Son of the Morning Read online

  Her arm began to ache, and blood was dripping on the computer case. Scowling, Grace pressed her right hand over the wound. She had acted with a disgusting lack of presence of mind, she thought as she strode along. She had felt so tough and well prepared because she’d had a kitchen paring knife on her belt, and instead she was so far from being street smart she hadn’t even thought of the knife.

  Look at me now, she thought furiously. She was walking openly down a busy sidewalk, dripping blood marking her every step. She could walk smack into a cop at any second, and that was only the most immediate danger. Any number of people were taking note of her, and Parrish was capable of putting a small army on the streets to locate her. Surely the search had moved to Chicago by now, it being the most logical place for her to hide, not to mention affording her the resources she needed to work. She had to assume the worst, and that meant she had to get off the street and change her appearance, immediately.

  Just ahead of her, a couple entered a busy bar and grill. Grace barely slowed down, darting through the closing door. She stood close to them, angled so that the man’s body hid her bleeding arm from the hostess, who smiled as she asked, “Smoking or non?” and plucked three menus from a stack.

  “Non,” replied the man. The hostess checked her seating chart, made a notation, then led them through the maze of close-crowded tables and booths. Grace spied the sign indicating the location of the rest rooms down a narrow hall, and she walked swiftly in that direction.

  The ladies’ room was small, dark, and empty. The decor didn’t invite people to linger. The lighting was dim, and swallowed by the dark glazed tiles of the floor and walls. A pink and purple neon flamingo was poised over the upper right corner of the mirror, casting a decidedly unnatural tint on the face of anyone repairing her makeup or admiring herself. Grace did neither. Instead she pulled several paper towels out of the holder and swiftly washed her hands and arm. Blood welled from the cut as fast as the water rinsed it away.

  “Damn, damn, damn,” she whispered. Glancing in the mirror, she saw that the blond wig was askew. Hastily, using one hand, she removed the pins that still halfway anchored the wig in place, then snatched it from her head. Her long, matted hair tumbled down her back.

  She needed the use of both hands, if only for a minute. Taking one of the folded brown paper towels, she pressed it over the bleeding wound, holding it until the paper adhered to her arm. The red stain immediately began spreading, but for the moment she wasn’t dripping. She stuffed the wig into the computer case, wound her hair into a knot on top of her head, and pinned it in place. Pulling out her baseball cap, she jammed it on and pulled the bill down low over her eyes.

  Using her arm made it ache even worse. The makeshift pad was soaked with blood already, and coming loose. She peeled it off and tossed it into the trash, then pressed another towel over the wound. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she stared at her pale, sickly reflection in the mirror. Essentially the wound was negligible; she wasn’t likely to bleed to death, and she still had the use of her arm. Niall wouldn’t even have paused for so paltry a wound, but continued the battle.

  And so had she, Grace realized with a spurt of surprise. Granted, her counterattack hadn’t been well thought out, but she hadn’t even realized she’d been cut until the fight was over. Niall would be proud of her, after he got over his murderous rage that she’d been hurt at all—

  “I’m losing it,” Grace said aloud, blinking. She must have lost more blood than she had realized, to be thinking of Niall as if he were someone she actually knew, instead of an obscure medieval warrior who had been dead for hundreds of years. She would be better off figuring out how to bandage her arm, and with what.

  The answer followed on the heels of the thought. Holding the pad of towels in place with her right hand, she used her left to untie her shoe. Slipping out of it, she removed her sock, then shoved her bare foot back into the shoe. The sock had considerable stretch in the fabric. She laid the sock on the vanity top, then positioned her arm across it. Using her teeth and her free hand, she knotted the sock around her arm, pulling it as tight as possible over the pad of towels and then knotting it again for security.

  The makeshift bandage wouldn’t last long, but it should do to get her home. The effect was pretty noticeable, so she pulled off her other shoe and sock, and tied the remaining sock around her right arm. At least now it looked as if she’d done it for some reason other than necessity, maybe insanity, or membership in a gang. Socks around the arms weren’t exactly in the same class as ’do rags, but there were a lot of crazies in Chicago.

  An hour later, Grace let herself into the boardinghouse. She intended to slip quietly up the stairs, but as luck would have it she met Harmony herself in the hallway.

  “That’s some getup,” Harmony drawled, taking in the baseball cap, the absence of the blond wig, and the socks tied around Grace’s arms.

  “Thanks,” Grace muttered.

  “Arm’s bleeding,” Harmony observed.

  “I know.” Grace started up the stairs.

  “No point in running. Anybody in my house gets in trouble, I want to know what it’s about, in case the cops gonna beat my door down in the middle of the night.” Her green eyes narrowed, Harmony was right on Grace’s heels as they climbed the stairs.

  “I was mugged,” Grace briefly explained. “Or rather, someone tried to mug me.”

  “No shit. Whadja do, scare ’im off with that wussy little knife you carry?”

  “I didn’t even think about it,” she confessed ruefully, wondering how Harmony knew about the knife.

  “Good thing. Any self-respecting mugger would’ve laughed, then made you eat it.” Harmony waited while Grace unlocked the door, then followed her inside. After eyeing the spartan neatness of the room, the tall woman turned her attention back to Grace. “Okay, Wynne, let’s see the arm.”

  After two weeks, Grace had accustomed herself to her pseudonym enough that she no longer hesitated at the name. Two weeks was also long enough for her to learn that Harmony Johnson considered her home her castle, over which she had a dictator’s authority, and anything that went on in her house was her business.

  Silently she untied the bloodstained sock. Beneath it, the pad of paper towel was completely soaked. She removed that, too, and Harmony studied the sullenly oozing cut.

  “Needs stitches,” she pronounced. “And when was your last tetanus shot?”

  “Not quite two years ago,” Grace replied after a little thought, and with some relief. She hadn’t even considered tetanus. Fortunately she’d updated all her vaccinations before going with Ford on a dig in Mexico. “No stitches, though. I can’t afford an emergency room.”

  “Sure you can’t,” Harmony said shrewdly. “Any street bum can see a doctor for a cut, but you can’t? More likely you don’t want to answer no questions. Anyway, forget about a hospital. You want, I can sew that up for you, if you don’t mind not having nothing for pain.”

  “You can?” Grace asked, astonished.

  “Sure. I useta do it for the other girls all the time. Wait here while I get my kit.”

  While Harmony was gone, Grace pondered her landlady’s undoubtedly colorful past. She wondered how successful a streetwalker Harmony would have been, with her brusque manner, unusual height, and equally unusual looks. Today she was wearing scarlet leotards and a sleeveless scarlet T-shirt, which revealed remarkably well-muscled legs and arms. Men who frequented prostitutes were looking for sexual gratification rather than sexual attraction, but still, how many would choose a woman who was not only taller than most men, but more masculine? Grace would have thought Harmony a cross-dresser or even a transsexual, if it hadn’t been for a throwaway comment she had once made about having a miscarriage when she was fifteen and never getting pregnant again. Modern surgical procedure could outwardly change someone’s sex, but it couldn’t retain fertility for the patient.

  Awkwardly, because her left arm was really aching now and she used