Marcel let his smile go soft. “You can try to stamp it out. But even the Nazi Party can’t extinguish the stars. And if my work has shown that truth to even one person...” It had, he knew it had. Zelie, yes. Her children. But not only them. His family. Their agents. René and the rest of his orchestra. Everyone who had tuned in to their radio program and listened to the beauty that promised hope beyond the ashes. He drew in a deep breath and let it peacefully out. “Then I go to God in peace, knowing he will never stop championing freedom.”
Lothar’s nostrils flared, but he only snapped out, “Heines will see you to a cell” as he spun away.
The muscle-bound menace whose fists were far too familiar with Marcel’s torso stepped up and grabbed him by the elbow as Von Eberstein strode out ahead of them.
Marcel said nothing more, only prayed this cell would be one of the empty ones he’d seen alongside his friends’ instead of the enclosed room they’d had him in before. Or perhaps wherever Zelie was.
Heines moved to the closest empty cell on the ground-floor block of them, used the keys on his belt to open it, shoved Marcel in, locked it again, and then took a step back. He leveled a glare on the lot of them. “Lights out. No talk.”
From the end cell on the side opposite Marcel’s, Henri gave a lazy salute.
Apparently the guard thought the warning was enough, because he sauntered away in the same direction all the other footsteps were going, leaving them in near darkness. The only light to reach them came from the cafeteria they’d just left.
As soon as the last of the footfalls had faded to nothingness, Marcel gripped the bars. “I’ve told them I’m in charge, let themthink Zelie was nothing but a pretty face we kept around to charm people. Say enough to back that up. Get them to release her.”
“And what?” It wasn’t only her voice that came from the darkness—shedid, the meager light catching on her face as she sashayed from the adjacent hall like Vivi would do, swinging a ring of keys around her finger. “You’re going to let them kill you in my place? I don’t think so,mon amour.”
“Zelie.” It was a whisper, but his whole soul shouted. He pulled at the bars as if he could budge them from joy alone. “What are you doing here?”
“Saving the day, I believe.” She tried a key in his lock, hissed when it didn’t work, and moved to another. “Seems little, unimportant women can squeeze through the bars meant to hold you burly, powerful men.”
He breathed a laugh as the lock gave way. Slipped out, and indulged in exactly three seconds of bliss as he pulled her into his arms. Just three, then he let her go and moved with her toward the cells across the aisle.
“Andre there was telling us during the concert that he knows a way out,” Henri said as Daviau’s door slid quietly open.
The elder of the two other policemen nodded. “Worked here briefly before the place was shut down thirty years ago. Didn’t dare think we’d be able to get to it, certainly not so soon, but I can get us outside.”
“Then let’s not waste time talking about it.” Zelie moved from cell to cell, freeing them all, and they gathered into a knot in the center of the aisle.
“It’s only going to get darker,” Andre warned. “Everyone grab hold of someone. I’ll lead the way.”
Marcel didn’t have to be told twice. He grabbed hold of Zelie’s hand, nudging her toward Henri, who was holding her other one. He sent his friend a look over her head, knowing that even in the dark, Henri would have no trouble interpreting it.
If only one of them could get out, it had to be her. If they were caught, she had to be protected.
Zelie gave his fingers a hard squeeze, probably knowing his thoughts. Then she tugged him forward.
They moved slowly, quietly, and soon in total darkness, but Andre never hesitated or wavered. It felt like an eternity later that they moved down a dank-smelling stairwell—Andre warned them as they reached it—then into an even danker-smelling chamber with a dirt floor. And then, finally, toward a little square of moonlight.
A grunt came, along with a thud of shoulder on wood. “Locked. Do you still have those keys,madame?”
Zelie’s hand slid from Marcel’s. Keys jangled softly. Then her fingers wrapped around his again. Their line turned back into a knot, and she tucked herself into his side.
His shoulder hurt, and his ribs, but it was still the best feeling in the world to curl his arm around her. “You have to get free,” he whispered into her ear. “No matter what. You live. You escape.”
“Welive.Weescape.” She rested a hand against his stomach and stretched up. Whispered her lips over his. “Thank you for the concert. It was the sweetest love letter you’ve given me. Which is good, because they took my favorite.”
“I’ll write you another.” He rested his forehead against hers, but only for a moment. From somewhere above them, a bell rang and kept ringing.
Andre yanked open the door. “Hurry! That’s the alarm.”
They all rushed out into the night, then paused as Andre shut and locked the door behind them.
Marcel’s heart sank. He’d been hoping for a forest, a town, something they could disappear into. But all he could see was field after fallow field, and a road cutting through the center of them. No doubt picturesque in the summer, when the famed flower fields of Provence were in bloom.
A death sentence now. And they wouldn’t have much of a reprieve, given the engine he heard coming, the tires spinning.
“That isn’t a German engine.” Daviau stepped away from the wall, looking toward the south.
