After the Darkness

Grace felt the muscles stiffen across his shoulders and back. He started to ejaculate, then suddenly pulled out of her. Holding his grotesque, twitching penis in one hand, he knelt over her, pulling her mouth open with his other hand. Grace felt the hot spray of his semen on her tongue, down her throat. She gagged. He was laughing, closing his eyes, lost in sexual pleasure. This is it. This is my chance. Arching her back, with one single, fluid movement, Grace pulled off her shoe, grabbed the knife, flicked it open and plunged it between his shoulder blades.

For a split second the driver remained kneeling, a look of shock and bewilderment on his face. Then he fell forward, silently, the blade still stuck in his back like the key in a windup toy. It took all of Grace's strength to wriggle out from under him and remove the knife. Blood spurted from the wound like water from a faucet.

Grace rolled him onto his side. He was trying to talk to her, mouthing words, but all Grace could hear was a bloody gurgle. She kicked him hard in the crotch. He already looked incapacitated but you could never be too sure. After rifling his pockets for cash and anything else of value, she hurriedly pulled on her underwear and straightened her clothes, making sure she still had Karen's "survival package" of documents. Then she went around to the front of the van and took the car keys, as well as the thick, lumberjack jacket the man had been wearing when he picked her up.

Ready.

Walking back to the rear of the van, Grace opened the door. The driver was still alive, but barely. Underneath him the pool of blood was growing bigger, like a deep red puddle. When he saw the knife in Grace's hand, his eyes widened.

"No!" he gurgled. "Please..."

Her intention had been to finish the job. To drive the knife in to his heart, in and in and in and in, like his sick, rapist's dick, until he was dead. But watching him beg for mercy, hearing him plead so pathetically for his life, Grace changed her mind.

Why let him die quickly? He doesn't deserve it.

I'll leave the bastard where he is. Let him bleed to death, slowly and alone.

Grace flipped the blade shut, turned and ran.

IT WAS TWO HOURS BEFORE GRACE reached the outskirts of the nearest small town. The road signs proclaimed it to be Richardsville in Putnam County. Dawn was breaking, a faint strand of burnt-orange light forcing its way through the black night sky. At intervals during her long walk, she'd heard the distinct, insectlike whirring of choppers overhead. They're hunting for me already. She wondered if they'd found the van driver? If they were close? Adrenaline coursed through her bruised body, along with a torrent of other, conflicting emotions: Disgust. Terror. Pain. Rage. She'd been raped. She could still feel the evil man inside her, hurting her, violating her. She had also just killed a man. Thinking about the fear he would feel as the life drained out of him, alone in those dreadful woods, Grace recognized another, unfamiliar emotion in the maelstrom: hatred. She was not sorry for what she'd done. But all her feelings and thoughts were eclipsed by one, overriding sensation: exhaustion.

She needed to sleep.

The Up All Night Motel looked like something out of the opening credits of a horror movie. Out front, a flickering, cracked neon sign promised LUXURY INDIVIDUAL BATHROOMS and COLOR TV IN EVERY ROOM! Inside, the oldest man Grace had ever seen snored quietly at the reception desk. His gnarled face was crisscrossed with lines and his body looked ancient and shrunken. He reminded Grace of someone. Yoda.

"Excuse me."

He jerked awake.

"Help ya?"

"I'd like a room, please."

Yoda looked Grace up and down. She felt her stomach turn to water. Does he recognize me? She was so nervous she was sure her teeth were chattering, though she could conceivably pass that off as cold. She'd tried to make her voice sound firm and authoritative when she asked for the room, but it came out a frightened quaver. Can he see I've been attacked? Can he smell that bastard on me? Maybe I shouldn't stay here? I should keep moving. But she knew she was too exhausted to go on.

The old man, however, seemed more irritated than interested by her presence. After a long pause he grumbled, "Foller me," and led her down a long, cheerless corridor. At the end was a numberless white door. "This do for ya?"

There was a single bed, made up with cheap, polyester sheets, floral curtains and a coffee-colored carpet splattered with miscellaneous stains. In the far corner, a tiny television was nailed to the wall. Next to it, the door to the "luxury individual bathroom" stood open, revealing a luxury individual toilet with no seat or lid and a luxury individual shower with mold growing between the tiles.

"This is fine. How much do I owe you?"

"How long you stayin'?"

"I'm not sure." Suddenly conscious of her disheveled appearance and the fact that she had no luggage with her, Grace blurted out, "I had a fight with my boyfriend. I left in kind of a hurry."

Yoda shrugged, bored.

"Twenty dollars for tonight."

Grace pressed a bill into his hand and he left. Locking the door behind him, Grace drew the curtains closed. She took off all her clothes and walked into the bathroom. Only then did she sink to her knees, lean over the toilet and vomit. When her stomach was empty, she stood up and stepped into the shower. Under the weak, lukewarm jets of water, she scrubbed at herself with the used bar of soap until her skin bled. She could still feel the man's filthy hands on her breasts, his revolting, rapist's seed on her face, in her mouth. There'd been two bottles of drinking water in the back of the van that she'd used to clean herself up as best she could a few hours ago, so as not to arouse suspicion. On the long walk here she had forced herself to focus on the shower awaiting her, on being clean. But she knew now she would never be clean again.

Drying herself off, she retched again, but there was nothing left inside her to throw up. She moved into the bedroom and sank down on the bed. It was warm in the room. Leaning back against the cheap foam pillow, Grace flicked on the TV. Her own face stared back at her. Or rather, her face as it had once been, long, long ago.

So it's public already. At least they're using an old picture. I'll have to do something about a disguise first thing in the morning, before they release a new one.

The newscaster was talking.

"In breaking news, Grace Brookstein is reported to have absconded from a maximum-security correctional facility in upstate New York. Brookstein, widow of the billionaire con man Leonard Brookstein..."

The report went on but Grace didn't hear it. She felt more tired than she could ever remember. It had been the longest twenty-four hours of her life. Sleep caressed her like the softest of cashmere blankets. She closed her eyes and let it take her.

GAVIN WILLIAMS WAS SCREAMING.

"Are you blind? This is it! The breakthrough we've been praying for. Grace will lead us straight to the money!"

Gavin Williams, Harry Bain and John Merrivale were having a working breakfast at Quorum's old offices. It was the morning after Grace's escape and the news was all over the TV and newspapers.

Harry Bain shook his head. "I doubt that. Even assuming she knows where it is..."

"She knows where it is."

"Even if she does, she won't get that far. She's got the entire NYPD looking for her. My guess is she'll be back behind bars by nightfall. Either that or some trigger-happy cop will have shot her."

"No! We can't let that happen!" It was unlike Williams to lose control, but he looked close to tears. "Grace Brookstein remains the key to this case. We must take control. We must insist the NYPD hand the investigation over to the bureau."

Harry Bain laughed. "Oh, yeah. I'll insist. I'm sure the chief of police will love that."

Gavin Williams looked to John Merrivale for support. But of course John just stared at his shoes, like the coward that he was. Furious, Williams got up and stormed out.

Merrivale said, "I know it's not my p-place to say so. But I think perhaps the stress of this case is becoming too much for Agent Williams."

Harry Bain agreed. "You're right. I'm having him transferred. Grace Brookstein has become an obsession. It's clouding his judgment. Her escape is a distraction, and we can't afford distractions."

"Exactly."

John Merrivale breathed a sigh of relief.

He wouldn't rest completely easily until Grace was captured. Or, better yet, shot. News of her escape had shaken him deeply. But today's meeting was reassuring. With Gavin Williams out of the picture, it would be even easier to lead Bain and his men in the wrong direction. Eventually they'd run out of energy, or money, or both, and call off the investigation. Then finally he would be free. Free to leave New York, to leave Caroline. A life without chains! In the end it would all be worth it.