The Librarian Spy(95)
James stiffened. “He was there?”
Ava’s stomach slid a little lower.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to worry you. Apparently one day he came in and spoke with one of the clerks before Sarah and Noah were turned away.” She shook her head. “I wasn’t there.”
James took a breath as if intending to say more, but Sarah and Noah emerged from the crowd of travelers. Noah beamed at them and triumphantly lifted the ice cream in hand, but Sarah’s face was stricken.
Ava did not need to ask why.
“The USS Siboney...” Sarah’s eyes filled with tears. “It has still not arrived.”
Which meant there would be no way for it to sail out by Friday now. Ava would have to begin the process over again. She forced down the bitterness of her own disappointment. Instead, she focused on reassuring her friend she would find a way to get her and Noah to America.
And Ava would. With patience and time—both of which were now in short supply.
TWENTY-FOUR
Elaine
The days following Nicole’s death were some of the darkest Elaine had known.
Elaine did not remember how she returned to the warehouse after seeing Nicole’s tortured body, only the sensation of being wrapped in blankets and how not even the warmth of their layers could allay her uncontrollable shivering. Afterward, once she finally shook free of her fugue state, she returned to work by rote, performing motions instilled by months of repetition rather than thought.
In the past, she had been able to outwork the horrors of war, but not now, not with such terrible images branded in her mind. Whispers followed her—ones of Nicole, of what she might have given up by the persuasion of such physical pain.
“She would never have talked.” Elaine rounded on Antoine, her voice sounding foreign to her own ears after having not spoken for nearly a week.
“You can’t know that,” he said in a solemn tone, ever the realist.
“I knew Nicole,” Elaine countered. “She would never have given the Gestapo any information about us.”
“Even still,” Marcel interjected, his tone paternal, “I think it best we find a different place for you to sleep rather than have you continue to stay here.”
While the warehouse was by no means a home, it was familiar. The idea of going to another safe house with a lumpy mattress and empty walls left a hollowness ringing in Elaine’s chest. But she could not deny that the suggestion was a sound one no matter how much it filled her with dread.
Elaine was out the door of the narrow, one room apartment as soon as the curfew lifted, eager to leave the cold loneliness of it behind. The stacks of newsprint from the night before were waiting for her at the warehouse, unfinished—something she might have completed had she been able to sleep in the back bedroom as before.
When she arrived, the front door was slightly ajar. She drew upright, her senses on high alert.
Most likely someone else had already arrived before her. They all worked tirelessly through the occupation and even more so now to comply with the massive uptick of requested production. Surely someone arrived tired, their exhaustion making them careless.
But to not close the door entirely...
They were all fatigued, but such a mistake was unthinkable. Reckless. Elaine pushed open the door and ensured it locked properly behind her. The light in the kitchen shone from a crack, dousing the hallway in a wash of dim gold.
She strode toward the room and shoved through the door with a mix of relief and irritation to discover which of them had been so forgetful. “You left the front door open.”
No one was within, but the room had been entirely upended. The chairs were flipped, the table absent a leg, the cabinets hanging open in defeat, the drawers pulled from their alcoves. Even her precious collection of breadcrumbs from the last two weeks was scattered on the floor like pigeon feed.
She pulled back instinctively.
Before she could recover from her surprise, strong hands grabbed her shoulders. She spun around, her fist flying.
Antoine ducked just before her hand could connect with his face. She gave him an exasperated look, too frightened to talk. He shrugged apologetically, also remaining quiet, and put his hand up to indicate she ought to wait in the kitchen. That was an order she could not obey. She shook her head, refusing for either one of them to be alone. Whoever had destroyed the kitchen might still be inside.
The thought chilled her. Immediately her mind summoned the image of Nicole as it so often did, of what she must have endured in those terrible hours before her death.
A shiver ran through Elaine, and she shook her head again a final time. Surely two would stand a better chance than one on their own.
The rest of the warehouse looked similar to the disheveled kitchen, all drawers pulled out, cabinets opened. A typewriter was missing, as well as a lockbox that contained several thousand francs.
Neither spoke, but Elaine knew what Antoine thought. She could not even stop the consideration herself, though it was met with a burden of guilt as soon as it hit her mind.
Perhaps Nicole had confessed.
And if she had, who could blame her?
As they were examining the damage, Marcel and Jean joined them, also taking inventory. Marcel emerged from the fake identity card room several minutes later, his face ashen with the realization that his original identity card with his real name had been taken along with the missing francs.