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“I don’—pants. Yeah. Maybe jeans, I dunno.”
“Did she have a coat, a jacket?” The weather had turned colder, which wasn’t unexpected. It was the warmth that had been unusual for Minneapolis, not this more seasonable chill.
“I don’ think so.”
“Short sleeves or long?”
“Sh-short, I think. Not sure.” He gulped in air through his mouth. “She was carryin’ a garbage bag, kinda hid her arms.”
No jacket, and short sleeves. She had been wet to the skin, and she would now be very cold. Conrad didn’t wonder what was in the garbage bag; it was a commonsense solution to keeping papers dry. Mr. Sawyer would be pleased.
She had gotten money from an ATM, and this piece of excrement had promptly robbed her. She was without funds, without any means of coping. Conrad thought he should be able to find her within a day, if she hadn’t sought out the police by then. Though Mr. Sawyer had everything under control even if she made accusations against him, Conrad preferred to find her himself. It would be easier that way.
He looked at the human trash in the chair. The punk had no redeeming qualities. He had no skills, no morals, no value.
A bullet was too expensive for exterminating vermin, and too quick. Conrad reached out his gloved hand and closed it on the punk’s throat, and expertly crushed his trachea. Leaving him suffocating in the chair, Conrad walked out of the abandoned house in the worst part of the city. He moved silently, unhurriedly. Screams were common in the neighborhood. No one paid him any attention.
Chapter 4
DISTANCE, GRACE LEARNED, WAS RELATIVE. EAU CLAIRE, WISconsin, wasn’t all that far from Minneapolis if you were driving, a matter of an hour or two, depending on where you were in Minneapolis when you began and how fast you drove. In a plane, it was nothing more than a hop. On foot, and having to hide during the day, it took her three days.
She didn’t dare take a bus; with her long hair and carrying a computer case she would be too easily recognized. She didn’t know, but she thought it would only be common sense for the police, knowing she didn’t have her car, to check all public transportation leaving the city. Parrish would likely be hunting her, too, and he wouldn’t have to compare her appearance to a photo in order to recognize her.
She operated in a vacuum, because that was the only way she could manage. Things she had always taken for granted, basics such as food, water, warmth, a toilet, were now an effort to obtain. At least she had money, and there were always convenience stores, though she knew she should avoid them because of their surveillance cameras. Food wasn’t much of a problem; she simply wasn’t hungry.
She looked homeless; she was homeless. She walked north for a while, then cut east, paralleling state roads whenever she could rather than walking on the shoulder where
she would more easily be seen. She hadn’t realized before how little human presence there was between Minneapolis and Eau Claire; if she had been on the interstate, there would at least have been a motel or truck stop every few exits, but away from the interstate there was nothing but a few houses and the occasional service station.
At ten-thirty on her second night on the run, she went into a service station and asked for the key to the rest room. The attendant looked up with bored, hostile eyes and said, “Get lost.” It took her more than an hour to find another station. The second attendant wasn’t as polite, and threatened to call the cops if she didn’t leave.
The need to urinate was excruciating, exacerbated by her constant shivering. Grace’s face was blank as she silently turned and left the station. She walked across the parking lot, aware of the attendant watching every step she made. Just as she was about to step onto the shoulder of the highway, she looked back and saw that the man had returned to the magazine he’d been reading when she went in to ask for the key. She made a sharp turn, skirting the edge of the parking lot, and circled around behind the station. She had to relieve herself, and she wasn’t about to do it on the side of the road.
Gravel crunched as a customer drove up, and she heard a man saying something to the attendant, then the answer, but she couldn’t understand what they were saying. Sheltered by the back wall, she carefully placed her precious trash bag out of the splash area, and unzipped her jeans.
Footsteps approached, scraping on the gravel.
There was no place to hide. A dim bulb over each of the rest-room doors stole even the advantage of darkness from her. There was nothing to do but run, and hope the approaching customer wouldn’t get too good a look at her.
She grabbed for the trash bag and her gaze swept over the rest-room door, the one with “Ladies” painted on it in big block letters. There was a hasp attached to the door, and an open padlock hung from it. The door wasn’t even locked!
The footsteps were close, almost to the corner. She didn’t hesitate. Leaving the trash bag where it was, she darted into the dark little room, and pressed herself against the painted block wall. She didn’t even have time to close the door. The customer walked past, and a second later a brighter light came on as he flipped the switch in the other rest room. The door slammed.
Grace sagged against the wall. The rest room was nothing more than a tiny cubicle, just large enough to accommodate a toilet and a washbasin. The walls were concrete block, the floor was cement. The smell wasn’t pleasant.
She didn’t dare turn on the light, though she closed the door until only a two-inch crack remained. Jerking down her jeans, she perched over the stained porcelain toilet just as her mother had taught her to do, and then she couldn’t hold back any longer. Crouched there like an awkward bird, her legs aching from the unnatural position, tears of relief sprang into her eyes and she stifled a humorless laugh at the ridiculousness of what she was doing.
In the rest room next door there was a long, explosive sound of gas releasing, then a contented “Ahhh.” Grace clapped a hand over her mouth to hold back the hysterical giggle that rose in her throat. She had to finish before he did, or he might hear her. The competition was the strangest in which she’d ever engaged, and no less stressful because she was the only one who knew it was in progress.
She finished just as a loud, gurgling flush sounded. Quickly she reached for the handle and pushed it down, the noise of the second covered by that of the first. Then she didn’t dare move, because the man didn’t pause to wash his hands but immediately left the rest room. She froze, not even daring to take a breath. He walked right by without noticing that the door that had been standing open when he’d gone into the rest room was now almost closed.
Grace inhaled a shaky breath and stood for a moment in the dark, smelly little rest room, trying to calm her nerves.
The rest room wasn’t the only thing that smelled. She could smell herself, the stink of fear added to almost three days without a shower. Her clothes were sour, the effect of being rain-soaked and drying on her body.
Her stomach rolled. She didn’t mind being dirty; she did mind being unclean, which was something else entirely. She was an archaeologist’s wife—widow, an insidious little voice whispered before she could silence the thought—and had often accompanied him on digs, where dust and sweat had ruled the day. They had always cleaned up at night, however. She didn’t think she had ever before gone so long without bathing, and she couldn’t bear it.
She opened the rest-room door another inch or so, letting in more light. The sink was as stained as the toilet, but above the basin hung a towel dispenser, and beside the faucet sat a pump bottle of liquid soap.
