The Nightingale(123)

She ran after him.

He was at the dovecote, yanking the door open.

“Herr Captain.” She slowed, tried to calm her breathing as she rubbed her damp palms down her pant legs. “You will not find anything or anyone here, Herr Captain. You must know that.”

“Are you a liar, Madame?” He was not angry. He was afraid.

“No. You know I am not. Wolfgang,” she said, using his Christian name for the first time. “Surely your superiors will not blame you.”

“This is the problem with you French,” he said. “You fail to see the truth when it sits down beside you.” He pushed past her and walked up the hill, toward the barn.

He would find Isabelle and the airman …

And if he did?

Prison for all of them. Maybe worse.

He would never believe that she didn’t know about it. She had already shown too much to go back to innocence. And it was too late now to rely on his honor in saving Isabelle. Vianne had lied to him.

He opened the barn door and stood there, his hands on his hips, looking around. He put down his torchlight and lit an oil lamp. Setting it down, he checked every inch of the barn, each stall and the hayloft.

“Y-you see?” Vianne said. “Now come back to the house. Perhaps you’d like another brandy.”

He looked down. There were faint tire tracks in the dust. “You said once that Madame de Champlain hid in a cellar.”

No. Vianne meant to say something, but when she opened her mouth, nothing came out.

He opened the Renault’s door, put the car in neutral, and pushed it forward, rolling it far enough to reveal the cellar door.

“Captain, please…”

He bent down in front of her. His fingers moved along the floor, searching the creases for the edges of the hatch.

If he opened that door, it was over. He would shoot Isabelle, or take her into custody and send her to prison. And Vianne and the children would be arrested. There would be no talking to him, no convincing him.

Beck unholstered his gun, cocked it.

Vianne looked desperately for a weapon, saw a shovel leaned against the wall.

He lifted the hatch and yelled something. As the door banged open, he stood up, taking aim. Vianne grabbed the shovel and swung it at him with all of her strength. The metal scoop made a sickening thunk as it hit him in the back of the head and sliced deeply into his skull. Blood spurted down the back of his uniform.

At the same time, two shots rang out; one from Beck’s gun and one from the cellar.

Beck staggered sideways and turned. There was a hole the size of an onion in his chest, spurting blood. A flap of hair and scalp hung over one eye. “Madame,” he said, crumpling to his knees. His pistol clattered to the floor. The torchlight rolled across the uneven boards, clattering.

Vianne threw the shovel aside and knelt down beside Beck, who lay sprawled face-first in a pool of his blood. Using all of her weight, she rolled him over. He was pale already, chalkily so. Blood clotted his hair, streaked from his nostrils, bubbled at every breath he took.

“I’m sorry,” Vianne said.

Beck’s eyes fluttered open.

Vianne tried to wipe the blood off his face, but it just made more of a mess. Her hands were red with it now. “I had to stop you,” she said quietly.

“Tell my family…”

Vianne saw the life leave his body, saw his chest stop rising, his heart stop beating.

Behind her, she heard her sister climbing up the ladder. “Vianne!”

Vianne couldn’t move.

“Are … you all right?” Isabelle asked in a breathless, wheezing voice. She looked pale and a little shaky.

“I killed him. He’s dead,” Vianne said.

“No, you didn’t. I shot him in the chest,” Isabelle said.

“I hit him in the head with a shovel. A shovel.”

Isabelle moved toward her. “Vianne—”

“Don’t,” Vianne said sharply. “I don’t want to hear some excuse from you. Do you know what you’ve done? A Nazi. Dead in my barn.”

Before Isabelle could answer, there was a loud whistle, and then a mule-drawn wagon entered the barn.

Vianne lurched for Beck’s weapon, staggered to her feet on the blood-slicked floorboards, and pointed the gun at the strangers.

“Vianne, don’t shoot,” Isabelle said. “They’re friends.”

Vianne looked at the ragged-looking men in the wagon; then at her sister, who was dressed all in black and looked milky pale, with shadows under her eyes. “Of course they are.” She moved sideways but kept the gun trained on the men crowded onto the front of the rickety wagon. Behind them, in the bed of the wagon, lay a pine coffin.