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They know.
They know Todd was hiding here. Did they capture him while he was escaping? Are they here to punish Jacques and me for our part in harbouring an Allied pilot?
My mind grinds into action, praying there’s no evidence of Todd’s stay. Praying they don’t find the hiding space in the barn.
The first soldier is inspecting mycarte d’identitéwhen Jacques arrives at the house, his work clothes covered in dried dirt. He doesn’t wait for the soldier to demand his papers. He fishes hiscarte d’identitéfrom his trouser pocket and hands it to the soldier.
“Why do your surnames not match?” the shorter soldier asks in broken French.
“Angelique is my widowed daughter,” Jacques explains, keeping to the cover, his voice splintered and gruff. “She came to help me after her husband died.”
The soldier nods. It isn’t clear if he understood what Jacques told him, but his answer seems to be enough.
The soldier reverses a step, and the taller soldier moves forwards. “I am Captain Johann Schmidt.” His French skills appear to be better than his comrade’s. “I will be billeting with you for the foreseeable future.” He hands Jacques a piece of paper, and my stomach sinks to my dusty, worn-out shoes.
The devil has moved into the henhouse, making it bloody impossible for me to do my job.
Making it impossible for me to defeat his kind.
31
JESSICA
March, Present Day
Maple Ridge
I leavethrough the back door leading to Picnic & Treats and walk along the alley to the front of the building where my bike is locked up. The early afternoon breeze is cool against my skin. Relief swells in me that I made it through my shift without a flashback, without an incident that would leave Zara doubting her decision to hire me.
I pull on my lightweight jacket and let the wound-up tension ease its grip on me. Even though I spent the entire shift flashback free, I couldn’t shake the fear that at any moment a sound or touch or smell could set one off.
Not quite ready to go home yet, I head to the library and put several nonfiction books on hold. Books dealing with the Second World War. I’ve already finished the book I borrowed about Virginia Hall, the American spy in occupied France.
Since I don’t have Wi-Fi yet in my house—it will be set up on Friday—I use the library computer to pull up the website for a national news network. Without a TV, I’ve been sheltered from what’s going on in the world, other than the headlines I briefly glance at in the grocery store.
I skim through the top stories. Nothing has changed during the five years I was locked away. The world is still at conflict. The environment is a growing concern. Politicians are constantly bickering. School shootings are still happening. These stories aren’t the ones I was interested in when I was studying journalism. I wanted to focus on the special-interest stories. The stories about women making a difference and their impact on the next generation of girls. The unsung heroes. The women who aren’t doing it for power or recognition, but who are applying their passion to make the world brighter.
I do a search on my husband’s name, forcing my fingers to type it. A name I prefer not to think about. A list of articles shows up on the screen, articles confirming what I still have trouble believing. He’s dead. The monster hasn’t crawled out of the grave or the urn or wherever his family put him.
Maybe if I had been allowed to go to his funeral, if I’d seen his dead body in the coffin, I would absolutely positively believe he can no longer find me and kill me. I could finally say with confidence he’s my late husband.
I had hoped by now news of his death had faded and his murder was nothing more than a cold case. Or his murderer was behind bars.
And maybe the news of his murder would’ve been forgotten if my husband had been someone else. But he was a cop. And somewhere out there, a cop killer is still roaming loose.
I scan the articles, and my skin grows itchy. The media’s had trouble letting go of the news I was released. It’s not so much my innocence they like to focus on. It’s how I simply vanished—as if there were an ulterior motive for my disappearance.
There’s some speculation I really was responsible for my husband’s death, even if I hadn’t been the one who pulled the trigger. I hired someone. The murderer was my lover, and we plotted together. There’s also speculation whoever killed him is responsible for my disappearance.
A shudder skids up my spine at the possibility of his killer trying to track me down. But it’s also highly unlikely. What would they have to gain? I have no idea who it was—otherwise, I wouldn’t have wasted five years behind bars. If anything, they would keep as far away from me as possible. Reduce the risk of them being linked to his murder.
No one accepts that maybe I just needed to get away from my past and go where no one knows me. To piece my life back together without feeling like I’m sitting under a microscope. To go where the media won’t be hounding me. To go where my late husband isn’t shadowing my life.
One article has a rare photo of me from when I was married. My face is tilted in a way that makes the woman in the picture look less like the one reading the article, especially when you add in our difference in our hair color and the scars now on my face.
I delete the search history, log out of the computer, and bike to the grocery store.
I’m in the produce section when I spot Violet, the woman I met yesterday at the Maple Ridge Veterans Center. She’s pushing a shopping cart, her thirteen-month-old daughter in the seat.
