“Cab, if necessary.” She sounded so calm, as though she were planning tea. In the restaurant I’d sensed the fear behind the ice, seen her hands trembling in her lap under the table. Now she soared in some place far above fear, remote and relentless as a gliding eagle. Tossing the pistol into her satchel, Eve kicked out of the pumps she was wearing as respectable Mrs. Knight, and thrust her feet into her old sandals. “Come help me kill him, if you like. You have a right to want him dead too.”
“No. I won’t help you murder that man.”
“You don’t think he deserves to die?”
“He does, but I want something worse than death for him. I want to see him exposed, humiliated, imprisoned. I want him held up to the world so they can see what he really is. That will kill him slowly, Eve. The worst punishment in the world for a man as proud as that.” I took a deep breath, willing her to hear me. “Let’s go to the police. We have the photograph of him surrounded by Nazis, we have your testimony, we can call on the woman in Limoges who saw him shoot that sous-chef in cold blood. René Bordelon might have powerful friends, but so do you. You are a war heroine; people will believe you. So turn him in and make his life a living hell.”
For me that would be good enough. To see that man in a cell, knowing he’d been put there by Eve and me, suffering the public abuse of De Gaulle’s France that held collaborators and profiteers in as much contempt as vermin. No more chilled champagne and rillettes, just humiliation and the kind of gray prison days Eve had suffered.
“He’ll never sit in a cell, Yank.” Eve’s voice was implacable. “René Bordelon has made a career of avoiding c-c-consequences. If we accuse a respected local man with money and powerful friends, it will take time to prove those accusations. He’ll use that time to rabbit, because he always runs. He’s outrun the bad decisions of two wars, and he’ll run now because he knows I won’t stop coming for him. If I rely on an arrest warrant, he’ll be gone before it comes to his door, and he’ll resettle somewhere I’ll never find him.” She picked up the satchel with her Luger. “So I’ll rely on a bullet.”
I wanted to throttle her. “Don’t you see how many ways that could go wrong? He could easily shoot you, or call the police and see you carried off in handcuffs—”
“I’ll take the risk.” She looked down at me as I stepped between her and the door. “Out of my way, Charlie St. Clair.”
I looked her right in the eye. “No.”
She started toward me. I didn’t try to push her back. I wrapped my arms around her and held fast. “Are you going to drag me down the stairs screaming every step of the way?” I said, and realized I was near tears. “I won’t let go, Eve. I won’t.”
I’d lost my brother. I’d lost Rose. I wasn’t losing anyone else I loved.
Eve went stiff in my arms, as though she was about to fight—but then she sagged. I heard the glottal sound of a sob tearing loose from her throat, and then the satchel slid to the floor. We stood there a long time as Eve wept, as the sky in the open window behind her turned purple with twilight. I just held her, relief shuddering inside my chest.
She wouldn’t say anything at all when the tears dried up. She let me persuade her to lie down, took the whiskey I poured, shivering now and then under the blanket I laid over her. I sat by the bed nibbling my thumbnail, wishing silently for Finn. He knew better than I how to take care of her in these moods. I heard her breathing deepen and tiptoed downstairs to the hotel front desk, but they had no idea where Finn had gone with his mechanic friend. “Your telegram, madame,” the clerk reminded me. “From Roubaix.”
I’d completely forgotten. It had to be from Violette. My heart was suddenly pounding for entirely new reasons as I snatched the paper. The words were terse, even for a telegram.
Lie confirmed. A Mlle. Tellier responsible.
Golden choirs erupted in my head. I felt ten feet tall. I’d been right in my suspicions; I’d been right. For once I had it in my hands,