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“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.”
