“We must hurry,” Rosalind urged, her suitcase in hand. “My mother will kill us both if she finds us.”
Apparently Lady Ricker no longer wanted to feed any of them.
Brigitte froze on the doorstep, images swirling in her mind. For more than two years, this cottage had been her den. An unsafe place, and yet she could hardly remember the world on the other side of these trees. The outside seemed large and looming. Impossible and terrifying.
How was she going to live out there?
Rosalind was in the driver’s seat of the car, starting the engine. And Brigitte heard baby girl crying in the garden.
Lauf.
She could almost hear Dietmar whispering to her again. And she knew she had to run, for her life and for this baby.
Gears grated as Rosalind began reversing the car, and Brigitte pounded on the hood.
“Wait,” she demanded before rushing to the garden.
If she hadn’t stopped her, Rosalind would have driven off, without Brigitte or her daughter.
CHAPTER 43
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A steel-colored Porsche was parked along the river road, beside the Range Rover. As Quenby stepped out of the forest, the door opened and a man in his early sixties emerged. She stared at him in shock.
“Mr. Graham?” No one at the syndicate called him Evan to his face.
He rounded the car, dressed in jeans and a short-sleeved plaid shirt. She’d never seen him wearing anything except a business suit.
“Good morning, Quenby.”
“What—?” She forced her words to form. “What are you doing in Newhaven?”
“I was over in Brighton,” he explained. “Chandler said you came here on your holiday.”
She opened the door to Lucas’s SUV and tossed her backpack inside, trying to recover. Then she turned back to the man who could make or break her job. “Do you typically check in with your employees on vacation?”
“Of course not.” He slid on his sunglasses. “It’s just that I have a particular interest in the story you’ve been working on.”
“Chandler said you killed it.”
“At the time, there didn’t seem to be enough information to run an article.”
“And Mrs. McMann’s attorney called you.”
He leaned against the car, a casual position more forced than natural. “Mr. Fenton wasn’t very pleasant about the whole business either, but I’m not afraid of a lawsuit. As long as you do your job right, there won’t be any litigation.”
“I was doing my job—”
“You’re a brilliant journalist, Quenby.”
“Thank you,” she said, though her words sounded more like a question. He was leading this conversation, and she wasn’t certain to what end.
“I’m reconsidering this story.” He drummed his fingers on the door. “Chandler said that your research is focused on the Ricker family.”
Quenby nodded. “Lady Ricker organized a network of people who worked for Hitler during the war.”
“But you need proof.”
“I have plenty of proof.”
When his eye twitched, she decided to take a step back from her allegations. “I’m still working to gather all the facts.”
“So nothing concrete yet?”
“I’m verifying what I’ve found.”
“I’m intrigued, but your article has to be different from any other story written on German espionage.”
“It will be,” she said. “It’s about an American-born woman who operated a safe house for German infiltrators. She opened up the door to England and invited the country’s enemies inside.”
“This network,” Evan said slowly. “Are you still gathering information about them as well?”
“I am.”
“And you think there’s some proof at this abandoned mill?”
She hesitated. “I’ve been doing some hiking during my holiday.”
“Of course,” he said, though he didn’t seem to believe her.
“I’ll ring Chandler if I find anything pertinent before I return to work.”
“Please contact me directly if you have any new leads,” he said before giving her the number for his mobile. “Are you staying in Newhaven for the next week?”
With that question, he crossed the line. Quenby loved her job, but she was on a mandated holiday, free to do what she liked whether it was walking the woodlands or searching for a lost woman or flying off to Florida.
She climbed into the SUV, the door propped open. “I’ll be around,” she said as she started the engine.
“I don’t suppose I need to remind you about the confidentiality in your job.”
The reminder sounded a whole lot like modern-day blackmail to her.
“I know all about confidentiality.”
But there was nothing in her contract about staying mum on a canceled story.
She closed the door and drove north, toward the Biggin Hill Airport to meet Lucas.
Like Louise McMann, Evan was worried about something, and she intended to find out what it was.
Chapter 44