Prologue
24 December 1943
Château du Broutel
Rue, France
What would a French glamour girl wear to stash weapons in the dead of winter besides a haute couture gown? Kat Harris wished she knew.
She couldn’t recall that instruction during the years of her mother trying to turn her into a Boston debutante before the war. Nor in the mere weeks of field operative training she’d received before landing in France. Neither could have prepared her for this—attending a lavish holiday soirée in an eighteenth-century château swarming with the Nazi elite, and now having to squeeze her emerald ball gown under a workman’s canvas coat and trek through the woods in a pair of gumboots, all before the next dance.
Snowflakes had just begun to drift on the wind. A crescent moon offered slivers of light on the forest floor as Kat darted up the rise to the south edge of the forty-acre estate. She paused at the tree line— breaths racking in and out under a bodice that was cinched tight— and stole a glance over her shoulder to check the bramble-lined road that cut through the heart of the woods.
All lay still except the whistle of wind through skeleton trees and the mad thumping of the heart in her chest.
The empty road should have been fortuitous; night was nothing if not a subverter’s ally. Yet instinct warned with a pit in her stomach: Don’t take the stillness for granted.
In occupied France you lived by your wits or died the moment you abandoned them. She’d have to hold fast to them now, even if the box truck with the faded fish market emblem that ought to have been idling just off the road . . . wasn’t. And two members of their team who should be accounted for . . . weren’t.
Kat peered through the shadows and spotted the ghostly outline against the ridge.
There it is—the fence.
Their Maquis contact with the Resistance should have already slipped through. And if Xandre had done so, he’d have left a path of clipped barbwire tines, just enough for Kat to squeeze over and under, then follow. That was, if the pulse of deadly electricity had been cut.
Though signs posted nearby screamed Danger! and High Voltage! in both French and German, the wire lacked the telltale pulse of an active current. Kat gathered her hem before she could think better of it and slipped her leg over the lowest rung. Once through, she hurried toward the rendezvous point—the old groundskeeper’s gîte left abandoned in the woods.
A stone wall surrounded the structure that mimicked the Baroque style of the grand château over the rise. She hastened through the rusty gate (mercifully left unlocked), around the gîte’s brick-and-stone side (moonlight showing it painted over by years of patina and grit), then eased to the back, where understory grew wild and a bower of ash trees sprouted from the cracks of a toppled stone wall. She clung to the shadows, watching and waiting until certain it was safe.
Snow dusted the top of the mansard roof, making it appear more like a ghost castle from a children’s fairy tale than an abandoned outbuilding that could be useful. But this place was forgotten. Isolated. And, as their team had noted, had adequate cover from the fence line and a village road conveniently tucked behind. Though it was a pity the war saw a once-grand structure now left to ruin, neglect and lack of Vichy police patrols ensured it could be useful again.
For them.
A figure’s movement caught her eye—Xandre.
The Maquis contact appeared in the same state livery he’d worn in the château ballroom, but with an overcoat and a snow-speckled flatcap and wielding a shovel that reflected moonlight with each pierce into the ground.
Wooden crates were stacked three-high against the rock wall behind him. And still others waited for their turn to be unloaded from a nearby turnip cart.
Why is he burying the weapons?
And why there?
Kat scanned the rock wall. Then the grove. The road in the distance . . .
They ought to have gone to the row of horse chestnuts at the far end, which stretched high above the crumbling side wall. The trees had shed their autumn color weeks before, blanketing the ground with leaves of ochre and rust. And soon, a layer of snow. If they had to hide the weapons, it was the best place—where the ground was soft and dig marks would be easier for their contacts to find.
“Célène!”
The whisper-shout of her cover name snapped Kat’s attention back to the hollow. Having spotted her, Xandre leaned the shovel against the crates and crossed over to her place hidden in the trees.
“How did you, uh . . . get here so fast?” Winded and with breaths clouding on air, he was clearly stunned she’d managed to make such good time on the lengthy trek from the château.
“I ran.”
“You mean you ran all that way?”
“It doesn’t matter.” She shook her head, then, with her heart in her throat, dared ask, “So? What happened? Where is Dominique?”
“He’s safe.” Xandre tipped the brim of his cap off his brow and offered a cocky smirk toward the crates. “He got the weapons out— every single crate—from the rail lines. As you can see.”
“Then where is he? And Henri? I looked for the fish market truck, but there’s no sign of it. They should have been here long before now.”
“Must have been held up. No mind—turns out mere rumors of electrified fencing make those Nazi underlings think they do not need to patrol the whole of the château grounds. That gives us all the time we need.”
“But you made this sound urgent or I wouldn’t have come! I left the Vichy police captain on the dance floor. And I can’t hope to
make it back now before the Nazi minister’s toast. The captain will know something is not right when I don’t return on time.”
The shock of what she’d just realized rebounded through her thoughts.
“My cover will be blown . . .”
“C’est vrai. But we cannot help that now. We’ll have to use their ignorance against them. Even the Vichy police do not know of this place set so far back in the woods.”
Of course that wasn’t true. Kat had learned of the hidden road and abandoned groundskeeper’s gîte from the Vichy captain himself. She’d stood in that very hollow once. Had found solace there in moments of desperation. And could only pray the captain didn’t remember it as she did. And that once it was discovered the weapons were gone, he wouldn’t realize the Maquis were cashing in on the lack of patrols in this place.
“So you’re burying the weapons until Henri can retrieve them?”
“Right. And by the time the Vichy police learn they’re missing, he’ll have put weapons in the hands of the Resistance up and down the coast. And we will be long gone.”
“Fine. We’re here together now. Let’s just get the rest of the crates unloaded.” She bounded out, lest they waste time.
“Attendez!” Xandre called behind, his plea to wait tracking at her heels.
Kat rounded crates with swastikas emblazoned on their sides to find there was a hole—hastily dug. And not concealing crates of small arms but bearing a mound of dirt and a woolen blanket that just exposed the polished surface of . . .
Jackboots?
The telltale dead weight of a pair of midnight-blue trousers and Vichy uniform boots stared back from the hole between them.
A shiver nearly cut her in two. Bodies never remained hidden. Those of Nazi soldiers or Vichy police, even less so. A skeptical eye was all that was needed to generate public displays of the Nazi execution machine—one whiff of resistance in the air coupled with a uniform who didn’t make roll call, and it could be disastrous.
“What have you done?” she breathed out on a ragged whisper.
“What we must do to survive.” Xandre yanked the blanket back into place against the reaching fingers of the wind, covering the boots in a
bid to urge them on.
“You think I’m squeamish about a body? Now?” In the field you saw what you saw, and numbingly often. But this? The ramifications could be severe. Again.
When Xandre refused to look at her, Kat shoved him off-balance, enough to thump him on his backside in the snow. And when he rose, in one fierce motion she curled a fist around his lapel and yanked—hard. Enough that he was forced to meet her square in the eye.
They hadn’t time for this, but she couldn’t afford not to do it either.
“Answer me! What did you do?”
“D’accord! D’accord . . . I had no choice,” he countered, the excuse swift over a stunned chuckle. And far too easy, as if he was amused that she’d thrown a tantrum over decisions in the field.
“That’s not good enough. We are not to get involved by force. You know this!” she bit out on a steel whisper, yanking his lapel again in a challenge with her eyes piercing his. “This operation is for subversion only—to coordinate retrieval of the weapons. To report who we see from inside that château. And if necessary, only as a last resort, to use deadly force to do it. You have thrown this entire operation in jeopardy and left the very lives of our team in question, including mine!”
He paused, as if calculating. “And yet our body count was blown ages ago.”
She shook her head, vehemently. “That’s not fair.”
“Non. But it is truth. Every Resistance fighter puts their life on the line. We know the risks. And because of what we do, these weapons will allow the Maquis to overthrow this estate—to take this country back. If the day comes for France to rise, there will be no need to look back on what we had to do today to defeat evil tomorrow.”
“You would repay evil for evil then? At any cost?”
“If I have to, oui.” Xandre snapped out of her grip, brushing off the front of his coat as he leveled a challenging stare back at her.
“Look at you. So high and mighty when you know you’re prepared to kill a man just as easily as I. A policeman came over the rise for a smoke and caught me along the road. I could not hide the crates. So it was this or we were dead. And the weapons were gone.”
“But the Vichy police will notice he is missing! It is not a question of what is easy but what is right. They will punish innocent civilians because of this. Do you not recall what happened just months ago—how many they executed in the village square? Even those the authorities knew had nothing to do with the Resistance. It was simply to stoke terror and keep neighbor reporting neighbor. And I won’t stand by and watch it happen again.”
“This one will not be missed. Not like that.” Searching her face, Xandre’s features softened along with his voice. “What was I to do, hmm? You were coming to meet me here. Do not punish me for following the captain’s order.”
“Which was?”
“Why, to protect you, of course.” He continued staring back, punctuating the sharpness of his accusation like she should have expected it. “You didn’t know you’re his pet? What do I care if they execute some old men or women in the village if it saves me in the end? So I will do whatever I have to, even if it is to keep an eye on the Vichy captain’s girlfriend.”
Kat stumbled back, horrified. “Do not ever say that to me again. We’ll hide the weapons. Bury the officer. And then I’ll meet the captain back in the ballroom to report who is in attendance at the party, just as we planned. But after this night, you will leave Château du Broutel. Do you understand? And if I find you here again, I swear I’ll break every rule of lethal force to prevent you from ever returning.”
She’d gritted her teeth on the last words. And would have fought him further, had a sharp sound not cut the night.
The bark of a deep-chested dog echoed through the trees, freezing them both in place.
Their breathing forming clouds, they listened. Again and again, the bark drew nearer. Xandre motioned his chin over the rise as a beam of light appeared, moving against the sky and silhouetting lacy patterns of trees atop the ridge.
“Looks like you were wrong, Célène. There’s a first time for everything.” He tapped his wristwatch and mouthed, “The patrols.”
How could that be? Kat had never been wrong in the field. Not like this. She’d been so certain the patrols wouldn’t come for them. But the beam of torchlight cutting over the rise didn’t lie.
She grabbed up the shovel leaning against the crates and stabbed the mound of frozen dirt with its tip. “Let’s just get this done and get out
of here.”
The Maquis contact didn’t argue this time. Xandre forgot wounded pride and, instead, turned as if to muscle the rest of the crates into stacks behind her.
If only that were true.
If only she was not wrong again.
And if only subversion were that simple. The next sound Kat heard was death—the click of a Luger trigger aimed at the back of her head.
Chapter 1
12 May 1943
502 Washington Street
Boston, Massachusetts
Wake up, Kat . . . wake up.
Kat jolted awake, the warning of tiny ping-pings of metal hitting the concrete floor. She blinked but held still against the sagging pea-striped sofa at the back of her family’s auto refurbishment garage, still palming the volume of Alfred de Musset poems that lay next to her on the cushion.
At the time, she’d told herself she’d only read a few pages and take a twenty-minute nap after. Chase that with a pot of strong chicory brew, and then she’d tinker under the hood of the silver Zephyr V-12 the rest of the night. How had she let hours pass? The tone arm on the Philco glowed through the dark from its corner shelf, and the soothing sounds of Glenn Miller’s orchestra had long since been replaced by the ceaseless hum of static.
Realization hit and Kat shot up from behind the behemoth Zephyr parked in the center of the garage with its hood open as though it intended to swallow her whole. A lock of deep chestnut hair slid down over her shoulder as she stretched to peer around the metal beast. She tucked the unruly waves behind her ear—an unfashionably long style, but one she kept so she could knot it at her nape when bent over the hood of an auto.
Glancing toward the side door facing the armory, she looked to the blackout fabric that normally blocked the view of the dry goods establishment across the street. But the curtains were parted—the street behind them still, the night sky an inky black. Not at all how she’d left them.
Could she have dreamed it? Or imagined the noise, hoping to catch phantom thieves who weren’t really there?
Another distant ping-ping-ping sounded.
Kat froze, head angled to listen with her good ear.
The faint sounds of a grunt and a curse followed as the thief continued puttering in the dark. And with it, fury combusted in Kat’s middle.
Oh no you don’t.
The last time their shop had been turned over, they’d lost more than a month’s wages and every good set of tools they owned. The war put parts at a premium; it would take ages to replace the stolen items—if ever. The only reason her late father’s prized Philco hadn’t gone with the rest was that Kat had interrupted the thieves and they’d scampered off, leaving the radio sitting in the center of the garage floor like a present left behind. After that, she was convinced the expensive model would be too tempting for the thieves not to try again, and she vowed to sit up in the garage every night if it meant saving it a second time.
Kat cast her book aside and scanned the floor around her, then swiped up the nearest thing that could serve as a weapon—the Clayton & Lambert blowtorch with the brass bell jar and fiery tip that when lit would ensure she’d be taken seriously. Fisting the wood handle in a white-knuckle hold, she shook the bell container.
Blast. No gas left.
It would have to threaten as a bludgeon instead.
Slipping down to the floor, Kat padded forward with her shoulder pinned to the Zephyr’s whitewall tires, the blowtorch raised high. When she cleared the left quarter panel, the doorway opened up to the half-moon linoleum counter curving around the front of the shop with aisles of auto parts and mountainous stacks of whitewall tires lit by the glow from the industrial desk lamp in the corner.
And there he was—the rotten thief.
This one stood, his back to her in a tuxedo and . . . shiny wing-tip oxfords? This must be the best-dressed thief ever. The neatest too. He rifled through drawers like his sleeves were on fire yet made an attempt to tidy one before moving on to the next. And odd, but he knelt to pick something up from the floor like he had no concern for the Philco. Nor with the cash drawer, which since the first robbery, Kat was devout to empty and lock in the office wall safe each night behind great-granddad’s portrait.
“Stop!” Kat blasted, the blowtorch raised like a baseball bat ready to swing for the fences at Fenway. “Or I swear you’ll wish you’d chosen another garage when you’re picking your teeth up off the floor.”
The thief obeyed. And went rigid as he stood with hands arrested at his sides.
Breathless and with her middle hitching like a clock wound too tight, Kat ordered, firmly, “Now turn around—slow.”
The man did as commanded. Turning. With one step of the wing tips. Then two. And . . . was he laughing?
“I should have known you’d be here, Kat, haunting these walls.”
“Gav!” Kat lowered the torch when she could finally make out his face. “You fool,” she blasted through shaky breaths, and hunched over, palming the knees of her denim coveralls. “I could have killed you, you know.”
There stood Gavin, her kid brother who was only a year younger but not a kid by a long shot now. He stared back with his usual boyish grin, as if incredulous that Kat had come out swinging. Everyone knew obligation came first to her—full stop. And though their aunt and uncle now owned the shop and weren’t as miffed as she about the stolen goods—there was a war on after all, they’d said, and times were hard for everyone—Kat would fight tooth and nail if it meant protecting what their father had worked to build all his life.
Standing again, Kat took in every six feet plus that was Gavin.
When was the last time she’d seen him? When he’d come home for the Christmas holidays? He must have grown another inch, maybe two, since he’d started law school; his lean frame towered over her medium height now. He stood before her, disheveled in a tux and dangling bow tie no less, like he’d slipped out from another highbrow party to stumble across the railroad tracks to downtown. Dark chocolate waves that matched Kat’s hue were longer now and fell over his forehead, drifting down to mask the trademark Harris eyes. His were a cool blue like
hers, but not as icy—a tick darker. And often stormy, like they could be open and honest yet still hold back something of a secret if they wanted.
And they seemed to want to now.
“I always said you have ice water running through your veins. You’d have knocked me flat without batting an eyelash.”
“I can’t say.” A hitch, extra breath, and she added, “I was thinking about my lashes just then.”
“What would you have done if it wasn’t me? Burglars can be dangerous, you know.”
Kat squared her shoulders to him. “So can a woman who thinks she’s about to lose her late father’s prized possession. I suppose I’d have acted first and apologized later.”
“Apologize? You? Never. That’d be too much like giving in.” He chuckled. And she grimaced, because they both knew Gavin could read her better than anyone. And hated any reminder that she might need someone to know her that well, ...
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