The Darkest Hour(48)

I tell myself that he got what he deserved. He was like Monsieur Travert, the scum of the earth.

But when my eyes well with tears, I let them fall.





It’s the same cat-and-mouse game, and I’m the mouse once again. I skitter through the Marais district, zigzagging left, then right, with one arm clutched around my valise. I don’t stop. If the Nazis catch me and take one look inside my bag, I’ll be done for quicker than a goose on Christmas.

A dozen blocks from headquarters, the guttural bellow of a truck engine sails into my ears and I press myself flat against the wall of a jewelry shop. Once again I’m grateful for the power outage that has curled a black fist around the city. My legs twitch, ready to flee, but I hold my breath and wait. The Nazis will be expecting us to run; they’ll be searching for movement on the dark streets.

And I won’t give it to them.

The truck slows and rounds the corner, and I pull up a map of Paris in my head to chart the shortest path to Laurent’s. He lives in the 11th arrondissement, not far from Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis, the same church where I met with Monsieur Travert. Was that only four days ago? It feels like an entire year has passed since then. We’ve lost Delphine and now Harken, and even headquarters is gone.

I cross the Seine under the watchful gaze of Notre Dame, and at last I veer onto a cobblestone street that’s lined with humble row homes. The houses were built so closely that the residents have stretched clotheslines from window to window, like telephone wires connecting one house to its opposite across the road. Damp blouses and cotton trousers hang inches above my head, and I have to brush aside a pair of brown socks to reach Laurent’s house at the end of the lane.

When my feet hit the front step, there’s no need to knock. Laurent’s thirty-year-old daughter, Christiane, is already there to whisk me inside. Right as she shuts the door, the words tumble out of me. “Our headquarters were compromised. Harken is—”

She pulls me away from the door. “I know, cheri. Matilda told me.”

“Tilly’s here?”

“She arrived ten minutes before you did. She asked for my father, but he’s working late at the club again.” She sighs and touches a shaky hand to her curly hair, strands of which have already gone gray. This war has aged her fast. “Tilly told me everything. I thought she was babbling nonsense at first, but now that you’re here, too … It’s all true, then?”

I don’t know what to say. So I simply nod.

She kneads her fingers against her temples. “I don’t know if I can believe it.”

I don’t blame her. I don’t think I would’ve believed all this, either, if I hadn’t seen the life leak out of Harken myself, or if I hadn’t heard that radio message. “Where’s Tilly now?”

“I put her in the attic. I didn’t know where else to hide her.”

“Can I see her?”

“Of course, but let’s get you cleaned up first.”

Christiane takes me to the washroom sink. I don’t know why she’s insisting that I clean myself up, but then I look down and realize why. Harken’s blood has dried on my hands, is caked under my nails, and is streaked across my shirtsleeves. I must look like I’ve murdered someone with my bare hands.

Christiane dips my fingers into the copper sink and scrubs each of them with soap, leaving the water tinged pink. Seeing Harken’s blood wash off reminds me of his last moments. Him, struggling for breath. Clutching the hole in his stomach. A bitterness reaches into the back of my throat, and I wish I could toss that memory across the Atlantic.

I can’t mourn for him. I won’t—not for a traitor like he was.

“We’ll head upstairs now,” Christiane says while she towels off my damp hands. “Once Sabine arrives, I’ll go to the club to fetch my father.”

After she deposits me in the attic, I search for Tilly in the darkness. The attic is small and reminds me of the one in Madame Rochette’s house, but the sweet charred scent of Laurent’s pipe floats through the air, and I hold on to this small comfort.

Tilly doesn’t stand to greet me. I find her curled at the foot of an old chaise.

“Any word on Sabine?” she whispers.

“Christiane went downstairs to wait for her.”

She wraps her arms around her knees, making no move to sweep the hair that has fallen over her face. “I didn’t think it could get any worse after we lost Delphine. Now headquarters … Harken …”

I slump next to her, and I realize how exhausted I am. When was the last time I got a full night of sleep? Before I came to Paris, probably. Maybe even before that. When Theo was alive and I wouldn’t wake up from seeing him in my nightmares.

“How long was Major Harken a double agent? The entire time he was in charge of Covert Ops?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know if we’ll ever know.”

“I killed people at his bidding, Lucie,” Tilly goes on, her voice as fragile as the lace coverlet on the chaise’s arm. “Were they even our enemies?”

I drape an arm around her. “Don’t think like that. Harken got most of our targets’ names from the Resistance, some even from Laurent. The people we took out were far from innocent.”

“How can we be sure? Six people are dead because of me. Six lives that I can’t get back.” She looks down at her own hands, and the pads of her fingers are stained with Harken’s blood, too. She grimaces at the sight of it. “I have to find the washbasin.”