did you give her that gun back?” I whispered. “If it had been loaded, one of us might be dead!”
“Who do you think took the bullets out in the first place?” He looked down at me. “I do it every night. She curses me a fair amount, but considering she nearly shot my ear off the first evening I came to work for her, she doesn’t have much of an argument.”
“Nearly shot your ear off?”
Finn looked at the door. “She’ll be all right now till morning.”
“How often does she do this?”
“Now and then. Something sets her off—she gets caught in a big crowd and panics, or hears some scaffolding collapse and thinks it’s an explosion. You can’t predict it.”
I realized my arms were still wrapped around my midsection. I could hardly think of the Little Problem as anything but, well, a problem—but my arms had flown to shield it as soon as I saw Eve’s gun. I dropped my hands, vibrating all over. I hadn’t felt so alive—alive over every shaky muscle, every prickling inch of skin, every hair standing on end—in a very long time. “I need a drink.”
“Me too.”
I followed Finn back to his room, which was not at all proper since I was halfway to naked in the nylon slip I’d been using for a nightgown. But I shut out the nasty, knowing voice in my head and closed the door as Finn switched on a lamp and fished inside his satchel. He offered me a flask, much smaller than Eve’s. “No glasses, sorry.”
No more miss now, of course. I shrugged, not expecting any different. I knew perfectly well what kind of equation was writing itself here. “Who needs a glass?” I bolted down a swallow of whiskey, relishing the fire. “All right, let’s hear it. René. Eve does know that name. If it’s the same one from the report, who Rose worked for—”
“I wouldn’t know. Only that she says that name a lot in these moods.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“Because I work for her.” He took a swallow from the flask. “Not you.”
“You two are quite a pair,” I snorted. “Both barbed-wire knots made out of secrets.”
“And for good reasons.”
I thought back to Eve’s haunted whisper when she’d quoted that bit about how death awaited the enemies of Germany. Something about her said combatant to me. I’d seen my brother come back from war, marking the changes in him with worried, loving eyes, and James wasn’t the only ex-soldier I’d observed. I’d danced with them at mixers, talked to them at parties, made a habit of observing them because I’d hoped I could see something that would help me help James. I’d failed in that; nothing I’d ever done had helped James, and even now I hated myself for it—but still, I knew what a combatant looked like, and Eve showed all the signs. “Will she be all right tomorrow?” James wouldn’t even leave his room the morning after episodes like this.
“Probably.” Finn leaned on the sill of the open window and looked down at the row of streetlights, taking another thoughtful swallow of whiskey. “She usually goes on the next day like nothing happened.”
I wanted to keep probing, but the whole thorny matter of Eve and her secrets made my head ache. I let it go for now, wandering over to join Finn at the windowsill. It was what came next in the equation, after all: girl plus boy, multiply by whiskey. Now add proximity. “So we’ll be in Roubaix tomorrow, if the car doesn’t break down again.” My shoulder brushed his.
He passed me the flask. “I can keep her ticking.”
“You’re pretty handy with that toolbox. Where’d you learn?” Prison? Curiosity was consuming me.
“I’ve been in and out of garages since I was a wee one. Playing with wrenches in the cradle.”
I took another swig. “Could I take a turn driving the Lagonda tomorrow, or is she a one-man car?”
“You drive?” He glanced at me with the same surprise he’d shown when I said I’d had a job. “I figured your family kept a chauffeur.”
“We aren’t Vanderbilts, Finn. Of course I can drive. My brother taught me.” A sweet, painful memory: James had escaped a big family barbecue by dragging me off in his Packard and giving me a driving lesson. “I think he really did it because he wanted to get away from our noisy relatives. But he was a good teacher.” He’d ruffled my hair, saying, You drive home, you’re the expert