Son of the Morning

by Linda Howard

  Grace lurked at the side of the building, waiting until the lot was momentarily empty of customers either arriving or leaving, before bending down until her head was just below the level of a car hood and darting to the side row of parked cars. Crouched in front of the first car, she put her hand on the hood and found it cold; the vehicle had been there for hours, so she’d guessed right about where the employees would park. She slid the bag beneath the car, between the front tires. The store hadn’t closed at nine so it should be open at least until ten, if not all night, and the employees would stay later than that. She would be back long before the owner of the car.

  As an added caution, she didn’t immediately straighten up and walk toward the store. Instead she crab-walked down the line of cars until she reached the last two. Then she moved between them, stood, took a deep breath, and braved the public exposure of a grocery store.

  “Got her,” Paglione reported. “I thought I spotted her walking down the street, but then I lost sight and all of a sudden she popped up in a grocery store parking lot. She’s in there now.”

  “Give me the directions,” Conrad said calmly. By this time, he and Paglione knew Eau Claire fairly well, having spent more than a day simply driving the streets, studying maps, memorizing the layout of the city. As he listened to Paglione’s voice in his ear, he realized he was less than a minute from the grocery store.

  He smiled.

  Grace moved swiftly through the brightly lit aisles, focused on two things and two things only: bread and peanut butter. Her appetite was nonexistent, and none of the calculated displays caught her attention. She would buy food because she had to eat, but that was the only reason.

  The peanut butter was, as always, on the same aisle with the ketchup and mustard. She grabbed the biggest jar available, then set out for the bakery section, only to be sidetracked by a sudden realization that she needed a knife to spread the peanut butter. A box of plastic utensils sprang to mind; that’s what she would have bought before, but fragile plastic, designed to be disposable, would soon break and she would have to buy more. It would be cheaper simply to buy a real knife. She backtracked to the previous aisle, where she found the kitchen supplies. There was a row of plastic-sealed knives hanging from hooks. She took the first one she came to that wasn’t serrated, because cleaning peanut butter from all the little teeth would be a pain. Her choice was a paring knife with a four-inch blade, and the print on the cardboard backing guaranteed its sharpness. Knife and peanut butter in hand, she hurried to the bakery section and grabbed a giant-size loaf of bread.

  Looking at her watch, she saw that she had been in the store for one minute and twenty seconds, a personal record for her, but that was eighty seconds her computer had been left unguarded.

  There were two checkout counters open. At one, a bachelor was unloading a couple of microwave dinners, a six-pack of beer, and an economy-size bag of potato chips, standard fare for the unclaimed male. At the other, a bent old gent was carefully counting out his money for a bottle of aspirin. Grace chose the second counter, placing her items on the belt just as the clerk gave the receipt to the old guy, who smiled sweetly.

  “Wife’s got a headache,” he explained, a product of an earlier age when friendliness to strangers was something to be expected, not feared. “Not an aspirin in the house. Can’t understand it, she’s usually got a bottle for this and a bottle for that, something for any ailment a body could produce, but tonight there’s not a single aspirin.” He turned his head and winked at Grace, his eyes twinkling cheerfully. He didn’t mind the errand, the usefulness.

  The swift-moving clerk rang up Grace’s three items while the old man fumbled his wallet into his pocket. “Twelve thirty-seven. Kill a tree or choke a bird?”

  Grace blinked. “I—what?” She handed over thirteen dollars.

  “Paper or plastic?” the clerk translated, grinning a little, and the old man chuckled as he toddled off.

  “Plastic,” Grace said. The night shift was definitely a little off kilter. She felt a tiny spurt of amusement, a hint of life in the desolation of her heart and mind like a faint, fragile heartbeat to show she still lived, after a fashion. Her lips curved involuntarily, the elusive smile fading almost as soon as it had formed, but for a moment the life had been there. She turned her head to watch the old gentleman as he approached the automatic doors, and through the big plate-glass windows she saw two men getting out of a beige Dodge sedan parked in the center of the lot.

  The man nearest the store paused and waited for the other to come around the car, then they walked together toward the store. One was dark, powerfully built, vaguely simian in the shape of his head; the other was of medium height and build, ordinary brown hair, just… ordinary. Slacks and jackets, neither natty nor threadbare. Neither of them would stand out in a crowd, not even the ape-man. He was just another guy who was a little too hairy, a little too bulky, nothing unusual.

  But they were walking together in a subtle sort of lockstep, as if they had a definite goal, a mission.

  “Your change is sixty-three cents.”

  Absently Grace took the change and slid it into her pocket. Archaeologists picked up a lot of anthropology stuff, because the two went hand-in-hand in understanding how people had lived, and Grace had lived with two archaeologists, brother and husband, absorbing a lot of their conversations over the years.

  Two men, walking together in a purposeful manner. Men didn’t do that unless they were working together as a team, to some definite end. This was different from the more casual, walking-in-company-but-not-together gait of males who didn’t want to send the wrong signal to any watching females.

  She grabbed the bag from the startled clerk and darted back into the store. The clerk said “Hey!” but Grace didn’t hesitate, merely took a quick glance not at the clerk but at the two men, who must have been watching her, because they broke into a run.

  She dropped to the floor and scrambled down an aisle, knowing the two men couldn’t see directly down it from their angle of approach. Her heart rate increased, but oddly she didn’t feel panic, only an elevated state of urgency. She was caught in an enclosed area, stalked by two men who could catch her in a pincers movement unless she moved fast. Her chances of outrunning them were small, because they had to be Parrish’s men, and Parrish wouldn’t hesitate at giving the order to shoot her in the back.

  A woman pushed a shopping cart into the aisle at the far end, her attention focused on the stacks of soft drinks. Her purse was unguarded in the cart’s child seat, a red sweater draped over it.

  Grace moved down the aisle, not running but walking fast. The woman wasn’t paying any attention; she turned to pick up a carton of soft drinks, and as Grace walked by she snagged the red sweater from its resting place.

  Quickly she turned the corner into the next aisle and pulled on the sweater, leaving her hair caught beneath the fabric. Her long braid was too identifiable, but the red sweater worked in reverse, because she hadn’t been wearing one and the men’s gazes would, she hoped, slide over anything so attention-getting.

  She hooked the plastic bag over her arm like a purse and walked calmly toward the front of the store. She schooled her expression to the absorbed passivity of the grocery shopper, seeming to examine the contents of the shelves as she walked past them.

  Up front, she could hear the checker telling someone, probably the night supervisor, that a woman had gone back into the store instead of out as shoppers were expected to do.

  A man, the average-looking, brown-haired one, crossed in front of the aisle. His gaze barely touched on Grace, sliding right past the red sweater. Her heart jumped into her throat, but she kept a steady, unhurried pace. Her skin felt tight, fragile, no barrier at all to a bullet. The man had crossed out of sight but perhaps he was sharp, perhaps he had seen through her improvised disguise and was simply waiting for her at the front of the aisle, just out of sight. Perhaps she was walking right into a death trap.

  Her legs felt w
eak; her knees shook. Three more steps took her out of the aisle, into the front checkout area. She didn’t turn her head, but her peripheral vision caught the movement of the man, walking away from her as he looked down every aisle.

  Run! Her instinct was to bolt, but her legs were too shaky. Her mind held her back, whispering to hold on, that every second without being noticed was an extra second for hiding. Shopping carts had been pushed up to block the entrances to the checkout counters that weren’t open, and she nudged one aside, slipping into the narrow space that funneled customers to the exit. She angled to the left, to the set of doors nearest the line of cars where she’d left the computer. The automatic doors opened with a pneumatic sigh and she walked out into the night chill, heart pounding, unable to believe it had worked. But she had gained, at best, only a minute.

  She ran for the row of employees’ cars, diving for their shelter. Lying down on the pavement, she crawled under the car, wedging herself with her computer between the front wheels.

  Sharp, loose gravel bit into her, even through her clothes. The smell of oil and gasoline, of things mechanical, seemed to coat her nostrils with a greasy film. She lay very still, listening for two pairs of footsteps.

  They came within ten seconds, moving a bit fast, but the men were professional. They weren’t doing anything to attract undue attention. They weren’t yelling, they apparently didn’t have weapons drawn, they were simply searching. Grace listened to the steps coming close and then retreating, and she huddled closer to the wheel, tucked into as small a ball as she could manage. They were quartering the parking lot, she realized, trying to spot her among the scattered cars.

  “I can’t believe she slipped past us,” one voice said, the tone rather aggrieved.

  “She has proven surprisingly elusive,” a second, deeper voice replied. There was a subtle formality to the phrasing, a mild deliberateness as if the speaker thought of every word he spoke.

  Something else was said but the words were indistinct, as if the speaker were walking away from her. After a few moments the voices grew plainer.

  “She made us. Man, I can’t believe that. She took one look and bolted. She musta slipped out through the receiving bay, no matter what that kid said about nobody coming by.”

  “Perhaps, perhaps not.” The second voice was still mild, almost indifferent. “You said she had a suitcase when you saw her on the street.”

  “Yeah.”

  “She didn’t have it just now.”

  “She must’ve stashed it somewhere. You figure she’s gone back for it?”

  “Undoubtedly. She would have hidden it fairly close by, but the location would be secure enough that she felt safe leaving it while she went into the store.”

  “Whadda we do now?”

  “Fall back to our observation points, and refrain from discussing our plans in public.”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  A car started close by, presumably the beige Dodge, but Grace didn’t move. Their withdrawal could be a trick; they could park somewhere close by and return on foot, waiting for her to show herself. She lay on the cold pavement, listening to the sporadic comings and goings of customers. The adrenaline level in her body began to drop, leaving her lethargic. The sweater was a thick one; she felt warmer now than she had in three days, and with warmth came drowsiness. Her eyelids were heavy, a heaviness that she fought. She could afford rest, but not inattention.

  Her body had its own agenda. Three days and nights of struggle, of little or no rest, no food, and moments of sheer terror that overlaid a base of profound despair, had taken their toll on her. She was exhausted and weak, strained to the breaking point. One moment she was awake, fighting sleep, and in the next moment the fight was lost.

  The grocery store closed at midnight, and it was the sudden dousing of the parking lot lights that woke her. She lay very still, jolted from sleep but unaware of where she was. Her surroundings were totally alien, she was crowded against something massive and dark and the smell was awful, like motor oil… she was under a car. Awareness hit her and in panic she looked around, but no one was leaving the store. The employees would have to close up, perhaps do some cleaning, before they would leave.

  Though a peek at her watch told her the time, she had no idea how long she’d slept, because she didn’t know how long she’d lain there before dozing. Her carelessness frightened her. What if whoever owned the car had left work early?

  Don’t borrow trouble, she told herself as she gathered her possessions and inched out from under the car. She had enough problems without worrying about something that hadn’t happened.

  She hoped that while she had slept, enough time had lapsed that her two pursuers had given up hope of spotting her in this area. She didn’t dare stay any longer; she had to risk being seen. But the night was darker now as fewer cars were on the street, houses had darkened, stores had closed.

  She was stiff from the cold and her cramped position under the car. She moved slowly, staying in a crouch to keep out of sight behind the parked cars. But finally there were no more cars, only a naked expanse of parking lot. She moved fast, then, almost running as she scuttled along the edge of the pavement, the duffel banging against her left hip and her food supply bouncing against her right. As soon as she cleared the fence she swerved into deeper shadows, and was swallowed by the night.

  Chapter 6

  GRACE BROKE INTO A HOUSE.

  She had chosen a hiding place well before dawn, in a lower-middle-class neighborhood where there weren’t likely to be security systems, only nosy neighbors. She had watched the houses, picking out the ones that didn’t have toys, bicycles, or swing sets in the yards. She wanted a house without children, a house where both husband and wife worked and no one was at home during the day. Children would complicate the issue; they got sick at inconvenient times and disrupted schedules.

  The darkness had barely begun to lessen when the houses began coming alive, windows brightening with lights, the muted sounds of radios and televisions seeping through the walls. The scents of coffee and bacon teased her. She didn’t know what day it was, weekday or weekend, if children would be going to school or playing in the yards and street all day. She prayed for a weekday.

  People began leaving, the exhaust of cars and pickup trucks leaving plumes behind in the chill morning air. Carefully Grace took note of how many people left each house.

  Finally she selected her target. The husband left first, and about twenty minutes later the wife drove off with a clatter of lifters marking her progress.

  Still Grace waited, and her prayers were answered. Children began appearing, carrying books and backpacks, their voices loud with a shrill giddiness induced by the approaching summer vacation. These past few days of chilly weather hadn’t cooled their enthusiasm. Soon school would be out, the weather would be warm, and a long summer stretched before them. Grace envied them the simplicity of their joy.

  The bus arrived, the street emptied. Silence ruled the neighborhood again, except for the occasional departure of a few whose workdays didn’t start until at least eight o’clock.

  Now was the time, when the street was mostly empty but there was still enough customary noise in the neighborhood that people were less likely to notice the little extra noise made by the breaking of glass.

  Grace slipped around to the back of her targeted house, concealed by the neatly clipped hedgerow that separated the property from its neighbors.

  As she’d hoped, the upper half of the back door was glass panes. Someone was still home in the house on the left, but the curtains were drawn so no one from that side was likely to see her. The house on the right was a ’fifties-style ranch, with a longer length but shallower depth than this one; anyone looking out a window wouldn’t be able to see the back of this house.

  Hoping for an easy way in, she looked around for a convenient place to hide a key. There weren’t any flowerpots, and the doormat yielded nothing. Breaking the glass was more difficult than she’d exp
ected. Television and the movies made it look so easy, panes shattering at a tap from a pistol or a blow from an elbow. It didn’t work that way in real life. After bruising her elbow, she looked around for a harder weapon, but the yard was neatly kept and no handy rocks were left lying around. There were bricks, however, carefully laid to form the border of a flower bed.

  With the red sweater held over the glass to muffle the noise, Grace pounded the brick against the pane until it shattered. After replacing the brick, she took a deep breath, then reached in and unlocked the door.

  It took every nerve she had. Walking into that strange, silent house shook her. When she put her foot over that threshold, she officially became guilty of breaking and entering, she who had always been so conscientious that she’d actually obeyed the speed limit.

  She wasn’t there to steal anything, except hot water and a little electricity. The close call in the grocery store had made it imperative that she begin blending in with the population, and also work up some disguises. She could no longer look homeless; she had to look… homogeneous. Blend in or die.

  Her heart pounded as she stripped out of her filthy clothes and put them in the unknown lady’s washing machine. What if she had miscalculated, what if either the lady or her husband hadn’t left for the day, hadn’t gone to jobs, but instead one of them was just on an errand and would return any minute? At the very least the cops would be called, if a strange woman was found naked, and showering, in their house.

  But she hadn’t dared try to rent a motel room, assuming no one would let her take a room the way she looked and smelled, even if she paid cash. And perhaps Parrish’s men were checking motels; a clerk would definitely remember her. Just this once she needed to take a bath and wash her clothes where she couldn’t be seen, where no one would notice her, and after this she would look more respectable. She would be able to go into a laundromat and wash her clothes, to go into stores and buy the things she needed to disguise her appearance, to lose herself in the immense sea of respectability.