of wine with the meal—”

“How’d she do on the Breathalyzer?”

“She didn’t. She refused the deputy that was first on the scene.”

“Did they take blood at the hospital?”