The German Wife(113)

“She went grocery shopping the last three Fridays, but she came home early yesterday. That’s when I knew for sure. How did she know I was in the house?” He stood, his footsteps heavy and frustrated as he walked to the table. He pushed the box of ammunition to the side and scooped up some black-and-white photographs, quickly bringing them to show me. “See?” he said, his tone triumphant and accusatory. “This proves it, Lizzie. They’re up to something.”

I accepted the photographs as he handed them to me. I looked down into the faces of three young children in one. The next was of an elderly woman. And then my stomach dropped as I stared down at what was unmistakably Sofie and Jürgen Rhodes’s wedding photo. They were young and innocent and both beaming as if they couldn’t contain their joy. Cal’s words ran through my mind. He adores her. In that photo, Jürgen Rhodes looked like the happiest man in the world.

I flipped to the next photo, and as I stared down at the final one, I felt a pinch in my chest. An even younger Sofie Rhodes, this time with another young woman beaming at the camera, a Star of David pendant hanging from her necklace. They had suitcases at their feet. They looked like their lives were spread out before them, begging to be explored.

“These are just photos,” I said to Henry. Intensely personal photos. He’d been in their house—riffling through their things. My head spun.

“But don’t you see?” Henry whispered, balling his hands into fists and pressing them to his forehead. “It means something. I just can’t decipher it. They’re going to hurt you—people like that don’t change.”

“When have you had time for all of—” I waved around the mess in the room—the notes on the wall, the photos in my hand “—this? You’ve been working—” I broke off, feeling stupid. I spun toward the nearest notes and my heart sank. These were not Henry’s work time sheets. Some were marked with an S at the top, some were marked with a J. He’d been following them for weeks. “Oh. Oh, Henry...”

“I knew you’d be upset, so I didn’t tell you I’d quit, but some things are more important than a job in a lumberyard, Lizzie,” Henry told me, stricken.

I should have seen this. I should have known Henry was in trouble—deluded or confused or just plain broken. My gaze went back to the bullets on the table and my heart sank all over again.

“When did you buy the gun?”

“I bought it just before Christmas when I was in a bad way. I was going to—” He broke off, squeezing his eyes shut. “I didn’t buy it for Rhodes.”

“Henry,” I choked out on a sob. No. “I want to hear about that. I want to talk to you about that and tell you how much I need you here. But right now, I need to know about this morning. Where is the gun now?”

“I dropped it.” He squeezed his eyes closed, frustration on his face. “In the yard. You saw him the first time he came here, didn’t you? That was the only time he let you see him.”

“He wasn’t here that night, Henry.” It was a dream or, I finally acknowledged, a hallucination. Whatever had been happening in Henry’s brain, I had no doubt it felt very real to him.

“But he chased me this morning!” Henry choked out. “He was going to follow me here to hurt you! I had to stop him!”

“And is he...?”

“I think he’s dead,” Henry wailed, and the rocking started again. I drew in a deep breath.

Murder was a capital offense in Alabama. Henry was clearly not in his right mind, but I didn’t know if that would be enough to save him. He had done this trying to protect me, and now he needed my protection.

I flew off the bed and rushed to his closet. I pulled his suitcase down from the top shelf and started to throw his clothes into it. “Do you remember where that hospital was? The place where you had the insulin therapy?”

“I don’t want to go back there,” Henry said. “No, Lizzie. Please.”

“Honey, you just have to. You need help, and the VA is the best place for you to get it.”

“Did I shoot him? Did I dream that?” Henry said, after a pause.

“I don’t know, honey,” I said, although the sirens in the distance seemed to be multiplying by the second, so I had a fair idea that he had. Once the suitcase was full, I clipped it closed, then thrust it at my brother. “Take this. Go to your car right now. Do you have gas? Money for gas?”

He nodded mutely, staring at me through cloudy eyes.

“Henry, you have to drive yourself back to that hospital in Nashville,” I said slowly. I still wasn’t sure he understood. And right in that moment Henry’s mind was obviously elsewhere—with Jürgen Rhodes, or back in Europe, or already on the road. I took him by the shoulders and gently pulled at him, encouraging him to stand. “Can you do that? Can you get yourself back to the hospital?”

“I—Yes. I think so.” The hospital was almost two hours away, but I couldn’t think of any other way to get him out of town than to send him under his own steam.

“You can’t breathe a word of this to anyone. When you get to the hospital, you just tell the nurse you’re confused. You tell her you’re seeing and hearing things that aren’t there.”

“But I’m not—”