The Librarian Spy(49)

Elaine turned the machine off and gathered the newsprint, careful not to hug them to the pressed front of her pale pink blouse. Ink did not come out easily, and soap was impossible to find. It was yet another one of life’s former conveniences once taken for granted, never appreciating what had previously been so readily available.

After setting the newspapers on the desk, the silence pressed at her, heavy and seemingly eternal. She cleared her throat to minimize its weight. The sound echoed back at her.

The room was cavernous, its emptiness threatening to swallow her whole. A shiver rippled down her back. She strode to the door, flicked off the lights, and made her way down the corridor toward the kitchen. A cup of roasted barley and chicory always calmed her before bed.

An audible thump carried down the hall.

Elaine froze.

The building was only sighing into its old bones, no doubt. Nothing to work into a panic over.

With a shake of her head at her own foolish paranoia, she pushed into the dismal little kitchen and put a kettle onto the stove to boil the water. Something down the hall banged, the noise audible over the gush of the faucet.

Elaine squeezed her eyes shut and hissed out a breath, refusing to let her mind play vicious tricks.

Then came a sneeze in the distance.

Chills raced from her heart to her skin so the small hairs on her forearms stood on end. No natural sound of a building settling could mimic a sneeze.

Antoine and Jean left several hours before, and Marcel was in Grenoble. Fellow Resistance members sometimes took shelter with them when safe houses were unable to be located, but in such an instance, Elaine and the others were notified.

To her knowledge, no one should be there now.

She quietly slid a drawer open and pulled out a butcher knife. The weapon would be ineffective against a gun, of course, but the heft of the cool handle against her palm offered some semblance of security. However false it may be. She toed off her shoes and crept toward the door, straining to listen in the silence for evidence of where the intruder might be.

A whistle pierced the air and made her startle with such force, she nearly parted with her own skin. Heart racing and hands trembling, she wrenched the kettle from the stove with her free hand and turned off the heat from the burner. The shrill cry immediately cut short.

It was too late. Whoever was inside would know exactly where she was. She crept out of the kitchen, her entire body tense as her brain screamed at her to run.

But where would she go? It was past curfew, and she was barefoot, her identity papers in her desk within the warehouse. Not to mention the damp chill as the October rains consumed Lyon. Outside, she would be even more vulnerable. At least in here, she knew where to hide. Or possibly sneak up on the intruder. If she could take the person by surprise, she might have a fighting chance.

She slipped down the hallway, her feet cold against the bare floor. The door to the bedroom remained closed, but a nagging suspicion told her the sound had come from there.

Adrenaline poured into her with such potency, nausea churned in her empty stomach. She forced herself onward, easing the door open so it moved soundlessly.

Weapon brandished, her heart pounding like a drum, she turned the corner.

A woman with dark hair pulled back from her face gazed up, a child cradled in her embrace. “Please.” Her arms tightened around the boy. “We have nowhere else to go.”

Caution prickled Elaine’s awareness. The press was not easy to discover, especially in a place where so many warehouses were abandoned, their stores depleted by the occupation.

Elaine scanned the room. “Is there anyone else here with you?”

The mother shook her head. “It’s only us.”

Elaine lowered the blade but kept it in her hand as a precaution.

“My husband, Lewis, is in America,” the woman stated, her stare fixed on the knife. “We are alone.” Her voice caught.

“Why did you come here and how did you get in?”

“We escaped.” She stroked a hand over her son’s dark hair and spoke in a gentle tone. “I heard the Gestapo at our door saying they had reports of movement in the home after the occupants left, where an older couple were keeping us hidden. We went out the back door and walked as far as we could. But when the curfew began, I panicked and climbed over the terrace wall at the back of the building. The door there was open and no one was around. That’s how we entered the warehouse...”

Elaine let out a slow exhale. Her foolish error could have been more disastrous. The noxious odor of grease and oil exacerbated her headache earlier, the fumes more than she could take with the press’s repeated banging. But she never suspected anyone would break onto the terrace, not with the neighborhood being so old and practically abandoned.

But then, desperation often led to impulsive decisions.

Both women watched one another with wariness. While Elaine had been drilled to always be vigilant, there was something innate in her that told her to trust this frightened woman. Her young child pressed against her chest nestled closer against the black outdoor coat the woman still wore.

At last, Elaine tucked the knife behind her, and the tension drained—mostly—from her taut muscles. “Have you had dinner?”

The woman swallowed. “Please, if you have just something for my son.”

“You may have some for yourself as well.” Elaine had seen too many starving women giving all their food to their children.