Hannah just stared into the fire.

  Althea went on alert. By now, Althea could read her far better than Hannah probably realized. “Hannah.”

  Her lips parted, then closed.

  “Hannah.” Althea gathered Hannah’s hands in hers. “No. You have to stay far away from it. Convincing him not to get himself killed is one thing, getting involved . . . No, you can’t.”

  “He’s my brother.” Hannah said it so simply Althea wanted to shake her.

  “And he’s not thinking right,” Althea said. “You know that.”

  Hannah shot her a guilty look.

  “What did you do?” Althea asked, her chest tight, the air in the room gone.

  “I followed him.”

  Althea looked down at her own hands, realized she was clutching on to Hannah, and tried to relax her grip. Her fingers didn’t listen. “Oh God. Followed him where?”

  “The Adlon, near the Brandenburg Gate,” Hannah said, her voice distant like she didn’t actually realize she’d answered.

  Althea had heard of the hotel, which was often referred to as Little Switzerland because it played host to diplomatic events. She cursed softly.

  “I don’t know what he’s going to do,” Hannah admitted. “But the location scares me.”

  It scared Althea, too. World leaders met there. Nazi leaders met there.

  But as much as Althea liked Adam, he wasn’t her priority. “You have to stay away from there.”

  “I can’t just let him die,” Hannah said, unshed tears in her eyes. “I don’t know what else to do, though.”

  “He knows that you care if he lives,” Althea said. It was all she could offer at the moment. Hannah and her friends and the rest of the Resistance group had all tried to reason with Adam, apparently to no avail. At some point, they had to trust that he would make the right decision. “It’s good for him to know, that someone cares about him. It might stop him from doing something stupid.”

  Hannah didn’t say anything, but she didn’t pull away, either, both of them watching the fire for a long time.

  Finally, Althea cleared her throat, debating if she should say what she wanted to. But the world was going up in flames anyway. “You should know, too. That someone cares. That I . . . that I care. I would care if something happened to you.”

  Hannah’s breath caught, audibly, and she seemed to come back to herself. Then she lifted Althea’s hand, bringing Althea’s wrist to her mouth. She pressed a kiss there, her eyes locked on Althea’s. “I’ll be safe. I promise.”

  Something loosened in Althea’s chest, for reasons she couldn’t explain. She remembered the terror she’d felt back at the cabaret, searched for it now, and found nothing but a pleasant, buzzing excitement.

  Althea had spent her whole life afraid. Now that she had marched up to a bully and said no, had pushed him, had been pushed by him and survived, nothing seemed as terrifying anymore.

  When she had come to the city, she had tried to be a version of herself that hadn’t existed. She had wanted to be Berlin’s Althea James. But now she knew. She didn’t have to be anyone but herself.

  She stood, holding out her hand.

  Hannah inhaled, her beautiful golden eyes big and round.

  Surprised.

  Althea’s heart thudded in her ears, and for a moment, she wondered if she had misunderstood.

  But then Hannah slid her palm into Althea’s and let herself be tugged to her feet, let herself be led to the bed.

  Althea sat, her knees bracketing Hannah’s thighs. Hannah bent down, cupping the jaw that was bruised from Diedrich’s violence, her thumb brushing along Althea’s cheekbone, waiting, questioning.

  “Yes,” Althea breathed out, and Hannah’s mouth met hers, swallowing the word before it even landed in between them.

  The kiss was slow and so different than Althea had imagined. At first, it was just a gentle press of lips, a hello, and then it deepened, Hannah’s tongue slipping inside, tracing the ridge of Althea’s palate, everything hot and slick. Hannah surrounded her, the subtle, sweet smell of rain and oranges wrapping around Althea as Hannah nudged her up the bed without relinquishing her mouth.

  Althea went, gloried in the weight of Hannah’s hips pushing her own into the mattress. Her calves came up, wrapped around Hannah’s thighs, bringing her even closer still, chasing the pleasure that was building between her legs.

  Hannah softened the kiss, nipped at Althea’s lower lip. The tiny pinprick of pain had Althea arching her back, baring her throat. “Please.”

  She didn’t even know what she was asking for, but Hannah seemed to understand, trailing her lips down along Althea’s neck, pressing an open-mouthed kiss against a delicate collarbone, one hand tracing up Althea’s body to cup her breast.

  Everything in Althea throbbed at the contact, and she whimpered.

  “Shhh, sweetheart,” Hannah murmured, and Althea sunk into the warmth that the endearment offered. She wanted this woman to take her apart, because she trusted Hannah to put her back together again.

  The sensations blurred after that, became almost too much and then not enough. Hannah was at times gentle, soothing, and at others demanding, challenging, like a dance that Althea was learning as she went.

  When everything quieted, they lay in Althea’s narrow bed, facing each other like a pair of commas, their knees brushing, their hands petting affectionately.

  Hannah was part of Althea’s story now, woven tightly into the tapestry of her. Even when Althea left, Hannah would remain.

  Althea traced Hannah’s lower lip. “Do people like us get happy endings?”

  It wasn’t what she’d meant to say. She hadn’t even been trying to tell herself that she and Hannah could have a happily ever after. They lived worlds apart, and that wasn’t likely to change anytime soon.

  But this was all new to Althea, the fact that this even existed. And so she’d blurted it out without thinking.

  “Yes,” Hannah whispered and the answer wrapped around Althea just as surely as Hannah’s scent had earlier. “They may be complicated, but that doesn’t make them any less happy. In fact, I think they’re all the better for it.”

  “Promise?” Althea demanded.

  “Promise.”

  They drifted like that until the sun had well and truly risen. Althea was just finally starting to sleep when the pounding came.

  She sat up, staring at the door before glancing back at Hannah. The woman was shrugging into a button-up shirt Althea had left hanging over the chair near the bed.

  Her mouth was set in a grim line. “You’ll have to answer it, or they’ll come in.”

  Althea dressed as quickly as possible, making sure Hannah was decent before she crossed the room.

  When she opened the door, Diedrich stood there, his fist raised. His eyes flew over her shoulder to where Hannah must be standing, his expression going furious in the blink of an eye.

  Only after she flinched back did Althea notice the brownshirts standing behind him.

  Chapter 39

  Paris

  March 1937

  Paris might not have been home for Hannah, but she wasn’t without resources.

  She started to ask around about Deveraux Charles. The consensus seemed to be that the pretty actress had been won over by the Nazis.

  Hannah tried to recall those months at the end of thirty-two, the beginning of thirty-three, the memories syrupy and fetid all at once. There had been nights at the cabarets but then also nights at Resistance meetings. There had been the thrill of university but then there had also been the disappearing student body, friends being expelled simply for being Jewish. There had been a hint of economic recovery in the air, but also clashes in the street where death had been an acceptable outcome of any skirmish.

  Now, Hannah couldn’t even remember how she’d met Deveraux. A friend of a friend of a friend, perhaps. The woman had seemed so glamorous, so cynical, so worldly. Her insults directed toward the Nazis were neither veiled nor subtle. She had been up-front about the fact that she was going to use them to fund her visit to Germany, but she wasn’t on their side.

  In 1933, that had seemed like an understandable bargain.

  All Hannah could think now was that it was people like that who had let Hitler rise to power. The terrible men Hitler had surrounded himself with were absolutely complicit in what was happening, but so were the otherwise decent people who thought that Hitler’s success could ultimately benefit them if they simply held their noses over the parts of him they didn’t like.

  “The only thing I know is that she’s staying at the Hotel Majestic,” Natalie said, when Hannah questioned her about the run-in she’d had with Dev. “In the sixteenth arrondissement. She had told me she was leaving, but someone said she was spotted at Le Chat last night.”

  “Have you ever heard anything about her?” Hannah asked, aiming for mildly curious. She couldn’t even explain to herself why there was an itch at the back of her skull making her pursue this line of questioning.

  “Nazi putain,” Natalie said, without hesitation. Hannah didn’t yet speak French fluently, but whore was one of those words you learned when you first got to the country. “She makes their films, sleeps with the highest official she can nab. Bounces around between them. Gets glowing press articles written about her.”

  “Makes the Nazis more palatable to the Americans.” Hannah finished that train of thought, and Natalie tipped her head in agreement.

  “Not that many of them need much encouragement.”

  “Not that many people anywhere do,” Hannah countered, and again Natalie nodded.

  “I was surprised you knew her.”

  “In another life, it seems,” Hannah said, her attention slipping into the past.

  And she realized what had been lurking there, that image of Althea crumpled on a sidewalk, tears in her eyes as she whispered I didn’t.

  On Sunday morning, Hannah found herself in front of the Hotel Majestic, loitering on the corner outside the massive building, the weight of Otto’s pistol heavy against her side, tucked into her jacket pocket.

  The hotel looked like the rest of Parisian architecture, ostentatious in design but built with bland white marble that had the city all blending together into one unforgettable blur.

  After Hannah had waited for an hour or so, a sleek black Mercedes slid to the curb, and Deveraux spilled out onto the sidewalk, her silky, slinky dress clearly from the night before riding high on her thigh.

  A man dressed in a Nazi uniform followed, just as unsteady. Both were still drunk, it seemed.

  They laughed, loud and obnoxious, drawing scandalized scowls and impressed smirks from those passing in and out of the hotel lobby.

  Hannah closed her eyes, called herself foolish, erratic, even. But then with a single nod, she decided.

  She followed behind them, using two older men with briefcases as cover.

  By luck, she was close enough to hear Deveraux slur out a room number to the elevator operator. Fourth floor.

  Hannah detoured toward the back hallway to find the stairs, sparing a moment to be thankful she had worn trousers and sensible shoes.

  A woman passed her on the way down but didn’t spare her a second glance.

  Still, Hannah wondered what she was doing, wondered what her plan was. Knowing Dev’s room number changed nothing, not if she didn’t want to burst in on the woman and her Nazi lover, perhaps midcoitus.

  The thought did nothing to deter Hannah, though. She continued on, only pausing at the door to the fourth floor, listening for the ding that signaled the arrival of the elevator.

  Hannah palmed the grip of the pistol.

  Was she really this person? What was she planning on doing with the weapon? What did she even suspect? She didn’t quite know. She just knew that the power that came with wrapping her fingers around the metal centered her in a way nothing had since 1933 Berlin, when her world had been pulled apart.

  Hannah stepped out into the hallway.

  The pair had disappeared from sight, but Dev’s wind-chime laughter trailed behind her like a bad perfume. All Hannah had to do was follow it.

  When she turned the corner, she saw them.

  Dev pressed up against the wall beside a hotel room door, her Nazi lover’s face buried in her neck, her thigh hooked up around his waist, her hand threaded through his hair, her head angled back to give him more access.

  Hannah knew she hadn’t made a sound herself, but Dev’s eyes snapped to her. They weren’t clouded with alcohol, like Hannah had expected, but rather were clear and sharp. Her gaze dropped to the pistol, and then came back to Hannah’s face with some kind of grim understanding.

  Dev gripped the man’s hair, and somehow directed him inside the room without letting him turn to potentially spot Hannah. And more importantly the pistol she had gripped tight and pointed at the pair of them.

  Once the man had stumbled inside, Dev closed the door and leaned back against it. She regarded Hannah through hooded eyes. “You figured it out.”

  Hannah hadn’t, not really. But she didn’t want to give away her cards. “Why did you do it?”

  Dev breathed in, breathed out, stared down the hallway, and then looked back at Hannah. “Not here.”

  “Where?”

  “The roof,” Dev said, looking toward the ceiling.

  “Why would I go anywhere with you?”

  Dev sailed past her with a sure and steady stride. She paused when she reached Hannah’s side and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Just think how much easier it will be to kill me up there.”

  Hannah followed her to the elevator.

  Chapter 40

  Owl’s Head, Maine

  July 1944

  The problem was that the train sign had lied to Viv.

  It had said Owl’s Head, identifying the stop as clear as day. Apparently, though, its definition of stop varied wildly from her own.

  Viv had now been walking for near on an hour down a dirt road to nowhere and she was about to scream. Blisters had formed not only on her heels, but also on her hand where she was lugging a bag that would have been packed far more carefully had Viv known she would need to be carrying it for miles on end.

  On the verge of tears, Viv finally decided it was time to rest. She set her valise down and then sat on top of it, ignoring the cloud of dust that rippled up at the disturbance.

  She would not cry.

  That’s what she kept telling herself, at least.

  Just when Viv was contemplating heading back to the station, catching a train to New York, and pretending this whole thing hadn’t happened, she heard the purr of an engine.

  Viv clasped her hands together, sent up a prayer of gratitude, and stood, ready to wave down whoever was in the little red truck headed her way.

  They had to be better than death by lack of water and too much walking.

  She didn’t even need to flash any leg. The Ford stopped right next to her, the driver reaching across the bench to roll down the window.

  “Help you?” he called.

  He was exactly what she would have guessed Maine looked like. Big and burly with an overgrown beard and bear-paw hands.

  Viv tried to speak, but her throat was coated with dirt. She coughed, realizing how unattractive that was, and then dipped her head down to look in the window, hoping her batting eyelashes covered up for the sputtering.

  “Owl’s Head?” she managed.

  He looked amused at her plight. “Another two miles down the road.”

  “Christ,” Viv cursed without thinking, but he just popped the door open.

  “Get in,” he said with a little wave.

  Unbelievably grateful, Viv slid onto the cracked-leather bench and hauled her bag in behind her. “You, my good sir, are my savior.”

  “You would have made it.”

  “Maybe so,” she said, “but my feet certainly thank you.”

  “It’s further from the station than it looks.” He slid her a look. “You’re from New York.”

  “Is it that obvious?” Viv asked, though she knew it was. For all that she’d dressed for travel, she’d still dressed. Her clothes were fine and stylish, her hair and makeup more so.

  “Joe,” the man said, without answering. He held out his calloused hand, and she slotted her own into his palm.

  “Vivian,” she returned, since he’d kept it informal.

  “What’s your purpose in Owl’s Head?” Joe asked. He drove with an enviable confidence despite the rutted road.

  “I’m looking for Althea James.”

  “Oh ho.” Joe hooted a little. “One of those.”

  “No,” Viv retorted, peeved that he might think her a lookie-loo of some sort. “I have actual business with her.”

  “‘Actual business,’” Joe repeated, mockingly, in an accent that sounded nothing like her. She wrinkled her nose at him, despite the fact that he wasn’t looking at her to notice. “What actual business do you have with her, then?”

  “As if it’s any of your concern,” Viv shot back.

  “As both her brother and her manager, I would say it is,” Joe said, shooting her a smug smile. “Or I could turn around and take you to the train station.”

  Viv dropped her head back against the seat. “Small towns.”

  “They’ll get you every time,” Joe agreed.

  “Can I at least get lunch somewhere before you give me the boot?” Viv asked.

  Joe drove her into the quaint town that had one main street and a few side ones with residential houses and nothing else. Viv could actually hear the roar of the sea when she stepped out of the truck, and she had to admit she was charmed.

  “My place,” Joe said, with a nod toward the pub they’d parked in front of.

  It was all dark leather and rich mahogany, a beautiful bar running the length of the joint, deep booths, and well-cared-for tables decorating the rest of it.

  “Fish and chips?” he offered and she agreed, both knowing she didn’t have a choice and wanting the meal anyway.

  She was glad to take it when it came—the chips were perfect and greasy, the fish fresh and delicate despite the oil.

  Only when she was licking her fingers did she acknowledge how ravenous she’d been.

 

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