“We didn’t find the pilot,” he said, downing the second drink, pouring a third.
“Oh.”
“These Gestapo.” He looked at her. “They’ll kill me,” he said quietly.
“No, surely.”
“They do not like to be disappointed.” He drank the third glass of brandy and slammed the glass down on the table, almost breaking it.
“I have looked everywhere,” he said. “Every nook and cranny of this godforsaken town. I’ve looked in cellars and basements and chicken pens. In thickets of thorns and under piles of garbage. And what do I have to show for my efforts? A parachute with blood on it and no pilot.”
“S-surely you haven’t looked everywhere,” she said to console him. “Shall I get you something to eat? I saved you some supper.”
He stopped suddenly. She saw his gaze narrow, heard him say, “It is not possible, but…” He grabbed a torchlight and strode to the closet in the kitchen and yanked the door open.
“What are you d-doing?”
“I am searching your house.”
“Surely you don’t think…”
She stood there, her heart thumping as he searched from room to room and yanked the coats out of the closet and pulled the divan away from the wall.
“Are you satisfied?”
“Satisfied, Madame? We lost fourteen pilots this week, and God knows how many aeroplane crew. A Mercedes-Benz factory was blown up two days ago and all the workers were killed. My uncle works in that building. Worked, I suppose.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Vianne drew in a deep breath, thinking it was over, and then she saw that he was going outside.
Did she make a sound? She was afraid that she did. She surged after him, wanting to grab his sleeve, but she was too late. He was outside now, following the beam of his torchlight, the kitchen door standing open behind him.
She ran after him.
He was at the dovecote, yanking the door open.
“Herr Captain.” She slowed, tried to calm her breathing as she rubbed her damp palms down her pant legs. “You will not find anything or anyone here, Herr Captain. You must know that.”
“Are you a liar, Madame?” He was not angry. He was afraid.
“No. You know I am not. Wolfgang,” she said, using his Christian name for the first time. “Surely your superiors will not blame you.”
“This is the problem with you French,” he said. “You fail to see the truth when it sits down beside you.” He pushed past her and walked up the hill, toward the barn.
He would find Isabelle and the airman …
And if he did?
Prison for all of them. Maybe worse.
He would never believe that she didn’t know about it. She had already shown too much to go back to innocence. And it was too late now to rely on his honor in saving Isabelle. Vianne had lied to him.
He opened the barn door and stood there, his hands on his hips, looking around. He put down his torchlight and lit an oil lamp. Setting it down, he checked every inch of the barn, each stall and the hayloft.
“Y-you see?” Vianne said. “Now come back to the house. Perhaps you’d like another brandy.”
He looked down. There were faint tire tracks in the dust. “You said once that Madame de Champlain hid in a cellar.”
No. Vianne meant to say something, but when she opened her mouth, nothing came out.
He opened the Renault’s door, put the car in neutral, and pushed it forward, rolling it far enough to reveal the cellar door.
“Captain, please…”
He bent down in front of her. His fingers moved along the floor, searching the creases for the edges of the hatch.
If he opened that door, it was over. He would shoot Isabelle, or take her into custody and send her to prison. And Vianne and the children would be arrested. There would be no talking to him, no convincing him.
Beck unholstered his gun, cocked it.
Vianne looked desperately for a weapon, saw a shovel leaned against the wall.
He lifted the hatch and yelled something. As the door banged open, he stood up, taking aim. Vianne grabbed the shovel and swung it at him with all of her strength. The metal scoop made a sickening thunk as it hit him in the back of the head and sliced deeply into his skull. Blood spurted down the back of his uniform.
At the same time, two shots rang out; one from Beck’s gun and one from the cellar.
Beck staggered sideways and turned. There was a hole the size of an onion in his chest, spurting blood. A flap of hair and scalp hung over one eye. “Madame,” he said, crumpling to his knees. His pistol clattered to the floor. The torchlight rolled across the uneven boards, clattering.
Vianne threw the shovel aside and knelt down beside Beck, who lay sprawled face-first in a pool of his blood. Using all of her weight, she rolled him over. He was pale already, chalkily so. Blood clotted his hair, streaked from his nostrils, bubbled at every breath he took.
“I’m sorry,” Vianne said.
Beck’s eyes fluttered open.
Vianne tried to wipe the blood off his face, but it just made more of a mess. Her hands were red with it now. “I had to stop you,” she said quietly.
“Tell my family…”
Vianne saw the life leave his body, saw his chest stop rising, his heart stop beating.
Behind her, she heard her sister climbing up the ladder. “Vianne!”
Vianne couldn’t move.
“Are … you all right?” Isabelle asked in a breathless, wheezing voice. She looked pale and a little shaky.
“I killed him. He’s dead,” Vianne said.
“No, you didn’t. I shot him in the chest,” Isabelle said.
“I hit him in the head with a shovel. A shovel.”
Isabelle moved toward her. “Vianne—”
“Don’t,” Vianne said sharply. “I don’t want to hear some excuse from you. Do you know what you’ve done? A Nazi. Dead in my barn.”
Before Isabelle could answer, there was a loud whistle, and then a mule-drawn wagon entered the barn.
Vianne lurched for Beck’s weapon, staggered to her feet on the blood-slicked floorboards, and pointed the gun at the strangers.
“Vianne, don’t shoot,” Isabelle said. “They’re friends.”
Vianne looked at the ragged-looking men in the wagon; then at her sister, who was dressed all in black and looked milky pale, with shadows under her eyes. “Of course they are.” She moved sideways but kept the gun trained on the men crowded onto the front of the rickety wagon. Behind them, in the bed of the wagon, lay a pine coffin.
She recognized Henri—the man who ran the hotel in town, with whom Isabelle had run off to Paris. The communist with whom Isabelle thought she might be in love a little. “Of course,” Vianne said. “Your lover.”
Henri jumped down from the wagon and closed the barn door. “What in the fuck happened?”
“Vianne hit him with a shovel and I shot him,” Isabelle said. “There’s some sisterly dispute on who killed him, but he’s dead. Captain Beck. The soldier who billets here.”
Henri exchanged a look with one of the strangers—a scrappy, sharp-faced young man with hair that was too long. “That’s a problem,” the man said.
“Can you get rid of the body?” Isabelle asked. She was pressing a hand to her chest, as if her heart was beating too fast. “And the airman’s, too—he didn’t make it.”
A big, shaggy man in a patched coat and pants that were too small jumped down from the wagon. “Disposing of the bodies is the easy part.”
Who were these people?
Isabelle nodded. “They’ll come looking for Beck. My sister can’t stand up to questioning. We’ll need to put her and Sophie in hiding.”
That did it. They were talking about Vianne as if she weren’t even here. “Running would only prove my guilt.”
“You can’t stay,” Isabelle said. “It isn’t safe.”
“By all means, Isabelle, worry about me now, after you’ve put me and the children at risk and forced me to kill a decent man.”
“Vianne, please—”