Cold Sanctuary (John Decker Series Book 2) by Anthony M. Strong

they went by, but then dropped his gaze back to the article he was reading when he realized they were not coming in. Decker wondered how many hours the man spent alone in his store, waiting for a customer to stop in and buy a gallon of milk or a carton of bleach. It must be a lonely existence and one that held little promise for the man of ever earning more than a pittance given the small population of the town.
    When they reached the end of the corridor Mina came to a stop next to a metal door with a small window set into it. She looked around to make sure they were not being observed and then tried the handle.
    The door opened.
    “Unlocked,” she said, stepping through the open doorway. “Come on. This stairwell spans the entire height of the building. You could climb from the sub-basement, all the way to the roof, from here if you wanted to.”
    “Perfect.” Decker slipped through the door and let it shut behind him, being careful to hold it so that it clicked closed rather than slammed. He looked up and was suddenly thankful that they were only climbing down two sets of stairs, and not going in the other direction. “Lead the way.”
    Mina nodded and started down the stairs. They reached the main basement level but she kept going. After another two flights of stairs they found themselves face to face with a second metal door. This one had yellow crime scene tape strung across it and a notice warning people not to enter. It wasn’t the tape that made Decker’s heart sink; it was the shiny new padlock affixed to a bracket holding the door closed.
    “Looks like the sheriff beat us to it,” Mina said, a look of disappointment on her face.
    “Just great.” Decker leaned against the wall. He wiped his brow and closed his eyes for a moment, the familiar throb of a tension headache building between his temples. Or was it exhaustion? It was hard to tell. “That tears it. There’s no way Wilder is going to give me access to the basement. He damn near threw me out last night with his bare hands.”
    “We can still get in there,” Mina said. “We can just bust the lock off. It shouldn’t take too much. It looks like a cheap piece of crap.”
    “I don’t think that would be a very good idea.” Decker shook his head. “Besides, if Wilder sees the broken lock he’ll know who the most likely suspect is.”
    “So what then?”
    “I don’t know. I go to Hayley, get her to talk to the sheriff and force him to give me access to the crime scene.”
    “Will that work?”
    “Beats me,” Decker said. “My guess would be no. Wilder was pretty clear last night that he had no intention of working with me, and I don’t think the town council can force him to.”
    “So do you want to tell me what your hunch is?”
    “What?”
    “You said you had a hunch. Since we can’t get in there to follow up on it you might as well tell me now.”
    “It’s more a theory than a hunch,” Decker said. “I was thinking about the attack on the maintenance man, and how it looked like the perpetrator was a wild animal, but that didn’t make any sense.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because of the location of the attack. How could a large animal have gotten into the basement in the first place? It obviously didn’t go down in the elevator, and the only other way in or out is through this stairwell. If it did enter and escape that way, where did it go? It would be trapped in the tower where it would be spotted in a heartbeat.”
    “So you think there is another way into that basement,” Mina said, a tinge of anticipation in her voice.
    “Exactly,” Decker said. “It’s the only logical explanation. There must be a third way in to the basement, an entry point that has gone unnoticed.”
    “It’s a good thing you came to me.” Mina grinned. “I can show you exactly where that third entrance is.”
    “What? Where?” Decker exclaimed. He was right all along, there was another way in. “You have to take me there.”
    “Not now.