“She unfortunately died on the second night of the bombings,” Emmy said, her voice breaking a bit.
Mac again looked up at Emmy, surprised at her reaction to the death of her half sister’s mother. Emmy was fine with Mac thinking whatever he wanted. She did not try to mask the emotions etched across her face.
“I’m so very sorry, Isabel. Damn this war. Damn the Nazis to hell.” He shook his head like people did when they were disgusted, and he slipped the notebook and pencil back inside his pocket.
“I just want to find her, Mac. I’m all she has. I’ve checked with the police and the hospitals and the IIPs. They have no record of her being found. None of the remaining neighbors have seen her.”
“And you’ve thoroughly checked the flat?”
“Yes. I’ve been back several times. There is no gas or water or electricity.”
“No other relatives or friends of the family could have come for her?”
For the first time it occurred to Emmy that Charlotte might have come back for Julia. Maybe that was why every search she had made on her own came up empty. Maybe Julia had been discovered by an ARP warden who managed to get her back to the foster home where she should have been all along.
But she had scoured as many evacuation and billeting records as she could since the night she and Julia returned to London. There was no record of a Julia Downtree being reevacuated to her foster home in Gloucestershire.
What she hadn’t checked was whether a certain Charlotte Havelock had reported her evacuees as having run away. Surely Charlotte had notified someone when she awoke the morning of September 7 and saw that Emmy and Julia were gone. There would be a paper trail for that. There—
“Isabel?”
Emmy snapped back to the present moment. “What?”
“No one else?”
“No . . .” But her mind was far away. She had to find out whether Julia was safe and sound with Charlotte. Surely that was where she was. That was why she couldn’t find any trace of her in London! Why hadn’t she thought of this before? Just because she had found no record of Julia being reunited with Charlotte at the beginning of her search didn’t mean that record didn’t exist now.
Emmy rose from her chair and nearly knocked it over. “I need to get back.”
Mac’s eyes widened in surprise. “Just like that? You—you haven’t even eaten your Danish.”
“I—I forgot to take care of something important. I—I need to go.”
Mac rose, too, unconvinced. “Did you remember something about your sister?”
“Yes . . . I mean, no. I mean, I need to go.”
Emmy made for the lobby doors and she could sense Mac was right behind her. He sprang ahead of her so that he could open the door before the bellman did.
“Can I see you later today? A drink after work perhaps?” he said.
“I—I don’t know.” Emmy couldn’t think about anything but her new task at hand.
“You don’t know?” Mac smiled and held the door open wide.
They emerged onto the street. A light drizzle was falling but the air still stank of fire, ash, and ruin. Emmy turned to Mac to say good-bye.
“Thank you,” she blurted, and stepped away from him.
“For what?” Mac called after her.
“For . . . the Danish!” she said.
“You didn’t even eat it!”
But Emmy just smiled stupidly and dashed away into the rain.