After the Darkness

Chapter Twenty-Six

THE NAUSEA CAME IN WAVES.

At first Grace tried to ignore it. She was under stress. She wasn't eating properly. After Jasmine Delevigne had told her about Connie and Lenny, she ran back to her miserable room, crawled into bed and stayed there for two days. This was worse than Davey Buccola's betrayal, worse than being sent to Bedford, worse even than being raped. She only got out of bed to use the toilet and to vomit. The vomiting was getting worse, both more frequent and more violent. She was getting sick.

It's probably a virus. I'm depressed. My immune system's low.

After forty-eight hours of unbearable nausea, Grace finally dragged herself to the Duane Reade on the corner. With a baseball cap pulled low over her eyes and a muffler covering the bottom half of her face, she mumbled her symptoms to the pharmacist.

"Uh-huh. When was your last period?"

The question caught Grace by surprise. "My period?"

"Is there a chance you could be pregnant, sugar?"

Grace tried to block out the sounds and images, but they kept coming: The van driver's face, his cruel, flat black eyes, his voice taunting her. Don't worry, Lizzie, we've got all night.

"No."

"You're quite sure?"

"I'm positive. There's no chance."

Grace bought a pregnancy test.

Ten minutes later, sitting on the broken toilet she shared with three other tenants, Grace peed on the stick for the requisite five seconds, mentally chiding herself for wasting fifteen bucks.

This is ridiculous. I'm late because I'm exhausted.

Two pink lines appeared in the results window. Grace's palms began to sweat. It must be a faulty test. She ran back to the pharmacy and wasted another fifteen bucks. Then another. Each time the white plastic stick taunted her, its pink lines dancing in front of her eyes like the elephants in Dumbo.

Positive. Positive. Positive.

Congratulations! You are pregnant.

Grace felt dizzy. She slumped back on the bed and closed her eyes. Somehow, over these past three weeks, she'd managed to block out the rape. As if she knew instinctively that to let it in, to think about it, would destroy her. But now there could be no more hiding. It was here, inside her, growing and alive like some unwanted alien, a parasite consuming her from the inside out.

I have to get rid of it. Now.

A doctor was out of the question. Grace was already using the third of the fake driver's licenses Karen had made for her at Bedford. This week Grace was Linda Reynolds, a waitress from Illinois. The cards were good enough to fool sales assistants and hotel desk clerks, who only glanced at them for a second. But Grace couldn't risk showing them to some doctor's officious assistant who might take a good, long look.

I'll have to do this myself.

Some of the girls in prison had talked about backstreet abortions, appalling, gruesome horror stories involving coat hangers and hemorrhages. Remembering them, Grace started to shake.

I can't. I can't go through with it.

There has to be another way.

IN A QUIET CORNER OF QUEENS Public Library, Grace sat at a computer. A quick Google search told her what she needed to know.

...ingestion may cause gastrointestinal upset, spontaneous abortion, seizures, coma, disseminated intravascular coagulation, hepatic and renal injury and death.

Spontaneous abortion...

There was a health-food store that sold herbs a few blocks away.

Grace headed there.

"THE ROMANS USED TO USE THIS, you know." The clerk at the store was in a chatty mood. "It was a common herb for cooking. Of course, what you have here is the essential oil." She passed Grace a thumb-size glass bottle. "You can't cook with this. Not unless it's a stew for your mother-in-law and you're trying to kill her!" Grace forced a smile. "But a few drops in the tub? Amazing. Your troubles will melt away."

If only. "How much do I owe you?"

"That'll be fifteen dollars and twenty-two cents." The clerk dropped the bottle into a paper bag and handed it to Grace. Suddenly her face changed. "Do I know you from someplace? Your face looks familiar."

Grace pushed a twenty-dollar bill into her hand. "I don't think so."

"No, I do. I'm sure I do. I never forget a face."

"Keep the change."

Grace snatched the bag and ran out of the store. The clerk watched her go. It was terrible the way people in this city lived their lives in such a rush. She seemed like such a nice girl, too. Hopefully the oil would help relax her.

I'm sure I know her from somewhere.

MITCH CONNORS MET JOHN MERRIVALE FOR lunch at a restaurant in midtown Manhattan.

"Thanks for meeting me."

John Merrivale stood up and smiled graciously. Mitch was struck by how slight he was. Everything about him seemed faint, from his colorless skin and watery gray eyes to his thin, reedy voice and limp handshake. He's more ghost than man.