by Linda Howard
It wasn’t.
Conrad lay quietly in bed, lights off, but the city was never dark and the bland hotel walls were washed with muted, flickering colors from a plethora of neon. The latest computer list lay on the desk, put aside for now. Some things were best reserved for the night, but others had to wait for busy daylight and normal office hours. The delay didn’t bother him; he was a patient man. Grace wasn’t going anywhere, at least not yet. She had gone to ground somewhere in the massive urban sprawl, and she would stay there as long as she felt safe. She was a scholar, a researcher; she would research. The libraries in Chicago were very good. Yes, he was confident she would remain in Chicago for a while, and all the time he would be looking for her. She wouldn’t know he was close until he was ready to pounce.
Mr. Sawyer had a small army of men out combing the streets, but Conrad didn’t put any faith in that tactic. The people who operated in the underground economy weren’t about to answer any questions truthfully, for one thing, and for another, Grace had proven herself capable of quite a few disguises. By now she could have shaven her head and dressed in leather, so relying on description was a waste of time.
Conrad preferred his own methods. To him it was simple: if anyone on the run remained in one place for long, he or she would have to establish an identity. For some it would be as uncomplicated as selecting a name. That worked so long as there was no need for credit, or a driver’s license, or you didn’t try to work in a legitimate place that demanded a social security number. In the long run it was smarter to establish a documented identity, and Grace St. John had impressed him with her intelligence.
The process was simple, but slow. To document an identity, one had to have a birth certificate. To get a birth certificate, one had to have a real name. Obviously, using a living person’s name could be complicated when the two identities began colliding with each other, as would inevitably happen, so the best thing was to go to a cemetery and read tombstones. Find someone who had been born at approximately the same time as you were, within a couple of years either way, but who had died young. Sometimes the parents’ names were on the tombstone, too: something along the lines of “Beloved Daughter of John and Jane Doe.” Bingo, you had the information you needed to get a birth certificate.
Requests for birth certificates would go to the state capital, in this case Springfield. Getting a birth certificate was fairly easy; it was getting a full set of identification papers that would take time. Next she would have to get a social security number, and the federal government was slow. He had time to focus on the birth certificate requests.
With the Foundation’s resources, gaining access to the Illinois state computer system had taken a mere phone call. He had been surprised, however, by the volume of requests. It was amazing how many people needed to prove their existence, whether for social security claims, passport applications, or whatever. The sheer numbers involved were what was slowing him down.
He could automatically delete those requests for men, but again there were a lot of people with ambiguous names. Shelley, for instance. Male or female? And what about Lynn, or Marion, or Terry? Those people had to remain on his list until he could check them out.
Nor did he have a specific date of request, which made his task more difficult. She couldn’t have made a request any sooner than the day after he had almost caught her in Eau Claire, but what if she waited a few days, a week, maybe even a couple of weeks? That uncertainty added literally hundreds of people to the list, from all over the state. He narrowed the focus to the Chicago area, but that still left hundreds because he figured at least a fourth of the state’s entire population lived in the metro area.
Checking out that many people took time, and the list grew every day. Some of the people who requested birth certificates had moved in the meantime; they had to be located, and sometimes they had moved out of state. Some had gone on vacation, but until he had traced them he didn’t dare eliminate them from his list. Grace could be hiding behind any of those names, even the most improbable. He would not underestimate her again.
“Girl, you look like shit,” Matty said genially, uncoiling his compact, graceful body from the tattered sofa in his apartment.
“Thanks,” Grace muttered. She was tired from sitting up nights trying to decipher Gaelic. Her eyes felt gritty, she had the energy of a slug, and she had burned her hand that day when she picked up a pan to wash and discovered it had just been taken from the oven. Harmony had tended the burn, scowling the entire time, and then had insisted on accompanying Grace to Matty’s for another “lesson,” just to make certain something else didn’t happen to her.
“Just skin hangin’ on a rack of bones,” Harmony pronounced, still scowling. “I can’t get her to eat, no matter what I cook. She’s done lost ten pounds or more since she’s been living in my house, which ain’t exactly the best advertisement I could have.”
Grace looked down at herself. She was used to Harmony’s complaints that she didn’t eat enough, but still she was surprised now when she really looked at herself, and saw her bony wrists, her body lost within the baggy folds of clothes that had once been the right size. She knew she’d lost weight, a lot of weight, that first horrible week after the murders, but she hadn’t realized she was still losing weight. She was thin, and verging on downright skinny. She had to use a safety pin to tighten the waistband of her jeans so that they didn’t slide right off. Even her underwear was too big these days, and loose panties weren’t comfortable.
“I told her she don’t need to be wearing those baggy clothes,” Harmony continued, folding bonelessly onto the couch and crossing her long legs. “But does she listen to me? You tell her.”
“Harmony’s right,” Matty said, frowning at Grace. “Don’t give no sumbitch nothing to grab. You ain’t got no size to you, Julia, and you ain’t got no meanness. You’ll fight if you’re cornered, but the thing is, you gotta keep from gettin’ cornered, ’cause then your chances go way down. Are you listenin’ to me?” It wasn’t like him to give a shit about anybody, but he worried about Julia. Something bad had happened to her, and she was still on the run. She didn’t talk about it, but he could see it in her eyes. Hell, he was used to shootings and stabbings, drug overdoses, gang violence, little kids with big, scared, uncomprehending eyes, so he didn’t know exactly what it was about Julia that got to him, but something did. Maybe it was because she looked so frail, so that sometimes he thought he could almost see right through her, or maybe it was the sadness that wrapped around her like a coat. She never smiled, and her big blue eyes just looked… empty. The look in her eyes made him hurt inside, and Matty was a man who made a point of not letting people close enough to him that he’d be hurt if anything happened to them. He’d failed with Julia.
“I’m listening,” Grace said obediently. “I listen to Harmony, too. I just can’t afford a bunch of new clothes.”
“You heard of yard sales?” Harmony asked. “Take your nose outta your books once in a while and look around. People sell old jeans for four or five dollars, and usually you can get ’em for a dollar if you stand around long enough complainin’ that five bucks is too much.”
“I’ll look,” Grace promised. Yard sales. She’d never been to one in her life, but if she could get jeans in her size for a dollar, she was about to become a yard-sale fanatic. She was getting tired of holding her clothes up with safety pins, and tired of her underwear wandering around inside her jeans.
“Okay, enough of shoppin’,” Matty said impatiently. “I’m tryin’ to teach you how to stay alive. Pay attention here.”
Matty’s method of teaching didn’t involve gyms or dojos, because he said fights generally didn’t happen there. They happened on the streets, in houses, where people went about their business and lived their lives. A couple of times he’d taken her down to an alley for her lesson, which involved him attacking her from a variety of directions, tackling her or simply wrapping his arms around her and throwing her to the ground, and she
had to get away from him. He’d shown her where to kick, where to punch, and what items commonly found in an alley could be used as a weapon, from a wooden slat to a broken bottle. He’d taught her how to carry her knife, the one she’d taken from the mugger, how to hold it and how to use it.
Matty saw weapons everywhere. In his hands, a pencil was lethal, a book could do serious damage, and a salt or pepper shaker presented a priceless opportunity. Flashlights, paperweights, matches, pillows, a sheet, a jacket—all those could be used. Such a ridiculous notion as a fair fight never entered his head. Chairs were battering rams. A baseball bat or a golf club was for beating people in the head, ice skates were for slicing them open—the possibilities were endless. Grace didn’t think she would ever be able to look at a room the same way again. Before, rooms had been just… rooms. Now they were weapons repositories.
He fell on her without warning, wrapping his surprisingly strong arms around her and dragging her to the floor. The fall stunned her, rattled her brain, but she remembered her earlier lessons and promptly raked the sole of her shoe down his shin, and simultaneously got enough leverage with one arm to hit him under the chin with the heel of her palm. His teeth snapped together with an audible pop, and he shook his head to clear it. Grace didn’t stop. She wiggled, she butted him with her head, she tried to punch him in the testicles, she gouged for his eyes.
Matty didn’t just let her beat up on him, because that wouldn’t teach her much, he said. She had to work to get in her licks. He deftly turned aside most of her efforts, but he’d explained to her that he was expecting her to fight and had a good idea what she’d do; a stranger wouldn’t have that advantage. Still, she landed some of her attempts, enough to make him grunt occasionally, or swear when she managed to hit him in the chin again and he bit his tongue. Harmony sat on the couch and didn’t exactly smile, but she looked pleased.
The effort quickly exhausted Grace. She collapsed on the floor, breathing heavily. Matty stood up and frowned down at her. “You’re too weak,” he pronounced. “Weaker than last week. I don’t know what’s eatin’ at you, Julia, but you gotta eat, ’cause you ain’t got no stamina.” He wiped his mouth, and looked with interest at the blood that smeared his hand. “Guts, but no stamina.”
Grace struggled to her feet. She truly hadn’t realized how weak she had become; she had simply attributed her fatigue to staying up late trying to decipher all the papers. Once she had enjoyed food, but now she had no interest in it; everything was tasteless, as if her taste buds had been dulled by shock and never recovered.
“I’ll eat,” she said simply, realizing now that she didn’t have a choice. Because it was such a struggle now to work up any appetite at all, what she did eat would have to be nutritious. She had no idea how long this time of sanctuary would last; she had to be ready to leave at any time, and she had to be healthy. Suddenly she felt a little edgy; perhaps she shouldn’t wait until something happened, perhaps she should leave now, and find another brief sanctuary. She had Julia Wynne’s birth certificate; she had filed for a social security number, and when she got that she would be able to get a driver’s license. With a driver’s license she could risk driving, and not worry if a cop stopped her for speeding, or for a blown taillight. She could buy a cheap car, risk driving, go anywhere she wished whether there was a bus route there or not.
Harmony stood and stretched. “I’ll start feedin’ her tonight,” she told Matty. “Maybe some strengthening excercises, too, whaddaya think?”
“Food first,” Matty said. “Poke some meat down her throat. You gotta have the brick before you can build the wall. A nice steak, or some spaghetti and meatballs, stuff like that.”
Grace tried not to gag at the mention of spaghetti. After working at Hector’s, she couldn’t stand the smell of garlic and tomato sauce.
“I’ll think of something,” Harmony promised, noticing the look of revulsion on Grace’s face. She understood, because she’d once worked three months at a seafood joint down south; she still couldn’t stand the smell of hush puppies frying, but thank God she’d never even caught a whiff of one in Chicago. Pissed her off when she thought about it; she’d always liked hush puppies before, and now she’d lost that pleasure.
Grace and Harmony walked down three blocks to a bus stop. Grace had developed the habit of looking all around her, and Harmony watched with approval as she checked out her surroundings. “You learning,” she said. “Now, what made you so uptight all of a sudden, there at Matty’s?”
Harmony was the most observant person Grace had ever met. She didn’t even try to blow smoke. “I was thinking of leaving.”
Harmony’s eyebrows slowly climbed toward her yellow-white hair. “Was it something I said? Maybe you don’t like my cooking? Or maybe something’s got you scared.”
“Nothing has happened to make me nervous,” Grace tried to explain. “It’s just… I don’t know. Intuition, maybe.”
“Then I guess you’d better be packing,” Harmony said calmly. “It don’t pay to go against your gut feeling.” She looked up the street. “Here comes the bus.”
Grace bit her lip. Though Harmony hadn’t asked her to stay, and wouldn’t, suddenly she felt the other woman’s loneliness. They hadn’t been intimates; both of them had too much to hide. But they had been friends, and Grace realized that she would miss Harmony’s tough unconventionality.
“You need to stay a couple more days, if you can,” Harmony continued, still watching the bus. “Let me get some food in you, build up your strength a little. And get you some clothes that fit, damn it. Plus I got a few things I can show you, too, things that might come in handy.”
She could live with the edginess for a day or two, Grace thought. Anything Harmony wanted to teach her was bound to be worth the stress. “Okay. I’ll stay until the weekend.”
Harmony’s only reaction was a brief nod, but again Grace felt her pleasure.
That night, sitting in the kitchen while Harmony worked a small miracle with a wok, Grace idly leafed through an impressive stack of newspapers. Harmony read the morning paper while sitting at the kitchen table and methodically emptying a pot of coffee, and tended to toss the paper onto an unused chair rather than into the trash. It had been so long since Grace had read a paper or listened to the news that she had no idea what was happening on a national level, and it felt strange to read the headlines and peek into an unknown past.
She had flipped through about half the stack when a grainy newsprint photograph caught her attention, and her gaze flew back to it. Suddenly she couldn’t breathe, her lungs stilled in her chest, and her ears buzzed. Parrish, Parrish was one of the men in that photo.
Dimly she heard Harmony say something, then a hand was on the back of her neck, pushing her head down until it rested on her knees. Gradually the buzzing in her ears began to fade, and her lungs began working again. “I’m all right,” she said, the words muffled against her knees.
“Izzat so? Coulda fooled me,” Harmony said sarcastically, but she released Grace’s neck and plucked the newspaper from her nerveless fingers. “Let’s see. What did you read that made you keel over? ‘Peace Talks Resume’? Don’t think so. How ’bout this: ‘Graft in City Hall Costs City Millions.’ Makes my blood pressure go up, but it ain’t never made me faint. Maybe it was ‘Industrialist’s Wife Dies.’ There’s even a picture of the poor grievin’ husband to tweak your emotions. Yep, that looks like something would hit you hard.” She slapped the paper down on the table, staring at the photo. “So, which one of these guys do you know?”
Still breathing deeply, Grace looked again at the photo. It was still a shock to see Parrish’s handsome face, but now she noticed there were other people there as well. The husband, for one, his face stark with grief. Beside him stood a man who looked vaguely familiar, and a quick look at the caption beneath the photo identified them as Bayard “Skip” Saunders, wealthy industrialist, and Senator Trikoris. Three other men were in the background, Parrish among them, none of
them identified by name. Parrish’s expression was suitably somber, but knowing what she did about him, she didn’t trust the impression he gave.
Swiftly she read the four inches of column space. Calla Saunders had apparently fallen to her death from her penthouse balcony. There was no evidence of foul play. One of Mrs. Saunders’s high-heeled shoes, with the heel broken off, had been found on the balcony. Investigators surmised she had fallen off balance when the heel broke, and gone over the railing; flecks of white paint from the railing had been found on her evening dress. She had evidently been alone on the balcony.
The investigators didn’t know Parrish Sawyer the way she did, Grace thought, shivering. If he was anywhere near a death scene, she doubted the death was accidental.
She had forgotten how handsome he was. In her mind he had taken on a demonic aspect, his features shaped by the evil within, but the black-and-white photo captured his smooth, blond good looks, the chiseled face and slim, athletic body. As usual, he was impeccably attired. He looked completely civilized and cosmopolitan, a gentleman to his manicured fingertips.
His expression had been just as pleasant when he shot Ford in the head.
He was in Chicago. She checked the date on the newspaper, saw that it was almost two weeks old. Parrish was here. She wasn’t safe, as she’d thought. Her instincts were right; it was time to leave.
“Let’s see,” Harmony mused when Grace didn’t answer. “Wouldn’t be the senator; he’s all bullshit. Forget that Saunders guy; he’s a complete wuss, just look at him. The other three… hmm… one looks like a cop, see the bad suit?”
Harmony was systematically, and with irritating accuracy, summing up every person in the photo. In another few seconds she would arrive unerringly at the correct conclusion. To save her the time and trouble, Grace tapped her fingernail once on Parrish’s face.
“Now forget you ever saw him,” she advised, her face and voice tense. “If he even thinks you might know something about me, he’ll kill you.”
