Page 35

As Colette and Daniel walked through the front door of Hubert Verdier’s assisted-living facility, Colette braced herself to be turned away—perhaps their visit a few days earlier had been too disruptive, or perhaps O’Mara had left word that she wasn’t to be allowed to visit Verdier again.

But the same receptionist sat at the desk, and when she looked up and saw Colette, she smiled.

“Lucas’s friend, right?” she asked before Colette had a chance to speak. As Colette managed a startled nod, the woman’s smile widened. “It’s wonderful to see you visiting again, ma’am. Our residents get so much out of interactions with loved ones.”

“How… lovely,” Colette choked out.

Giving her the day’s code to the memory-care floor, the receptionist cheerfully waved both Colette and Daniel through.

“You may want to check the dining room first,” the woman called after them as they headed to the elevator.

“They should just be finishing up midmorning coffee and sweets. The residents love it!”

“Of course,” Colette managed weakly.

“Are you all right?” Daniel asked a moment later as they rode up to the fourth floor.

“Not particularly. The idea of the man who may have killed my sister sitting upstairs enjoying coffee in his tenth decade of life while my sister died at the age of four…”

He put a hand on her lower back, steadying her. “I’m right here with you.”

“Daniel, what if he’s the man who did this?

What if I sat across the table from the man who killed my sister more than seventy years ago, and just let him walk away?

” She had been scouring her memory, but as far as she could recall, there was no sign then that he was anything but a police officer who was easily bought.

“How would you have known, Colette?” Daniel asked gently.

She didn’t have an answer for that. She closed her eyes briefly and did her best to push the guilt away as the elevator door finally dinged and slid open. “Can you imagine what our mothers would say to see us together now?”

“I think they’d be very happy,” Daniel said with a small smile as they stepped out onto the fourth floor.

Colette entered the security code, and once inside, they followed the sound of clattering dishes down a long hall into a dining area, where a few dozen residents were scattered around tables with mugs of coffee in front of them.

A member of the staff walked around with a carafe, pouring refills and distributing cookies.

“Here goes,” Colette said softly as she spotted Hubert Verdier sitting alone at a table in the corner, looking into space with a frown.

“Hubert!” Colette said, sweeping toward him with a smile as Daniel trailed behind her. “How lovely to see you, my friend.”

Verdier looked up at the two of them blankly. “Do I know you?”

She forced another smile. “Of course. We knew each other long ago, in Paris.”

“I don’t recognize you.” He looked at Daniel. “Or you.”

“We almost didn’t recognize you either,” Daniel replied without missing a beat. “How wonderful it is to see you.”

He studied her. “What did you say your names are?”

“Daniel and Colette.”

“What, you don’t have last names?”

“Oh, we know each other far too well for those kinds of formalities, don’t we?” Colette forced another bright smile. “We won’t stay long anyhow. It will be nice to just reminisce about the past with you for a few minutes.”

“I don’t like to talk about the past,” Verdier grumbled, but after a second, he gestured toward the chairs across the table. Daniel pulled out one of them for Colette, and they both sat.

“Oh, but this will be fun, Hubert,” Colette said.

As Verdier scowled at her, she forced herself to keep smiling brightly at him.

“Remember? We know you from the old neighborhood,” she continued kindly.

“Paris was so different before the war, wasn’t it?

Do you remember the Square Maurice Gardette nearby? Or the Canal Saint-Martin?”

“Who wouldn’t?”

“But then the Germans got there,” she continued, “and everything changed.”

He grunted, but he was paying attention, his eyes following her every movement.

“It was difficult to get by without working with them, wasn’t it?” she went on with faux cheer, though every word tasted sour and strange. “What I mean to say is that I certainly understand that some people had no choice but to… collaborate.”

“Are you accusing me of something?”

“Certainly not.” She feigned shock and glanced at Daniel, who murmured his agreement. “I’m simply saying that I understand that some people—especially policemen, for example—might not have had a choice.”

He looked at Daniel and then at Colette, brow furrowing. “What do you know about policemen?”

“Well, not as much as you, sir.”

He looked at Daniel again. “What’s the lady going on about?” he asked.

“Oh, just the authority you had back then,” Daniel answered smoothly, and Colette wanted to kiss him. He was playing his role perfectly.

“I remember you clearly,” she added quickly. Hubert’s eyes flicked back to her, but he was beginning to look bored with the conversation. “You were so handsome in your uniform. I was just a girl, but I knew a good-looking gentleman when I saw one.”

He puffed out his chest, suddenly a bit more interested. “Well, don’t let Francine hear you talking that way.”

“Francine? Was that your wife?”

Suddenly, whatever camaraderie had existed between them evaporated. “You know very well that my wife was Odile!” he snapped. He muttered something to himself. “You sound like her now, trying to trip me up.”

“I sound like Odile? Your wife?”

“Who are you again?” He was beginning to become visibly agitated, his cheeks turning pinker, his eyes watering. “Do I know you?”

“I’m an old friend.” It was time to cut to the chase. “Hubert, we’ve come to ask you about the night you tipped the Germans off about Annabel Marceau.”

A storm seemed to flicker across his face—shadows, clouds, electricity, all in quick succession. “The Germans?” he repeated.

“You told the Germans about the stolen jewels in our apartment, didn’t you? How did you know what my mother had done? How did you know where to find the bracelets? Why did you take my sister?” The words poured out with the sting of acid.

He stared at her. The silence seemed to swirl around them, heavy and dark. Her heart hammered as she waited for his reply.

“The Germans,” he finally repeated once again, and then, to her surprise, he started to sob.

Daniel reached for her hand and squeezed. When she looked at him, he nodded toward the exit. He clearly thought she should stop, but she couldn’t. Not when she was so close.

“Why are you crying?” she asked, pulling her hand from Daniel’s and trying to keep the hatred out of her voice. How dare he shed tears over the past when he’d been the one to take everything?

“It is my greatest shame,” he said. His tears continued to fall, marking the collar of his shirt, but he seemed not to notice. “My greatest shame, you see.”

“The way you betrayed my family? What you did to my sister?”

He blinked at her. “The things I did under orders from the Germans…”

“ What did you do? I need to hear you say it.”

He banged his fist on the table, making both Colette and Daniel jump. “The deportation orders. So many Jewish families… I didn’t know where we were sending them, I swear. I never would have…”

And then, as he trailed off, she understood what he was saying. He had been one of the many French policemen who had followed instructions from the Germans to arrest Jewish citizens, ultimately sending them to their deaths.

“I forget so many things,” he concluded as he stared out the window. “But this, I remember clearly, like it was yesterday.”

“Good,” said Daniel. When Verdier turned to glare at him, he added, “You should remember the role you played in the mass murder of innocent people. If only a few of you had stood up to try to stop it…”

Verdier turned back to Colette, his face a mask of misery. “You think I’m not haunted by those ghosts every day?”

“What about my sister?” Colette pressed. She got out of her chair and walked closer to him. He flinched and cowered, as if he was afraid she was going to attack him. No , she wanted to say, you’re the monster, not I . “Are you haunted by her ghost, too?”

“Was she one of the Jews?” he asked in a small voice. “They all haunt me, you see. The nightmares I have…”

“She was the girl you stole from our apartment window and murdered in August of 1942.” She was running out of patience for this guilt trip down memory lane. “It was you, wasn’t it? She was the girl whose bracelet you stole and kept for all these years.”

His expression hardened, and his tears stopped instantly, like a faucet had been turned suddenly off. “The bracelet,” he rasped. “This is about that damned bracelet?”

Her heartbeat accelerated. “Did you take my sister?” she asked, enunciating each word even as her voice cracked. “Did you take my sister from our bedroom and throw her into the Seine after you’d taken the bracelet?”

He opened and closed his mouth. Colette leaned in for a confession, but instead, he hissed, “Only a devil would do such a thing.”

“And you’re that devil!” she shot back.

“It isn’t true!”

“Then how did you get it?”

He coughed and turned to Daniel, his expression suddenly calm, as if he’d forgotten the heated discussion they were in the middle of.

“The Eiffel Tower sparkles now like a shop full of diamonds,” he said pleasantly.

“Did you know that? They’ve put lights on it, and the lights dance every night, sparkle, sparkle, sparkle. ”

“Answer her,” Daniel said, his voice low and steady.

Colette touched Hubert’s arm, and he jerked away from her as if he’d been burned. “Please,” she said. “The diamond bracelet. The one that looks like a pair of lilies made of stars. I need you to tell me how you got it.”

He was silent for a long time, and then finally, after a glance at Daniel, he turned to her, his expression suddenly sad and guileless. “I promised never to tell.”

“You promised who ?” She felt a shiver of doubt. Was there someone else involved? Was it possible that Verdier wasn’t Liliane’s killer after all?

“Did she send you?” he cried. “She sent you, didn’t she? I told her to stop torturing me! Enough already!”

“Please. I’m begging you.” She could feel her desperation creeping in, could hear it in her voice. “Please tell me what you did. Did you betray my mother? Did you kill my sister? Or was there someone else?”

He stared at her. “I am very tired now,” he said after a long pause. “I’d like you to leave.”

“But—”

“Nurse!” he cried suddenly, startling her.

“Please, no.”

“Nurse!” he cried again. “Nurse! Help! I’m being harassed!”

In an instant, there were three nurses around him, consoling him, and before she knew it, a fourth nurse had arrived and was shooing her and Daniel away.

“No, please,” Colette protested as Daniel grabbed her hand. “I just need him to answer my question. Please.”

“You are agitating him, ma’am!” the nurse snapped. “I need you both to leave.”

“Come on,” Daniel said in a low voice. “We’ll come back. But we have to go.”

The nurse hustled them down the hall, toward the elevator. “I’ll have to report this to Mr. Verdier’s family.”

“Please, you don’t understand…” Colette tried to protest, but already, the nurse was turning away, and the door to the memory-care unit was closing behind them. “I’ve waited seventy-six years for the truth!”

But there was no reply. The door was already closed, and Colette watched helplessly through the window as the nurses soothed the man who may well have taken her sister’s life.