The Queen's Accomplice (Maggie Hope Mystery #6)(15)

They reached Chuck’s old room. It was lovely—plain but clean, repainted in pale green. “Here you go,” Maggie said, leading Chuck to the bed. “Just like old times. I’ll run you a bath, and you can take your drink and sip it in the tub. Like Joan Crawford.”



As Maggie went into the bathroom, Chuck lowered herself onto the edge of the bed. “It’s gone,” she repeated absently. “Our home—it was there this morning—and now it’s…”

There was the sound of the tap running and then Chuck gave a whoop of hysterical laughter. “Be careful! You’ll fill it past the five-inch line!”

“Sod the silly five-inch line,” Sarah said, hugging Griffin close and kissing the top of his fuzzy head. “You deserve a decent soak.”

Maggie returned holding a nightgown, a dressing gown, and a hairbrush. “We’ll figure everything else out tomorrow,” she decided. “But, for now, I think a bath and a good night’s sleep are in order.”

Sarah turned to Maggie. “I know this is terrible timing, kitten,” she said. “But may I stay here too? Just for the night….I have the meeting tomorrow. I was going to stay at some women’s residence hotel nearby—I put the card somewhere—but—”

“No! No—you must stay here, of course!” Maggie agreed. “See, Chuck, Sarah will be here as well. Just like old times. And then when Elise arrives, she can have the fourth bedroom.” Maggie turned wistful. “Do you think she’ll like it?”

“That one was Paige’s room, wasn’t it?”

Maggie nodded, eyes melancholy. “Time moves on, I guess. Everything changes.”

Sarah handed Griffin back to Chuck. The baby’s eyes drooped shut. “Well, I have no doubt Elise will love it,” she whispered. “She’s lucky to have you. And David and Freddie, of course.”

Chuck began to sing in an alto voice that was tender and true:



“I’ll tell me ma, when I get home.

The boys won’t leave the girls alone.

Pulled me hair, stolen me comb.

But that’s all right till I get home.

Let the wind and the rain and the hail blow high.

And the snow come travelin’ through the sky.

She’s as sweet as apple pie.

She’ll get her own right by and by…”

Griffin had fallen fast asleep, snoring lightly. As Chuck held him and continued to rock and hum, Maggie murmured to Sarah, “My half sister Elise and I didn’t exactly part on the best of terms.”

“Well, you’ll have plenty of time—and space—to become reacquainted when she arrives.”

Chuck looked up, distracted, and whispered, “Who the bloody hell’s Elise?”

“Elise Hess—Maggie’s German half sister. Keep up!”





Chapter Three


Elise Hess was being hanged from a tree.

At least, that’s what the guards at the all-female Ravensbrück camp named the tall wooden cross they’d built to punish prisoners—the Tree. Mock crucifixion was one of the most common camp punishments for the religious political prisoners, Resistance fighters like Elise.

The guards would tie the prisoner’s hands behind her back, palms facing out. Then they’d turn her hands in, tie a chain around her wrists, and raise her up onto the cross.

Elise’s tormentors had added a crown of thorns—barbed wire left over from building the camp’s high walls. They’d twisted it into a circlet and placed it on the young woman’s head, shaved after lice inspection. Her light hair, once so thick and lustrous, had grown in only an inch or so, and was dull and straw-like. Where once she had been all sparkling eyes—blue as Novalis’s mysterious Blaue Blume—with plump cheeks, a narrow waist, and womanly curves, there was nothing left.

The barbed wire dug into the bare skin of her scalp. Blood trickled down her forehead, stinging her eyes. She felt frozen to the marrow of her bones. She struggled to focus on the faint outline of the sun behind the sullen clouds. But the winter weather in Fürstenberg was unpredictable. It was already the coldest on record. Elise watched, her consciousness receding, as fat, lacy flakes began to fall.



Snow was loathed by the prisoners of Ravensbrück, for the guards had devised an exhausting way for them to dispense with it. The inmates were given boards for scraping, shovels, and wheelbarrows. The work had to be done at a quick pace, so the warmth of the sun couldn’t melt the snow prematurely and spoil the guards’ fun. The prisoners wore their winter clothing—dresses of the same blue and gray striped material as the summer uniforms, but slightly heavier, and “coats” of the same material. Although there were always rumors of gloves and socks to be distributed, none ever came.

Emaciated and mostly bald, all the prisoners looked identical. But an insider could recognize subtle variations on the uniforms. An inmate’s number was sewn onto the left breast, and above the number was a colored triangle. Like Elise, the women below wore mostly red triangles—they were political prisoners, brought to Ravensbrück because of work with their country’s resistance movements.

Up on the cross, Elise looked for anything to distract her from the pain. But the sheer ugliness of the camp was inescapable, even draped in freshly fallen snow. Rows upon rows of wooden barrack huts disappeared into the distance. Smokestacks choked out black funeral wreaths.