Catching the Wind(46)

He swore. “There’s no time for this.”

“You can transmit yourself,” Frau Terrell said.

“No one on this side of the channel can know I’m here.”

“I could try—”

“They would never understand your German.”

“Perhaps she’ll do it in the morning.”

“They are listening tonight for my broadcast,” Roger clipped. “If they don’t know I arrived safely, they won’t return to take me home.”

Brigitte heard Frau Terrell step up beside him, her voice soft, almost kind in comparison to the German man’s. “We need your help, girl.”

When Brigitte still didn’t respond, Roger stuck something cold into the side of her neck. Steel. Frau Terrell cried out.

Brigitte could block out his face, but not his gun. Or his words.

Roger whispered in her ear, “Do you know what this is?”

She nodded.

“Then you had better get out of bed. And find your voice.”

Brigitte slowly opened her eyes, but she didn’t sit up. He wouldn’t really shoot her, would he? Frau Terrell wouldn’t let him.

Something moved in the corner. Another rat. Roger whirled around, and his pistol blasted. Pain fired through Brigitte’s ears, all the way down to her toes, and she screamed. The sound echoed around the room like the roar of the gun. And Roger’s horrid lips settled into a smile.

At the sight on the wall, blood spattered across the wood, bile flooded her throat. She closed her eyes, plugged her ears, escaping to the tree house. To the laughter in her heart. To the music in the trees.

There was no music in this house. No laughter. There was nothing but sadness and despair.

Roger nudged her again with his gun. “If you don’t get up, you are as worthless to me as that rat.”

She had no doubt now that he would shoot her. Nothing Frau Terrell could do would stop him.

Shivering from fear and cold, Brigitte sat on the cot, resting her bare feet on the cracked wood floor.

He pointed toward the door. “Let us begin.”

His suitcase was propped up on the kitchen table, but instead of clothes inside, she saw knobs and the veins of black wire connected to a box.

“I assume you know how to read German.”

She nodded.

“Very good.” He passed over a piece of paper with four lines on it. Then he held out a small box and switched a lever.

With a tap of the paper, he signaled for her to read.

“Ich bin—” she began, her voice shaky.

She looked up at Roger, hovering over her. Would he shoot her if she messed up?

Roger’s lips pressed together, his eyes narrowing. He was angry at her.

Her eyes back on the paper, she continued reading.

I am safe with a friend and ready for guests. Will meet you next Friday.

Roger clicked off a button and checked his watch. “Right on time.”

“Will the British hear it?” Frau Terrell asked as he packed up his case.

“Perhaps, but they won’t know where I’m transmitting from. Or who is sending this message.”

“And your friends?”

“They heard it,” Roger said before he pointed at Brigitte. “Go back to bed.”

She slipped away from the table as Frau Terrell moved toward the kitchen, saying she would make tea.

Standing at the doorway into her room, she could see the spatter of blood on her wall, smell the stench that had settled over her cot. Instead of stepping inside, she eyed the front door of the cottage, on the other side of the table.

Lauf.

She could almost hear Dietmar telling her to run.

Somewhere close was the village they’d passed on their drive here. She could find food on her own. A place to sleep. Anyplace was better than this, even sleeping in a shed or on a barn floor. The rats could crawl on her if they wanted, as long as Roger and his gun didn’t threaten her again.

Roger swore when she rushed out the door, into the night. She ducked under tree limbs, plowed through the mud and muck, her legs burning. Not once did she look back.

A stream of light shone through the branches around her, but the torch wouldn’t find her. Dietmar had taught her how to dodge the evils of light.





CHAPTER 28





_____

“What are you doing up there?” Lucas asked, seemingly perplexed as he stepped out of his car, the headlamps on his Range Rover illuminating Quenby’s hiding place among the leaves.

She hopped off the limb. “Thinking.”

He leaned back against his car. “Does it help to sit in a tree?”

“People who are scared often do unexpected things,” she explained. “Sometimes it helps to do unexpected things as well when you’re piecing together their story.”

“There’s nothing expected about you, Quenby.”

She brushed off the seat of her jeans. “Taking that as a compliment.”

“As it was meant to be.” He opened the passenger door, and she climbed inside.

Fortunately, Kyle and his girlfriend had left earlier, speeding past Quenby’s nest in the tree. While she waited in the lamplight, she’d searched various websites for Olivia Terrell in the UK, hoping to find a descendant who could answer her questions about Brigitte.