her was unbearable.
For a minute she looked around the station, wanting to give up. If Marie wouldn’t even see her, what point was there in going on?
Then she squared her shoulders, steeling herself. She had to see Marie and explain what really happened. This was about more than Marie’s feelings or forgiveness; she needed Marie to help prove what had really happened during the war. With Marie’s help, they could bring the truth to light about the betrayal that had killed so many of her girls.
She would go to Marie’s flat, Eleanor decided, and insist that she listen. She started across the station.
Outside the station, she paused to get her bearings. She looked at the passersby, wanting to ask someone for directions. She approached a group of commuters waiting near a bus stop. “Excuse me,” she said to a man who was reading the paper. But he did not seem to hear. As she turned to find someone else, she spied a phone booth at the corner. Perhaps the operator might have a number for Marie.
Eleanor crossed the street to the phone booth. Then she faltered; perhaps it was best just to go find Marie, rather than calling and giving her a chance to say no. She stood indecisively, caught between the phone booth and the bus station. As she turned back toward the bus station, something across the street caught her eye. A flash of blond hair above a burgundy print scarf, like the one Marie had worn the first day she came to Norgeby House.
She had come after all! Eleanor’s heart began to pound. “Marie!” Eleanor called, starting back across the street. The woman started to turn around and Eleanor stepped hopefully toward her. There was a loud honking of a car’s horn, which seemed to grow to a roar, and Eleanor turned, too late, to see the vehicle barreling toward her. She raised her hands in a protective gesture. She heard a deafening screech of the brakes, felt an explosion of white pain.
And then she knew no more.
Chapter Thirty-One
Grace
New York, 1946
Grace gasped as the door to the apartment opened. “Marie Roux?”
The woman’s eyes flickered. Her eyes bore a bit of fear, but something more...resignation. “Yes.”
For a moment, Grace was frozen with disbelief. She had spent so much of the last few weeks seeing Marie’s image, first in the weathered photograph and later, after she had returned it, in her mind’s eye. Now the woman was standing before her, come to life. There were little changes since the photo had been taken, faint lines around the mouth and eyes. Her cheeks were a bit more sunken and the hair around her temples bore strains of premature gray, as if she had aged lifetimes in a few short years.
“Who are you?” the woman asked. Her English accent, refined but not overly posh, was exactly as Grace had imagined.
Grace faltered, unsure how to explain her role in the affair. “I’m Grace Healey. I found some photographs and I thought...” She stopped and pulled out the lone photo she’d kept.
“Oh!” Marie brought her hand to her mouth. “That was Josie.”
“May I come in?” Grace interjected gently.
Marie looked up. “Please do.” She ushered Grace inside and led her to a small sofa. The apartment, no larger than Grace’s own room at the boardinghouse, was clean and bright, but the furnishings were spare and there were no photographs or other mementos adorning it. There was a door at the rear and through the opening she could see a tiny bedroom. Grace wondered if Marie hadn’t been here long or, like herself with her own flat, simply hadn’t made the place into her home.
Marie held up the photograph. “Is this the only one?”
“There were others, including yours, but I left them at the British consulate. I’ve been trying to get these photos returned to the right person,” Grace explained. “Is that you?”
“I don’t know.” Marie looked genuinely uncertain. “I suppose I’m the only one left.”
How? Grace wanted to ask. Marie had been listed among those killed as part of Nacht und Nebel. But the question seemed too intrusive. “Can you tell me what happened during the war?” she asked instead.
“You know that I was an agent for SOE?” Marie asked. Grace nodded. “I was recruited by a woman called Eleanor Trigg, because I spoke French well.” Grace considered interrupting Marie to tell her about Eleanor, then decided against it. “After training, I was dropped into northern France to work as a radio operator