AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“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.
