Son of the Morning

After an hour of lying there she sighed, resigning herself to a sleepless night. She was tired but her brain refused to stop working, going over and over the papers, thinking about Niall, trying to piece together some feasible means of revenge against Parrish. She had hoped to find something in the papers to use against him, but if she’d been thinking straight she would have realized there couldn’t be anything incriminating about him in papers that were almost seven hundred years old. The papers fascinated her so much that she hadn’t been able to see past her own obsession. No, if she could manage any sort of revenge against Parrish it would have to be something much more straightforward, like killing him herself.

She got out of bed and turned on the light, her eyes stark, her soft mouth set in a grim line. Over the past eight months she had learned she could fight to protect herself, perhaps even kill in self-defense, but she didn’t know if she could kill in cold blood. She paced back and forth, hugging her arms around her to ward off the night chill. Could she kill Parrish? Could she walk up, stick the revolver to his head, and pull the trigger?

She closed her eyes, but the vision that came to mind wasn’t of herself shooting Parrish, but of the utter disregard, almost boredom, with which he had shot Ford and Bryant. She saw the sudden blankness on Ford’s face, thebonelessness of his body as he slumped over.

Her teeth clenched, her hands knotted into fists. Oh, yes, she could kill Parrish.

Why didn’t she just do it, then? She had driven by his house a few times when she’d been working for the cleaning service; she had never seen him or his car, but then she hadn’t expected to. If he were at home, his car would be in the garage, and Parrish wasn’t the type of man who enjoyed gardening. She knew nothing of his schedule, hadn’t spent her days watching his house in order to follow him. She had taken self-protective measures, but in reality she had done nothing to avenge her family. Instead she had concentrated on the papers, persuaded herself that there could be something useful in them,deluded herself so she could merely mark time and lose herself in the translations.

But self-delusion was at an end. She needed either to do something about Parrish or to go away quietly and spend the rest of her life grieving and hiding.

All right. She would do it. She would track Parrish down, and kill him.

Grace felt the weight of the decision settle on her. She didn’t have the stuff of which killers were made, and she knew it. On the other hand, she hadn’t sought any of this; Parrish had begun the dance. The Old Testament said, "Thou shalt not kill," but it also said, "An eye for an eye." Perhaps she was rationalizing, but she took that to mean that once a murder was committed, society or the wronged family had a right to put an end to the murderer’s existence.

No matter. Tomorrow she would begin tracking him down like the animal he was.

Morning, however, brought a new reality: she had to work. She couldn’t spend all day sitting in some hidden place and watching Parrish’s house. Her old truck would be out of place, and very noticeable, in any case. Physically watching for him, following him, seizing an opportunity, simply wasn’t feasible. She had to know in advance where he would be, and be there before him.

For all she knew, he wasn’t even in town. During the winter he often took long vacations in warmer climes, staying away for as long as a month at a stretch.

There was only one way to find out. During her lunch break with another cleaning service, she stopped at a fast food joint and used a pay phone to call the Foundation.

Her fingers moved without volition, punching in the! familiar numbers. It wasn’t until the first ring buzzed in her ear that she realized what she was doing, and her heart thumped wildly in her chest. Before she could slam down the receiver the flat, impersonal voice of the receptionist answered. "AmaranthinePotere Foundation. How may I direct your call?" "cc Grace swallowed. "Is Mr. Sawyer in the office today?" One moment."

"No, don’t ring-" she started to say, but the line had already clicked and another ring was sounding. She took a deep breath and prepared to ask the question again of Parrish’s secretary; she would need to disguise her voice a little, becauseAnnalise had once been fairly familiar with

"Parrish Sawyer." The smooth, cultured tones stunned her, panicked her. She froze in place, her mind going blank at actually hearing that hated voice again.

"Hello?" he said, more sharply. . Grace gasped.

"Is this an obscene call?" he asked, sounding both bored and annoyed. "I really don’t-" Then he stopped, and she could hear his own breathing for a few endless seconds. "Gracie," he said, purring her name. "How nice of you to call."

She felt wrapped in ice, a coldness that had nothing to do with the fifteen-degree weather. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, could only clench the receiver with white, bloodless fingers.

"Can’t you speak, darling? I want to talk to you, clear up this dreadful misunderstanding. You know I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. There’s always been something between us, but I didn’t realize how potent it was until you ran away. Let me help you, darling. I’ll take care of everything."

He was a wonderful liar, she thought dimly. His warm, seductive voice oozed sympathy, trustworthiness; if she hadn’tseen him commit the murders, she would have believed every word out of his mouth.

"Gracie," he said, cajoling, whispering. "Tell me where to meet you. I’ll take you away, just the two of us, to someplace safe. You won’t have to worry about anything."

Hewasn’t lying. It was lust she heard in his voice. Horrified, sickened, she finally managed to hang up the phone and blindly made her way back to the truck. She felt filthy, as if he’d actually touched her.