by Linda Howard
“Are there phones in the rooms?”
“Get a grip. Do I look like a fool?”
“No,” Grace said, and had to stifle a sudden urge to laugh. Harmony Johnson looked like a lot of things, but fool wasn’t on the list. “Do you mind if I have my own line installed? I do some computer work, and use a modem sometimes.”
Harmony shrugged. “It’s your money.”
“When can I move in?”
“As soon as you pay me a deposit and haul your bag upstairs.”
“Tell me, Conrad,” Parrish said lazily, tipping his chair back. “How can Grace St. John, of all people, elude you for a week?” He wasn’t at all pleased. Conrad had never failed him before, and though the Minneapolis police had bought the setup with a gratifying completeness and issued warrants for her arrest, no one had managed to find her. A nerd, an ancient languages specialist, of all people, had somehow managed to outsmart them all. “Mind, I don’t give a shit about Grace, but she has the papers and I really do want them, Conrad. I really do.”
Conrad’s face was impassive. “She managed to empty out their bank account, so she has cash. The police figure she overrode the bank’s computer system, but the bank’s systems analyst hasn’t determined how.”
Parrish waved that aside with a languid movement of his hand. “The how doesn’t matter. All that matters is finding her, and you haven’t accomplished that.”
Fool, Conrad thought dispassionately. The how always mattered, because when something worked once, people invariably repeated it. That was how patterns were established, and patterns were detectable.
“She had been traveling at night, but I think that’s changed now. She had a bag when Paglione saw her in Eau Claire, so it follows that she has accumulated more clothing and now we have no idea what she’s wearing.” There were notes in his thick, brutish hand, but he didn’t need to consult them. “A woman roughly answering her description bought a red wig in Eau Claire.”
“A redhead should be easy to find.”
“Unless it was a decoy.” Conrad was of the opinion that the red wig was exactly that, and his admiration for Ms. St. John had risen sharply. She was proving to be very interesting quarry. “There haven’t been any leads on a redhead. She could have stolen another wig, one the proprietor didn’t know anything about. She could also have cut her hair, colored it, done any number of things to change her appearance.”
“Well then, damn it, how do you intend to find her?” Parrish snapped, his patience at an end.
“Her most likely destination, after Eau Claire, would be Chicago. A big city would give her a sense of security. Even though she has money, she’s cautious; she will try to save that money in case she has to run again. She’ll get a job, but it will have to be off the books, because she can’t use her social security number. The kind of job she will be able to get will be low-skill, low-paying. I will put men in the streets, put out the word that there is a cash reward for information on her. I will find her.”
“See that you do.” Parrish rose and walked to the window, indicating the interview was ended. Conrad left, his movements as noiseless as always.
The garden was looking good, Parrish thought, eyeing the prize-winning roses beneath his window. The cold snap hadn’t been a severe one; the temperature had remained above freezing. The days were growing warmer as spring settled in again, perhaps for good this time. The cold had to have been a trial for poor little Grace, though she had some extra padding on her bones for warmth. How soft she had looked! A man on top of her wouldn’t feel as if he were lying on a skeleton.
What a strange attraction, he mused, setting his fingertips against the cool panes. He’d always preferred sleek women, but little Gracie was so unconsciously, unaccountably sensual, despite her weight. She wasn’t much overweight, just enough to look rounded.
Perhaps he should instruct Conrad to keep her alive, just for a while. One day, perhaps, long enough for him to satisfy a particular fantasy.
He smiled, thinking about it.
Chapter 8
WEARILY GRACE UNTIED THE APRON FROM HER WAIST AND tossed it into the hamper. This was her sixth day on the job, as part-time dishwasher and general slave in Orel Hector’s pizza and pasta restaurant. Sometimes she thought she’d never get the smell of garlic out of her hair, off her skin. The constant exposure to spicy food had, if anything, depressed her appetite even more. The workers were allowed to have anything in the restaurant for lunch, free, but so far she hadn’t eaten anything. Just the thought of sitting down to a hearty pasta meal made her stomach clench.
“You comin’ back tomorrow?” Orel asked as he took the cash box out of a locked drawer and opened it to pay her. There were three part-time workers in the restaurant, and none of them was on a payroll list. About a third of each day’s take went into the cash box instead of being rung up on the cash register. He paid them in cash at the end of each day, and if one of them didn’t show up the next day, he’d find someone else. Cut way down on the damn federal paperwork, he said.
“I’ll be here,” she said. It was exhausting work, but it suited her to be part of the underground economy. Orel handed over three tens, thirty dollars for seven hours of work, but it worked out to a hundred eighty dollars for the six days she’d been working. After paying Harmony seventy dollars a week, she’d have a hundred and ten left over. Her expenses were minimal, just the bus fare to work every day, and a few more clothes. She had bought two more pairs of cheap jeans, a size smaller this time, and a couple of T-shirts. Washing dishes was hot work. The new jeans were loose, too, and growing baggier by the day.
She folded the bills and slid them into her front pocket, then retrieved her computer case from under the cabinet where she’d stored it safely away from spills and drips. She’d told Orel she was going to school nights, and everyone accepted the explanation. Her coworkers didn’t ask many personal questions, content to go their own way and not get involved with anyone. She preferred it that way, too.
She left through the back door, stepping out into a littered alley. The wind wound its way even down this narrow little space, freshening the air. She inhaled deeply, thankful for a breath that didn’t bring the scent of garlic with it.
Cautiously she looked both left and right, the computer case clutched tightly in one hand and her other hand on her knife. So far she hadn’t had any trouble, but she was prepared.
She walked two blocks to a bus stop, where the next bus was due in about ten minutes. The late-afternoon sky was a clear, dark blue; the day was fresh and sweet, and there was a jauntiness to everyone’s step even this late in the day. Spring had definitely arrived, sending the temperature into the high seventies. Grace remembered her joy in the spring as she had walked across the Murchisons’ backyard—how long ago had it been? Two weeks? Three? Closer to three, she thought. It had been the twenty-seventh of April, the last day she had felt joy in life. She could see the clearness of the day, but it didn’t touch her heart. Inside, everything was bleak and barren, colorless.
The bus arrived and she got on, paid her fare. The bus driver nodded to her. This was the sixth day in a row she’d gotten on at that stop, and he had learned her face. She would have to take a different bus for a while.
She got off at the Newberry Library, one of the world’s foremost historical research libraries. She had waded through text after text of medieval history, in both books and computer files, looking for some mention of Niall of Scotland. So far she had learned a lot about medieval times, but hadn’t turned up one iota of information on the warrior Knight. She wasn’t discouraged, though, because she had barely scratched the surface of the available material.
She went straight to the appropriate aisle and picked up where she had left off the night before, selecting several books and carrying them to an isolated table. Then she put on her glasses and began skimming, page by page, looking for any mention of anyone named Niall who had been connected to the Templars.
She almost missed it.
She had been reading for more than two hours and her mind had gone on automatic. The reference didn’t register for a moment, and she continued down the page. Then the similarity between the names caught her attention and she reread the paragraph:
“Chosen as Guardian was a Knight proude and fierse, a Scot of Royal blude, Niel Robertsoune.”
Excitement flared, and her heartbeat kicked into a faster rhythm. It had to be Niall! The names were too similar, and the reference to the Guardian was the clincher.
Had she read anything before about a Niel, and passed over it because she hadn’t connected the names? She knew how erratic spelling had been; she should have paid particular attention to any name that began with an N. And at last she had a surname! Robertsoune, or Robertson. Quickly she began rechecking the references for any variation of Niall, such as Niel, Neil, Neal, and also for anything remotely close to Robertson.
There was nothing. There were Robertses and Robertsons, even a couple of Neals, but nothing within the time frame she needed. Her hands trembled as she closed the book, and she had to restrain herself from pounding on the table in frustration. The wildness of her disappointment took her aback. She had been thwarted in her studies before, and taken it in stride. This fierce sense of desperation burned through her protective numbness, frightening her with its intensity. She didn’t want to feel anything except rage and the unquenchable thirst for revenge, because she was afraid she would shatter if she ever began feeling again. The few times grief had managed to leak past the numbness had almost destroyed her.
But she did feel, she realized, had felt this intense interest in Niall of Scotland from the first moment she’d received the copies of old parchments and glanced through them. All that had happened to her since hadn’t changed that, or even lessened it. If anything, her fascination grew with each day, with every page she read.
She had begun to think Niall of Scotland only a myth, though why his fictional exploits should be included in a history of the Knights Templar was something she couldn’t fathom. This one mention of “Niel Robertsoune” being chosen as Guardian was the only confirmation of his existence she’d been able to find, but it was enough. He had existed, had been a real man who lived and breathed and ate and slept as all men did. Perhaps, after the Order had been destroyed, he had escaped persecution and had lived a normal life, had found happiness with a wife, had children, died an old man. The real Niall of Scotland had likely been nothing similar to the black-haired warrior who haunted her dreams, but the fantasy was one she needed emotionally, so she couldn’t regret it. The dreams were proof that her inner self hadn’t completely died; shreds of Grace St. John still existed deep inside her.
And Niall of Scotland had existed. Briskly, with renewed determination, she pushed the heavy reference books aside. She wouldn’t find him there. As one of the notorious Knights, his life would have depended on remaining as anonymous as possible. Anything she discovered about him would be in the pages of documents to be deciphered, the exquisite photographed copies—
Copies.
Her mind stumbled to a halt for a moment, then began racing. Why did Parrish want this copy of the documents, when he could have the real McCoy? Why was he so desperate to get his hands on this copy that he would kill Ford and Bryant, and try to kill her?
Logically, there were only two explanations, both of them requiring a degree of coincidence that strained her credulity. One was that he didn’t know where the originals were now, but obviously they had been recorded and photographed, and the copies sent to her. Could someone have stolen the originals, for some unfathomable reason—the same reason Parrish wanted them? If so, what about the negatives? Other copies could be made from them. The other explanation was that the originals had somehow been destroyed; accidents happened. Again, what about the film negatives?
That led her to two other possibilities. One was that the negatives had also been destroyed or stolen, and the other was that Parrish not only wanted this copy, he wanted to erase all knowledge of its contents, which would mean killing anyone who knew about it.
Her reasoning brought her full circle, back to what she had known from the beginning: Parrish meant to kill her. And the why of it was hidden in the mystery of those pages.
She had been wasting her time looking through reference books. From now on, she had to concentrate on translating the crabbed, tightly crowded text of the documents, and that was a task better accomplished in the privacy of her room at Harmony’s rather than in a public library.
Quickly she returned the books to the shelves and gathered her things. By habit she carefully looked around for anyone unusual, or anyone watching her, but the people seated at the desks and tables seemed to be lost in their own studies. The Newberry attracted serious scholars more than the average high-schooler researching a term paper.
When carrying the computer, she looped the strap of the carrying case around her neck and over her shoulder, and also clutched the handle tightly in her left hand. When she walked, her right hand was always on the knife at her belt. The bus fare was in her right jeans pocket, so she never had to release the computer to fish out money.
It was almost dark when she left the library and hurried to the bus stop. That wasn’t unusual; several times she had stayed much later. A cool evening breeze fanned her face as she joined the two people waiting at the corner, a plump young black woman with a round, pleasant face, who clutched the hand of a wide-eyed and energetic two-year-old. The little boy repeatedly climbed on and off the bench, not much hampered by his mother’s determined grip on him. He crawled over and under and between her legs, and she merely adjusted her hold to whatever part of him she could reach. Grace thought that being a mother must be something akin to wrestling an octopus, but the young woman rode herd on her rambunctious offspring with remarkable calmness.
There was no warning, no sudden footsteps behind her. Someone slammed into her, hard, and Grace stumbled off balance. Her neck wrenched to the left as violent hands jerked at the computer case. The young woman uttered a startled scream, grabbed her child into her arms, and began running. The attacker, frustrated when the case didn’t come free, uttered a foul curse on a cloud of equally foul breath. Desperately Grace tightened her grip on the handle and managed to get her feet under her, letting the man’s own tugging efforts pull her upright. He cursed again and slashed a knife at her, trying to slice the strap around her neck. She twisted, protecting the strap, and cold fire burned along her forearm. She saw his eyes, narrow and vicious under a grimy fall of hair, as he jabbed the knife at her again.
In sheer reaction Grace swung the heavy case at him. Startled, he jerked back and the case caught him on the arm, jarring the knife free. It sailed through the air and clattered on the sidewalk. “Shit!” he said between clenched teeth, and turned to run.
And then fury arrived, surging through her veins like a flash flood. He hadn’t even completed his turn to escape before she was on him, a foot thrust between his ankles to trip him. He yelled as he sprawled on the rough sidewalk, taking Grace down with him in a furious, punching tangle. Her hands were balled into fists and she used them, going for his eyes, his nose, his ears, any part of him that was momentarily unprotected as he tried to shove her away. Remembering the service station attendant, she tried to jab a knee into his groin, but he rolled aside. Growling in frustration, Grace grabbed his greasy hair with both hands and jerked as hard as she could. He howled with pain and struck back, punching her in the belly. Her breath exploded out of her and she gagged, momentarily paralyzed, but somehow she hung on. He hit her again, and one of her hands loosened. His fist jabbed at her face, caught her a glancing blow on the chin. The blow jarred her, made her eyes water, and he took advantage of her momentary weakness to shove free of her and lurch to his feet. Grace scrambled onto her hands and knees but he was already gone, running down the sidewalk, shoving his way past pedestrians who paid him little attention.
Groaning, Grace got to her own feet and stood swayin
g. The computer case still hung around her neck. The battle fury left as suddenly as it had arrived and almost unbearable fatigue dragged at her. A small crowd of about ten people had gathered, watching, and their faces swam before her like balloons. She took a deep breath, then another, then still another when the first two didn’t work.
The mugger’s knife still lay on the sidewalk. The handle was black, wrapped in electrician’s tape, and the blade was a good six inches long. It looked much more lethal than her kitchen paring knife. She hobbled over to it, abruptly aware of bruises and scrapes she hadn’t noticed during the heat of struggle. Bending over with effort, she picked it up and stared with some surprise at the red stain on the blade. Only then did she notice the blood dripping down her arm to splash scarlet dots on the sidewalk, and feel the burn of the two-inch gash that slanted across her forearm.
The wound needed stitches, she thought rather dispassionately, examining it as best she could for the welling blood. Tough. She wasn’t inclined to spend two or three hundred dollars of her precious cash for emergency room care, in addition to probably being questioned by the cops. So long as she didn’t get an infection, she could take care of the cut herself. Shrugging, she slipped the knife into one of the outside pockets of the case.
At least the mugger had been only that, a mugger. Probably he made a good living, or at least supported a drug habit, by snatching laptop computers. If he had been one of Parrish’s men he would have sliced her throat first, then made off with the computer. But she had attracted attention, even if none of the bystanders had been inclined to help her, so the first thing she had to do now was get out of sight. The bus she had intended to take turned the corner then and stopped with a wheeze of hydraulics, but Grace didn’t board it. The bus driver would be too likely to remember the passenger with the bleeding arm, and the stop where she got off, which would lead any followers that much closer to Harmony’s house. Instead Grace quickly crossed the street and walked in the opposite direction.
