The Queen's Accomplice (Maggie Hope Mystery #6)(17)

Maggie picked up her spear and stood, braced and ready. As the beast ran, in the long moment of the charge, she asked Paige: “Am I the hunter or the prey?”

The other woman’s smile was cryptic. “You must decide.”



Maggie woke with a gasp and jumped bolt upright, the bedclothes coiled around her like adders. She sat, panting, chilled by the horrific images of her dream.

She had once stared into the abyss—and the abyss, through the blue eyes of the young man she’d killed in Berlin, had stared back at her. To defend what they love, people allow themselves to become what they hate, like a hall of mirrors, folding in on itself….But to look into the eyes of a beast?

At the touch of a velvety-soft paw on her cheek, she turned her head. K stared at her with glowing green eyes, pupils huge in the morning light filtering through the edges of the blackout curtains.

It’s the house, Maggie realized. Being back in this house where it all began. Where Chuck and Sarah and I lived with Paige. It’s the reminders of Paige, just that, nothing more….

She regarded the sleepy cat. “Why, hello there, K. You never told me—how was your sabbatical at Number Ten? Did Rufus and Nelson behave? Or the more important question is—did you?”

K blinked. “Meh,” he meowed in his odd way and dropped his paw. Then he marched toward the foot of the bed and turned his back on her.

“What? Wait—where are you going? Didn’t you miss me?”

When Maggie reached over to pet him, he wheeled with ears pinned back and hissed. Then he went a bit farther across the bed to turn his back on her once again.

“I am sorry I left you, K,” she offered in a small voice.

There was only silence and his sleek silhouette against the shadows.

“I had no choice—they wouldn’t let me take you to America. You would only have been seasick on the voyage over, anyway.”

He ignored her and began grooming, his pink tongue rasping against orange fur.



“And I missed you desperately, you know,” Maggie persisted. “There’s even a street named for you in Washington—K Street. I thought of you every time I crossed it—which was every day.”

At this he stopped, turned, and met her eyes again, his expression suspicious.

“It’s true. I missed you terribly, Fur Face.” At this admission, the ice melted and he began to purr. Low at first, but growing into a loud rumble. He stalked toward her, deigned to sniff her outstretched hand, then allowed her to pet him. He then paraded onto her chest, and once again, they bumped foreheads.

“We’re together again now, K,” Maggie murmured, cuddling him close, his glossy fur fragrant and warm. “And we’re home. I solemnly promise not to leave again unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

She looked around, taking in the details of her old bedroom. Same walls, same fireplace, same furniture—but the dark Victorian wallpaper had been stripped away and the walls were now painted in a bright blue. Gilded picture frames that once held gloomy hunt scenes now displayed recent covers of Vogue, Look, and even the Wonder Woman comic Tom O’Brian had given her in Washington. Ah, David—thank you. All the bad memories cleared away.

It was good to be back in London, and she had to admit it was also good to be back in her grandmother’s—her—house again. Months earlier, when she’d left for the United States, she knew she could have stayed there—doing war work but enjoying more safety and less deprivation—but her heart was in Britain. She’d started the war with the Brits and she’d end with them.

She wanted to be like Dante and go into her own private hell and emerge, victorious—maybe that way, by gazing unflinching at her inner demons, she might escape them, conquer them. But the more she tried to sort out her past and make some sense of it, the more she felt trapped in a web of unwelcome questions no one could or would answer for her.



What if, for instance, she had grown up like most people, with two parents? Why had she been led to believe they were dead? What had made her mother embrace Nazi ideology? Why had her father abruptly disappeared when she was born? Was it because of her father she hadn’t truly given John a chance in Washington, D.C.? Was that why she’d turned to Tom O’Brian, a soldier about to be shipped off? Do I have problems with men? Abandonment issues, as a psychoanalyst might say?

And, if she did, who could she talk to about it? What if her Aunt Edith had been a warm and maternal figure, who could have advised her on such things, instead of cold and authoritative? What if she’d had a sister to confide in? Speaking of sisters, would her half sister Elise ever forgive her for what had happened in Berlin? Would—

A soft knock at the door interrupted these questions. “Maggie? Are you up?”

Maggie lifted her head and released K. “Yes, come in.”

It was Chuck, deep shadows under her eyes, her brown hair flattened by sleep, her borrowed tartan flannel dressing gown straining across her impressive breasts.

The horrors of what had happened to her friend the day before came rushing back to Maggie. “Were you able to get any sleep at all?” she asked, sitting up and crossing her legs. K jumped in and settled himself in her lap.

Chuck went to open the blackout curtains. Outside, the sun was beginning to rise and the horizon was gunmetal gray. “Some. I nursed Griffin and put him down for his nap, so I suppose I could try to sleep now. But I just can’t. In shock, I suppose—it’s how our minds protect us from horrible news, isn’t it?” She tried to finger-comb the snarls out of her hair, then gave up. “I’m trying to look on the fucking bright side—Griffin’s here, you’re here—we’ll post a letter to Nigel today, and to my parents as well….” Chuck’s lip trembled. “Sorry,” she said.