I need that strength from you now, Margo. Somehow I know I need you. We’ve always had each other’s backs and tonight I feel very alone. I am heading out to research new fabrics and may be on the road for a week or so. As before, you won’t be able to reach me, but I’ll telephone or write the moment I return to London. I will not lie to you—something about this trip has me anxious. Perhaps it’s only in my mind.
I find solace tonight in remembering everything between us, every story we’ve shared and every tidbit of our letters. They tell our story and, when I’m feeling lost and alone, they lead me to you. Do the same when you need me. Please? Pull out our letters and find me in each shared story and in each detail. It’s all there.
I’m sorry I called you Tresse last year. I have felt bad since the moment I posted the letter. You never betrayed me and, please remember, I will never betray you. Remind Father and Mother of that . . . They can be angry, they will be angry, but don’t let them doubt my loyalty and love.
As for you, you know me. You know how I feel and who I am. We are sisters. More than that, we are twins. We are we.
I love you. Forever.
C
“Oh my . . .” I leaned over the table. “I thought it was just sentiment before the Archives. A tearful goodbye of sorts, and it was, but not like I thought. She was nervous, but it’s not even that . . . She knew. They all knew about Christophe and the danger—why’d they let her go? Despite extra training, it was suicide. She’d been compromised. Why would she do it?”
“Her Lewis letter answered that one. It was the right thing to do. An absolute right ranks higher than perception or fear.” Mat angled toward me. “That letter? Coupled with the Lewis one? I’m sorry. I truly thought I wasn’t leaping to conclusions, but I was wrong.”
“Seems we all were.”
“It’s a relief really.” Mat chuffed. “The Atlantic aside, I did not want to tell the Arnim family about her.”
“I still wish I knew what happened. She said Margo could find out, and if she could, so can we. She can’t have just disappeared. You said she was too important for that—a woman with connections, a peer’s daughter. She would have been a prize and used for leverage.”
Mat circled the table. “Everything points to Paris. For her and maybe for Arnim.” Mat paused until he had my full attention. “Follow one and we might find the other?”
“Where? In Paris?”
With a side smile, Mat lifted and dropped a shoulder. He looked like a kid offering a dare. “Why not? If England doesn’t know what happened, we expand the search.” He raised his hand before I could interrupt. “We’ve got about thirty hours. She’s worth the effort.” He stared straight at me. “You’re worth the effort.”
My pulse raced as he broke the connection to check his watch. He continued, “It’s eight. We’ve got a few hours before the noon Chunnel that’ll get us there by 3:30 p.m. Paris time. We can get to the Police Prefecture Archives by four o’clock and they stay open until seven o’clock. Three hours. If we find nothing, we go back first thing tomorrow.”
“Whoa . . . How do you know all this?”
“Research,” he quipped. At my glare, he curved his lips into a self-deprecating smile. “It’s what I do. I didn’t have the funds to get over here on my own, so when the Arnim family paid for a Paris trip at the beginning of their project, I planned every second to get some of my own research done. I can tell you how to get Research Cards at national libraries in a dozen different countries, the cheapest trains and routes, how to arrange your ticket so you can get a free table on which to work, the most economical places to stay, the opening and closing times of countless municipal and government facilities, who’s got records online and who doesn’t . . . We have a window, Caroline. A small, closing window. The Paris police files were made public in 2015, but they aren’t online. What do you say?”
“We can still fly back to Boston Friday?”
“Out of Paris.”
So much was at stake, but what I told my mom was true: I wouldn’t pass this way again. “Let’s go.”
Thirty-One
While Mat organized train tickets and file requests from the Police Prefecture Archives, I went in search of Mom.
I found her in my grandfather’s former study. What was once wood paneled and dark had been transformed into something truly special—a jewel box. The walls were still wood paneled, dark and smooth, but the furniture was light and airy, cream with threads of gold and touches of pink and red. A huge modern painting of the silhouette of two girls, white against a lime background, hung above the tiny fireplace. Matching armchairs sat perfectly positioned across from each other in the bay window to catch the morning light.
She sat in one of the armchairs, staring out the window. She was threading a gold chain through her fingers with a pile of letters resting on her lap.
“Mom?”
I startled her. She looked to me, to the letters, and motioned for me to sit. “I remembered these this morning. I’m sorry I didn’t before. They were never with the other letters.”
She handed the small collection to me. “Those are Caro’s letters to her George. Your grandmother mentioned them to me in the last weeks before she died, but she couldn’t remember where he kept them. I suppose she wrestled with that, the diabolical pull between remembering where he hid them and trying to forget, her whole life.”
I dropped into the chair across from her. “Maybe it wasn’t about remembering or forgetting, but forgiving.”
“I think you are right . . . Why is that so hard? Especially forgiving ourselves.” Mom closed her eyes. I sensed her focus shifted from me to something deep within.
She opened them and motioned for me to hold out my hand. “She would want you to have this. You know her and her sister better than anyone now.” She dropped the gold into my palm. A beautiful gold heart covered in filigree rested in the chain’s nest. “They must have gotten mixed up somehow.”
“I read about these.” I looked closely within the tangled vines wrought into the gold and, after a heartbeat, found it. The C woven into the center. “The necklaces didn’t get mixed up. They traded.”
“Ah . . .” Mom nodded. “Margaret never removed it, but she also requested not to be buried with it.”
“Thank you.” I closed it within my palm. This entire journey I felt I’d been bucking my family, caught between railing at all that went wrong and longing for all to be made right. This necklace felt like acceptance, confirmation, even love. I swallowed to regain composure and to try not to read too much into the moment.
“We are headed to Paris.” My words came out rushed.
“Today?”
“Mat thinks we can find answers there and we don’t have much time. I’ll fly home to Boston from Paris on Friday.”
“So soon . . .” Mom pushed forward in her chair, perching on its edge. “I thought we’d have more time. There is so much we should talk about—things I need to say.”
I stared at her. Part of me wanted to sink into this moment and hear her out. Another part grew angrier with every breath—angry because, like Caro wrote, it felt so much safer than feeling guilty, rejected, and scared.
“You’ve had twenty years, Mom.”
Her eyes flickered, full of questions and shock.