Page 56

“Tante Corinne?” Felix, sounding frightened, just as they’d practiced. He would be moving to her side, wrapping an arm around her leg. His perfect French—any accent long gone, in the way of children—would give credence to their story. “Is everything all right?”

“Everything is fine, Félix.” She pronounced his name in the French way, the vowels longer than they were in German. The door squeaked open. “At least I hope so. What brings you to my door, Oberstleutnant? I thought our business quite concluded when the Sorbonne was closed.”

Ackermann’s heavy steps sounded, striding straight into the center of the living room, from the sounds of it. “I will decide when our business is concluded, mademoiselle . What do you know of Christian Bauer?”

Oh, God, please. Please. Please.

A pause. Would she be lifting a brow? Frowning? Pursing her lips in supposed thought? Whichever response she chose, it would look convincing—he should know. He’d already been the recipient of her playacting more times than he could count.

More important would be Felix’s response. If they were still doing as they’d practiced, his son would have his face buried in her side, so any involuntary reactions he had would be hidden. Please, God. Please. His fingers trembled where he had them resting against his thighs.

“I know he was a professor. I know you and he butted heads. I know you shot and killed him.” Her voice went hard, cold as ice on that one.

“Do you?”

“That’s what Kraus and Gustaf both said.”

Oh, how Christian hated that low chuckle. It had never once preceded anything good. “It’s true I shot him. But I’m beginning to wonder if it killed him. His body has still not been recovered.”

Blast. Georges had debated whether they should find a corpse of similar size and general description, dress it in his uniform, and hide it somewhere to be found once decomposition had made it nearly unrecognizable.

..but that had seemed every bit as risky as having no body turn up.

What if they were unconvinced? Then the Nazis would know someone was trying to fool them.

They’d decided it was better to just leave the mystery.

Let them think the fledgling Resistance had found him, kept the uniform, and hidden his body somewhere—that it was long gone now.

“I hadn’t heard that part. I thought there was no question of his death. From what Kraus said, you shot him directly in the heart at point-blank range. And—forgive me. Félix, dear, why don’t you go and play in your room for a bit? Go on. That’s a good boy. Go ahead and close the door.”

Christian breathed a bit easier when Felix came into the room they shared, closing the door behind him. It made it more difficult to make out their voices, but far less likely that Ackermann would search in here, at least in theory.

As he’d been trained to do, Felix dumped a basket of blocks onto the floor—right in the middle of the path between the bedroom door and the small closet.

From the living room, Corinne’s muffled voice just reached his ears. “I find that very odd indeed, Oberstleutnant. Is this the prevailing suspicion among the authorities? I would have thought Kraus would have mentioned it.”

“The soldat is hardly party to the goings-on of the officers. And I will ask the questions now that your—nephew?—is out of the way.”

“Cousin, technically speaking.” She sounded so casual, as if she had no qualms at all about having Ackermann under her roof.

Georges’s training? Or her own indomitable nature?

“But given the age difference, ‘tante’ seemed a reasonable thing for him to call me. I’m afraid he was caught in a collapsing building in—”

“I don’t really care about the brat’s missing eye,” Ackermann spat out. Much as it made Christian wince, it was also good—he was just going to dismiss Felix entirely. Which was better than any other alternative. “I want to know how well you know Christian Bauer.”

Any relief sank back into unease. Know , he said—not knew . He really believed Christian lived. Bad, bad, bad.

“I saw him coming and going from the library. He was always polite.”

“And when he visited you here? Was he polite then? Friendly, I imagine? How friendly?”

A pause. Christian could well guess how Corinne’s mind spun, because his was doing the same thing. How much did he know and what was he just guessing at?

The same thoughts he’d had at Josef’s flat. And that had gone so, so poorly.

“To what visits are you referring, Oberstleutnant? Because I don’t much like the tone of your voice nor the implication I hear in it.” Leave it to Corinne to sound outraged, angry, instead of defensive.

Was Ackermann stalking closer? Looming over her in that way he liked to do?

“I have been checking up on you. I paid a visit to one of your neighbors at his place of employment. He said that Bauer made visits here, to your flat, somewhat regularly. Said you always seemed annoyed by it, but...I wonder. Two bücherwurms , all alone up here...what did you really think of the professor?”

Her laugh might have been muted, but he could still hear loud and clear the disdain she’d first held him in.

“Honestly? I thought him a bore. Everything came back to Germany with him—how the German people did this or that. And his lectures on why burning and banning books is a good idea were infuriating. I couldn’t have been more relieved when Gustaf finally arrived in Paris and gave him someone else of intelligence to talk to. ”

Not as inflammatory a response as he’d been afraid she’d make, truth be told.

“And yet he still came. Why?”

He could imagine the lift of her chin. The glint in her eye.

“According to my neighbor, he was enamored. If so, he was too bashful to ever admit it to me. He talked a bit about his wife, whom he clearly loved very much. But generally, it was all books. I can detail for you his opinion on each text, if you’d like.

I don’t much consider them opinions worth sharing—but they will likely tickle your fancy, given your shared ideology. ”

Ackermann’s laugh was a bite, a snarl, low and cruel. “Oh, I promise you, mademoiselle , our ideology is quite different where it counts.”

“Well. I suppose that’s true. He didn’t seem to think he had to physically harm anyone who didn’t agree with him. How’s the nose, by the way? Looks a bit...crooked.”

Christian squeezed his eyes shut. She just couldn’t help but antagonize him, could she? He strained to hear Ackermann’s reaction, and the silence made his every tired muscle go taut. What was he doing? Had he made some response too low to reach this corner of the closet?

Or, worse—he could have grabbed her by the throat, silencing her reaction. He could have snapped her neck. He could have—

“What exactly are you doing?” Corinne again, but more distant. And back to outraged.

“Just having a look.”

“In case, what? I have your dead professor hidden in my kitchen? I admit to enjoying the occasional horror or tragedy in a book, but I am not so macabre as to—” A shriek. “Get your hands off my books! You think he’s hiding in a bookshelf?”

A crash that sounded as if an entire bookshelf was sent to the floor.

Christian winced, knowing Corinne wasn’t exaggerating her shouts now.

“Are you such an idiot you cannot look at the space between this wall and the kitchen and see there’s no possible way for anything to be hidden?

You monstrous brute! They are only— books! ”

Another crash.

“I’ll be reporting you to your superior! Gustaf will hear about this, along with those relatives of his! You cannot treat a law-abiding citizen like—”

Crash.

“Tante?” Felix shouted, though he didn’t move toward the door. Just as they’d taught him.

“Stay in your room, Félix!”

The final shelf in the living room must have given way to Ackermann’s rage, given the fourth crash.

His heavy steps then moved out of the living room, toward Corinne’s room.

Her litany of objections continued, providing Christian with a narration of his search through her drawers, under her bed, and into her closet.

Blast. He’d search this one too. Neither Felix nor his blocks would provide enough determent, clearly. Lord, blind his eyes. Make me invisible. For their sake. If he catches me here, I don’t know what he’ll do to them.

Christian’s throat went tight as the steps thundered their way and the door crashed open. “Out, boy!” Ackermann barked.

“Well if you would move out of the way enough to let him out...”

Felix started crying as he rushed from the room, and Christian knew well it wasn’t just because of the invader’s presence in his space. His boy knew what was at stake. He knew what was coming.

A drawer slid open. “Men’s clothes!”

“My uncle’s. I told you he was just out running errands. He and Félix share that room, and he stays with him while I am teaching.”

“A likely story.” A squeaking, heaving sound, from the space where the bed sat. Or had. It sounded like he flipped the whole thing over.

The closet door opened. Christian held his breath, not daring to move so much as a millimeter. Not daring even to blink lest he hear it.

And then, praise God, another voice, from the living room. “Corinne? Corinne! What is going on?”

“Oncle Georges!”

Christian had no idea if Georges’s appearance would stay Ackermann from any intentions he had, but his arrival at least distracted him for a moment. “Who are you?”

“Georges Piers. Corinne’s uncle. Who are you ? And why have you turned our flat upside down?”

“Because your niece is suspected of harboring a fugitive.”

“What?” Georges sounded genuinely baffled—and every bit as outraged as Corinne. “This is a tiny flat, not some old house with hidden passages. Where would she hide someone? And who the devil would she try to hide?”