hand hurt so badly, Eve could barely breathe. She sank her teeth into the scream rising in her throat until it died unborn. She managed a crooked little smile, not pulling against his grip, just nailing her eyes to his. Giving him her own gaze for once, and not his demure little pet’s.
She might very well die here in this warm, luxurious room. But just once, she wanted to throw it in his face how badly he had been duped. She could curse herself for such a rash, prideful impulse, but she had no power to resist it.
“My name is Eve,” she breathed, every word smooth as silk. “Eve, not fucking Marguerite. And yes: I am a spy.”
He stared, transfixed. Eve switched to German.
“I speak perfect German, you profiteering coward, and I’ve been eavesdropping on your precious customers for months.”
She watched the horror, the disbelief, the rage crowd his eyes. She managed another smile and added one more thing in French, just for good measure.
“I will not tell you one single solitary fact about my work, my friends, or the woman I was arrested with. But I will tell you this, René Bordelon. You’re a gullible fool. You’re a terrible lover. And I hate Baudelaire.”
CHAPTER 29
CHARLIE
May 1947
Go back to the hotel, Charlie. Get some sleep.” Finn sat half buried in the car’s shadows, buttoning his shirt. Avoiding my eyes. My whole body still thrummed from what had just happened, and I sat for a moment trying to find the words to tell him how different this had been from anything else I’d ever had. But Finn looked at me, and I could see him back behind his walls again, impossible to reach. “Get to bed, lass.”
“I’m not leaving you here to brood,” I answered quietly. I wasn’t ever doing it again—leaving someone I cared for to fight their demons alone.
“I’m not,” he said. “I’m going next door, back to the café. I have some apologies to make.”
It sounded like a start, something to make him feel more himself again, so I nodded. We slid out of the car on opposite sides, stood for a moment looking at each other over the Lagonda’s roof. I thought for a moment Finn was going to say something, and then his eyes dropped to my bruised mouth and he flinched. “Good night.”
“Good night.”
And now I was alone in my empty hotel room, lying on the bed, unable to sleep. Yellow light filtered through the shutters from the streetlamps, and the muted sounds of nighttime traffic. Over and over, I ran my fingertips back and forth across my belly. The Little Problem had been quiet ever since I decided not to go to Vevey. Probably figured she could take her ease and just grow, grow, grow until it came time for her to be born. Only then would she realize that the world was a cold place, and her mother had very little idea of how to give her a good life. Before Oradour-sur-Glane I’d at least had a fantasy idea, a magical equation where Charlie plus Rose magically guaranteed a happy future for everyone. Now I didn’t even have that.
“Sorry,” I said softly to the stomach that was still flat under my exploring fingers. “Your mama’s every bit as helpless as you, baby girl.” I don’t know why I thought it was a girl, but I did. Baby Rose, I thought, and just like that, she had a name. Of course she did. Another Rose. A Rose of my own.
A church bell chimed midnight. My stomach rumbled, the newly named Little Problem complaining that she hadn’t had dinner. Strange how bodies kept stubbornly functioning in the middle of grief or guilt or shock. “That’s one thing I do notice about you, Rosebud,” I told my stomach. “You might not be showing yet, but I already need the lavatory twice as much.”
I got out of bed, pulled a sweater around me, used the lavatory, then found myself padding down the corridor. No light under Finn’s door. I hoped he’d managed his apologies next door and come back to dreamless sleep. I wondered if he regretted what we’d done in the backseat. I didn’t. I hesitated outside his door, then tiptoed past to Eve’s. Light showed in a yellow strip—she was awake. I struck the door open without knocking, striding inside.
Eve sat at her windowsill looking down at the dark street. The dim light hid the ravages of her face—she could have been any age, tall