He was really speaking to himself, not Lydia. He’d gotten used to cleaning up John Ridgeway’s messes. Maybe he was too comfortable with that role.
What he did now depended on what he discovered—starting with Grace Cunningham.
GRACE WANTED to scream at Karen Hilliard. Instead she pulled off her business suit and pulled on jeans, running shoes and a dark T-shirt. Leaving her good clothes in a pile on the bedroom floor, she made for the kitchen. Because she didn’t want to announce that she was home, she worked with only the illumination from a streetlight outside the window as she pulled the sugar canister out of the cabinet, then started digging in the white grains like a dog looking for a buried bone.
As her fingers closed around the legal-size envelope, she breathed out a small sigh. She was going to need the cash. No credit cards. Not in the name of Grace Cunningham.
Or Ginnie Cutler.
She’d buried Ginnie two years ago. Everybody she’d known from before she’d made her big decision thought she had died in a boating accident. Even her parents, and it still made her heart squeeze when she thought about how her death must have devastated them.
They didn’t even have the solace of a grave site—after all the years of raising their daughter, of loving their daughter.
Scenes from her life flashed through her mind as she dashed down the hall to the bedroom.
She remembered the pink-and-white little girl’s bedroom that had made her happy. Her eighth birthday party when she’d proudly taken eight friends out to lunch. The smile on Mom’s face when her daughter had graduated from high school.
Her parents hadn’t had a lot of money, but they’d showered their daughter with love and given her the confidence to take the road she traveled now.
She’d come to Washington with a carefully constructed new identity and a lot of optimism. Like those first-term congressmen who thought they were going to make a difference. You could check her driver’s license, her Social Security number and her college transcript—from Barnard instead of Brown, where she’d really gotten her history degree. All the documents would testify to whom she was supposed to be. The background had stood up to even Ridgeway Consortium scrutiny. Not anymore. They’d go digging and find out that Grace Cunningham had never really existed.
But before that—they’d check the visitors’ book and see when she’d left this evening.
When she’d escaped through the Pennsylvania Avenue exit, she’d barely been thinking about her next move. Now she knew she was going to have to disappear—again. And come back as someone else. If she had the cash to do it again.
Not that she’d committed a crime. She’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
In the bedroom she switched on the television, turning the volume low, and caught the news on CNN.
They were reporting John Ridgeway’s death. But nothing had changed about the story.
So much for honesty in the halls of power.
As she stared at the television set, she wanted to curl up in a ball on the bed and close her eyes. She wanted to wake up and find out the past hour was all a horrible dream. But it was real. Just like the nightmare of two years ago.
Only now a powerful man was dead, and she was a witness. And if she didn’t want to end up like Karen, a secret detainee, she’d better get the hell out of here.
She was throwing clothing into a duffel bag when she heard the wooden stairs creak. Her hand on a pair of jeans, she went rigid, listening intently.
It could be one of the neighbors. Maybe nosy Mrs. Sullivan who was always peeking out her front door to see if Grace was bringing anybody home.
The next sound she heard was something metal sliding into the lock of her apartment door.
No knock. Nobody calling out, “Police. Open up.”
For a second, she was too stunned to move. Then she shoved the money into her purse, along with Karen Hilliard’s evening bag.
Without a second thought, she abandoned the duffel bag in the middle of the bed, thrust open the window and climbed out onto the ledge.
She hated to take extra time. But an open window was a dead giveaway, so she turned to ease down the sash behind her.
Thank God she was in good shape from all those laps at the pool—and the fencing lessons she’d been taking.
After slinging her purse strap over her shoulder, she lowered herself by her hands and let go, landing with a thunk on the roof of the next building. As soon as she hit the flat surface, she sprinted toward the edge, skirting puddles of standing water.
Behind her, through the old glass, she heard footsteps running through her apartment—then men’s voices.
“Where the hell is she?”
“Maybe she didn’t go home.”
“Where else would she go?”
Without looking over her shoulder, she kept moving across the gravel, then over the side of the building. “She’s on the roof.” “Don’t let her get away.”
Lord, who were these men? The DC cops? Or more likely John Ridgeway’s private security force.
Either way, she was pretty sure that getting caught could be a fatal error.
Fear swelled inside her chest, making it hard to breathe. But she didn’t break her stride until she came to the edge of the building. As she lowered herself over the side, she saw a man coming out the window.
Two of them had barged through the front door without announcing their presence. Was the other one going around back to cut her off at the pass.
She dropped to the roof of a garage, then to the alley.
“Stop her!”
Praying she could make it, she hurtled down the alley, her running shoes splashing through puddles of dirty water. Before she reached the car, a hand whipped out from the shadows and grabbed her shoulder.
Grace screamed, the sound coming to her above the roaring in her ears.
She’d almost made it—and now …
A man barked out a gruff order. “Hold it right there, sweetheart.”
It wasn’t necessary to fake terror. She was literally shaking in her shoes. “Please don’t hurt me,” she whimpered. “I won’t. If you come quietly.” Oh sure.
When he turned her toward him, she went still, pretending to comply, letting him think he had control of a woman too terrified to resist. But as she came around, she lashed out, whacking her elbow into his armpit the way they’d told her to do in self-defense class.
He was totally unprepared for the attack. Grunting, he dropped his hold on her shoulder.
Free of his control, she struck out with her foot, catching him in the balls. He screamed as he doubled over.
