chignon and perfectly painted lips. Jordan couldn’t think what to do, except to look confused and innocent. Her heart hammered.
“Scheisse.” Anneliese sighed. Setting her pocketbook down, she reached into it and pulled out a pistol in one firm, expert hand, and Jordan’s mind went white with terror as a shot crashed out.
THE METAL TRAY at Jordan’s right spun off the table in a clatter, even as she flinched back with a choked scream. It took her a moment to realize she hadn’t been hurt. “Let’s talk honestly now,” Anneliese said, matter-of-fact.
Jordan’s knees were pudding. She looked at Anneliese, at the pistol in her hand, and wanted to scream, but in this thick-walled space set below the ground, no one on the street was going to hear. She doubted anyone had heard the shot either. She opened her mouth.
“Whatever you’re about to say, it had better not be a lie,” Anneliese said. “I don’t want to shoot you, Jordan, but I will if I have to.”
“I believe you,” Jordan said in a thin voice. “You murdered Ruth’s mother in cold blood for her passport, you murdered a young English POW by a lake, and you murdered six Jewish children after feeding them a meal, so no, I don’t think you’ll hesitate to kill me.”
She expected Anneliese to deny it—weep, protest innocence, flow gently with emotion the way she had that Thanksgiving when she looked at the photograph of her SS lover and managed to convince Dan McBride and Jordan both that it was her father. But Anneliese merely moved down the staircase into the darkroom with a sigh. “I see you’ve learned a few things.”
Jordan found herself trembling. “What are you?” She couldn’t stop herself from asking the question, the great cry that had taken root in her mind since realizing the truth of it all . . . and even outside that primal cry was the cooler speculation: If I can distract her, maybe I can get away. Or maybe someone will come. It was not much of a hope, but staring down the barrel of a pistol, a slim chance looked better than none. “How could you do such things?”
Anneliese didn’t answer. She just sighed again, a sound so mortally exhausted it seemed to have been dragged from the soles of her feet, and sat down on the edge of the rumpled darkroom cot. “I’m so tired of running . . .” Looking at Jordan, her mouth trembled. “Why couldn’t you leave it alone?”
“Why couldn’t—” Jordan pushed away from the table, only to freeze as the pistol’s barrel came up.
“Sit down on the floor. Sit on your hands.” Just like that, the tremble was gone. Anneliese’s voice was weary, but her hand was steady.
Jordan sank down on the floor, tucking her hands under her, feeling the cold seep into her flesh. She expected Anneliese to rise and level the weapon, but she remained seated on the cot, seemingly too tired to move. Maybe she wouldn’t run at all. Maybe she was ready to turn herself in. Jordan didn’t really think so, but she tried a different tack.
“Whatever you do to me, don’t hurt Ruth.”
Anneliese looked surprised. “What reason would I have to do that?”
“She’s not your daughter. Do you even love her?”
“My poor Mäuschen.” Anneliese ran a finger along the cot’s blanket. “I didn’t mean to grow fond of her, you know. A Jewish child . . . I only took her with me because a mother with a beautiful little girl in her arms, well, no one suspects a woman like that. And she was so pretty. With that blond hair and none of the features one usually sees, the nose, the coarseness, perhaps there wasn’t much Jewish taint. I thought I could raise her free of all that. A way to make amends.”
“Amends,” Jordan said. “For murdering her mother.”
“I had no choice.”
“You really believe that.” Wonderingly. “You had no choice but to kill a woman and push her in a lake after robbing her of everything she owned? No choice?”
“You have no idea what cornered prey will do when desperate.” Anneliese touched the gray pearls at her neck. “I was very sorry I had to do it. She didn’t suffer, at least. I wear her pearls to remember her by.”
For a moment Jordan thought she was going to vomit. “You aren’t going to deny any of it,” she managed to whisper.
“I don’t see the point, really. You clearly know enough.” Anneliese straightened. “How did you find out?