The Alice Network - Page 93

A row of German faces looked down at them, and Eve saw blank confusion there. She’d seen the same expression from their guards at Saint-Gilles: bewilderment, looking at tiny Lili and stuttering Eve and Violette with her glasses like a schoolteacher, wondering how any of them could possibly be spies.

The Boches have held us for months, Eve thought, and they still don’t know what to make of the fleurs du mal. The thought gave her a flicker of savage pride for a moment, something to straighten her shoulders before the guilt flattened them again.

The three women of the Alice Network were allowed to stand as further discussion carried on in whispers among the German officials. Another hour crept past. Eve’s hands throbbed. Another announcement. Another kick resounding dully through her chest, only this was not relief. This was despair.

The trial was done.

So,” Lili said. “They will not shoot us.”

Violette was still shivering in reaction as they waited in the courtyard between their guards. Eve stood numb and upright, but the news seemed to have nearly shattered Violette, who had looked braced for a bullet right then and there in the courtroom. “They will send us to Germany . . . ,” she muttered.

The sentence had been amended: they were all to suffer fifteen years’ hard labor in Siegburg Prison.

“Fifteen years?” Lili wrinkled her nose. “No. We labor until the victory of France, that is all.”

“I w-w-wish it was the line of guns,” Eve heard herself saying.

Violette’s red-rimmed eyes bored into her, bitter and accusing. “You deserve the guns,” she said, and spat full into Eve’s face. “Judas.”

The guards intervened, dragging Violette a few paces away. Eve stood unmoving, letting the warm spittle trickle down her cheek, and the other guards let Lili approach, drawing back a little. Only a tiny oasis of privacy, but it was the most a prisoner could expect.

“Sorry, little daisy.” The touch of a worn cuff against Eve’s cheek, wiping her clean. She almost flinched at the sensation. She hadn’t been touched kindly in so long. “Violette takes it hard.”

“She hates me.” Eve said it without rancor. “For b-betraying you.”

“Pah, who knows how the Boches got my name or found out I ran the network? You don’t remember giving it up, opium or no opium.” Lili shrugged in complete indifference. “I was identified. How that happened doesn’t matter.”

“It does,” Eve stated.

A smile. “Not to me.”

Eve nearly wept. Do not forgive me, she wanted to cry. Please, do not forgive me! Forgiveness hurt so much more than hatred.

Violette was allowed to rejoin them, glaring but quiescent, and Eve welcomed her silent loathing. They all stood in silence, waiting for the car that would take them back to their cells. From there, it would probably be a matter of days until they were transported to Siegburg Prison.

Siegburg. Eve had heard horror stories of that place. She looked east toward Germany, and saw the other women looking too, as though the prison’s dank walls were already in sight.

“Do not think about it, mes anges.” Lili came up between Eve and Violette, putting an arm around each and squeezing hard. “Enjoy the present. You are both here, and I am close to you.”

Eve leaned her head on Lili’s shoulder and they all stood in the pale March sunlight, waiting to be taken away.

CHAPTER 33

CHARLIE

June 1947

Through the remainder of the night, I stared at the photograph of a monster and tried to make sense of what he’d done. You got Rose killed, I thought, over and over. You got Rose killed. An SS officer had given the order to fire, and a German soldier had pulled the trigger—but my cousin would never have been targeted at all if not for this man in his elegant suit and silver-headed cane.

I hadn’t been able to answer Eve’s question. I was too shocked, taking the photograph and stumbling back to my room in complete silence. I felt as though I’d been hit by a boulder, lying across my bed limp and crushed under the weight.

René Bordelon. The name echoed. You got Rose killed.

He had always been the link between Eve and me. Rose had worked for him, Eve had worked for him—two women out of probably thousands who had labored in his employ over the decades—and because of that unremarkable fact, his name on a piece of paper had led me to Eve, and then here. But I had never thought the link more than a paper one.

By dawn I was dressed, packed, and headed out to the front steps of the auberge. It didn’t surprise me to see Eve already there with her satchel at her feet, straight and fierce and smoking her first cigarette of the day. She turned, and I saw that her eyes were as red and grained as mine.

“I’ll do it,” I said. “I’ll help you track him down.”

“Good,” Eve said as matter-of-factly as if I’d agreed to help her get a cup of coffee. “Finn’s getting the car.”

We stood and waited in the pink morning light. “Why do you even want my help?” I couldn’t help asking. Another question I’d turned over last night. “You’ve wanted to bring this man to justice for more than thirty years. Wouldn’t it be easier without some pregnant college girl in tow? You don’t need me.” Though a large part of me wished she did. I wanted to take care of her, even if she was prickly as a handful of needles.

“No, I don’t need you,” she said briskly. “But the bastard’s wronged both of us, not just me, and that means you have a right to revenge if you want it. I believe in revenge.” Eve looked at me, inscrutable. “I’ve lost faith in much over the years, but not that.”

She stood there tall and stony as an obelisk, and I wondered just what form her revenge was going to take. It gave me a disquieting pang, as the Lagonda came around the corner.

“Besides,” Eve said in an undertone as Finn loaded the bags into the trunk. “I may not need you, but I definitely need him. And I put the odds at fifty-fifty that wherever you go, he goes.”

I blinked. “What makes you say that?”

She touched a red mark on my throat that I’d seen in the mirror this morning and tried to cover with my loosened hair—a mark Finn’s mouth had left last night. “I know the difference between a mosquito bite and a love bite, Yank.”

“Done with your blethering, ladies?” Finn came around the driver’s side. “It’s a braw morning for a drive.”

“Yes,” I mumbled, ears burning. Eve grinned as she climbed into the backseat. Finn missed the grin, but he saw my red flush and paused after he slid behind the wheel.

“All right, lass?” he asked quietly.

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