“And what work would that be?”
Jordan paused. What did Anneliese do that summed up her essence? Cooking, as she whipped up her dense, delicious Linzer torte? Sewing, her quick fingers moving over a lace collar? Neither seemed quite right. In the rare photograph Anneliese allowed to be taken, she looked exactly the same: anonymous and pretty, face turned to the flash like a shield. What was the essential Anneliese? “I’ll find out,” Jordan promised.
Anneliese looked briefly amused, then the smile faded to something more somber. “Jordan, we’ve talked about you managing Ruth if I went on a buying trip for the shop . . .”
Jordan untied her apron. “I thought you wanted to hire someone to do the buying.”
“After four years with your father, I think I can tell a good bit of china from the bad. I’d like to go to New York for a few auctions.”
“I can watch Ruth. Especially now with Mrs. Weir holding down my end at the shop; she managed things for Dad years ago, so she’ll keep it running like clockwork. You should go to New York, Anna.” Jordan liked the idea of Anneliese heading off to take up the business reins. Maybe her stepmother too was eager to stretch her wings, be more than a housewife with her sewing room. I’d like to see you try, Jordan thought, not without a flash of guilt for her father. His love had been so all-encompassing, but it had also . . . confined. Jordan knew she wouldn’t ever, ever voice that thought aloud, but she couldn’t help having it.
“Then I’ll plan a week or so in New York,” Anneliese was saying, all crisp decision. “And if you don’t mind watching Ruth, I’ll take another two weeks in Concord after that.”
Jordan paused, hanging up her apron. “Why Concord?”
“Because your father and I honeymooned there.” Anneliese traced the counter with a fingertip. “I . . . want to say good-bye to that memory.”
“Oh, Anna.” Jordan touched her hand. Yes, there was guilt in Anneliese’s blue gaze too. Perhaps she had also felt caged by Dan McBride’s fond, firm hand over her life.
Anneliese gripped Jordan’s fingers, eyelids lowered. “I’ll have to be the strong one for Ruth once you’re gone. Not short-tempered with her, the way I’ve been lately. If I can . . . get a little time to put myself in order, I’ll be ready.”
“Anything you need.” Anneliese’s hand was chilly in Jordan’s. Well done, J. Bryde. Too busy mooning about a prospective date to notice how worn-out your poor stepmother is. Jordan gave Anneliese’s cheek a remorseful kiss, told her to sit down with some sherry, and took Ruth and Taro out to enjoy the twilight. Reassuring Ruth that yes, her mother would be gone for a few weeks, but Jordan would be there for everything. And yes, the lesson next week really would happen; Mr. Graham wouldn’t forget.
And how much easier it was going to be to get Ruth her music lessons if Anneliese wasn’t there to sneak around.
Chapter 37
Ian
July 1950
Boston
Waking up this morning, I would not have bet that by nightfall you’d have a music student, and I’d have a date with a Red Sox fan.” Tony came back into the apartment after putting Jordan McBride and her sister into a cab.
Ian tucked his violin back in its case. “I should have known you’d beeline for the first pretty girl to cross your path in this chase.”
“I want her going home wondering if I’m going to steal a kiss Monday morning, not wondering why her clerk is shacked up with an inexplicable Limey and an even more inexplicable tableful of paperwork that was mostly, if she’d looked closer, copied from her shop.” Tony flopped into a chair, propping his boots on the dead radiator.
“Yes, I saw you shuffling papers out of sight behind her as I was playing.” That was the reason Ian had offered to play—well, partly. He shut the lid on the violin, still rather touched by Ruth McBride’s intense reaction to it. Normally if anyone cried at his playing, it was because he was butchering the music. “Is that why you were nudging me with your eyebrows to take the little girl on as a pupil? So her sister wouldn’t stop chatting and start looking about?”
“Partly.” Tony linked his hands behind his head, studying Ian. “Though you surprised me by offering in the first place. Why did you?”
“I don’t entirely know.” That visceral reminder of Seb, as Ruth looked up with her stricken eyes . . . the offer had just tumbled out. “I tried showing Seb how to play at that age, but he preferred bird books and model trains.” Ian smiled at the memory and Tony smiled too.
“Well, you made that little girl very happy.”
The self-same song that found a path through the sad heart of Ruth, Ian thought, the old line of Keats springing to mind. When, sick for home, she stood in tears amid the alien corn . . . That first impression still lingered: sick for home. No, Ian didn’t regret taking the time to make those eyes shine this afternoon. Even in the middle of tracking a murderess, one could take time to be kind to a child. Or else what was the bloody point of it all?
“I like Ruthie,” Tony said. “Sad little thing, somehow. But don’t turn down Jordan’s money when she offers to pay you for teaching her. We are already looking at an enormous telephone bill.”
Ian raised his eyebrows. “Since when is it Jordan and not Miss McBride?” Tony grinned. “Well, if you’re taking her out, see if you can get anything new about Kolb. And don’t step on any hearts in the name of information gathering.” Though Tony seemed to walk that line very well, just light enough with women that they didn’t seem to mind when he drifted away.
“You’re now the expert in not breaking hearts?” Tony lifted the telephone receiver. “You get to flirt with the next girl in the line of duty, then.”
“Certainly not.” Ian skimmed down the next page of addresses. “I’m a married man.”
“I thought you were divorcing.”
“I am. We are. When there’s time.”
Tony paused, then put the telephone back down with a tilted smile. “Ian, has it entirely escaped you that you’re falling for your wife?”
Ian glanced up. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Look, I was glad when you two started sharing more than just a name. You need something in your life besides war criminals and that violin, because whether you’ll admit it or not, you’re lonely as hell. And Nina’s just your idea of a good time, because underneath that starched collar you like to live dangerously, and your wife is the most dangerous goddamned female you or I have ever met in the flesh. But it’s more than just fun now, isn’t it?” Tony paused. “Because after five years of forgetting you even had a wife, you’re suddenly Mr. I’m a Married Man.”
Ian folded his arms across his chest, several replies warring. “I fail to see where any of this is your business,” he said finally.
“Because you’re my friend, you Limey bastard, and if your wife goes winging off into the clouds again when we’re done here, is she going to leave you in pieces all over the floor?”
Chapter 38
Nina
August 1944
Polish front
A lone voice lifted up into the sky, hushed, wobbling. Yelena’s voice from somewhere in the throng of pilots, singing the ancient cradle song from the shores of the Old Man, the song Nina had sung on the airfield that first night. Softly the other pilots took up the song, as Nina pressed her burning eyes shut. They knew. Whether by some whispered word of gossip or by the thread of communication that bound them like a shared radio channel, they all knew.
The quarter moon was still rising over the auxiliary airfield, the pilots awaiting the order to fly. Nina stood in the squelching Polish mud, sealskin cap dangling from one hand and knapsack from the other, a lump in her throat like a stone.
This cannot be happening, she thought.
The song trailed away.
With a huge effort, Nina looked up. Her fellow pilots had moved closer as they sang, as she stood head bowed denying the inevitable. They clustered tight around her, instinctively hiding the regiment’s distress from any outside eyes who might have been watching. Many cried silently, faces turned to her like flowers: dark eyes and blue eyes, red-haired and brown-haired and fair-haired. Nina took a shaky breath, inhaling the scent of engine grease and clean sweat, mud and navigation pencils. The perfume that belonged to women who lived for the sky. She couldn’t see Yelena, but in her mind she heard Yelena’s voice. Not the implacable voice of an hour ago, crying out You’re asking too much! The laughing voice of almost three years ago, as she grasped Nina’s arm and said Welcome, sestra!
Then the memory was blotted out by Bershanskaia’s quiet words. “To your planes, ladies.”