The Last Time I Saw Paris - Lynn Sheene [129]
Claire stared at Sylvie. Of all the reactions Claire expected, how could Sylvie be so cavalier? “Your husband is missing. You can find out where he is, what happened to him. Ask your Kapitän.”
Sylvie turned to Claire. Her thin lips stretched into a smile. “Why? What have you done, lost your Sturmbannführer?”
“Yes.”
“So you want my husband back, eh?”
“I want to know where he is. I would think a loving wife would be the least bit curious. What do you know, Sylvie?”
Sylvie frowned, seeming to mull over her words. “We’ll find out together. I will make a call.” She reached for her phone.
Claire crossed the room to the window and stared out at the street. Nothing moved in the darkness. She moved away from the window and looked at the painting over the mantel. Children picking over a harvested field. The same painting she’d seen in Laurent’s apartment.
Her skin prickled as she heard Sylvie’s smooth voice. “Claire Harris is in my apartment. Of course. Tell them to hurry, won’t you?” The phone clicked against the cradle as she hung up.
Claire whirled around. Sylvie held a pistol in her hand.
“Beautiful, isn’t it? Pearl handled,” Sylvie said. “A present from my Nazi. My grateful Kapitän.”
Heat blossomed in Claire’s body as she put it all together. “It was you? You’re the traitor?”
“Laurent thought I couldn’t see what his little gang was up to. They thought they were so smart. They weren’t.”
“Why, Sylvie?”
“There is a new world order now. I intend to enjoy it.”
Claire stared at Sylvie’s mouth, her hard eyes, the perfect hair, the silk robe, the emerald on her finger. My God—how Laurent had underestimated her. Laurent and Grey had thought they were using her. Sylvie had destroyed them all. Claire jerked the Walther from her pocket. They faced each other, guns drawn.
“Ah, you truly are a Resistánt, aren’t you? Liberté and vengeance and all that,” Sylvie said.
Engines roared on the street below. Doors slammed and voices shouted.
“They must really want you.” Sylvie sneered. “I knew you were gutter trash the moment I saw you. So common. My husband had you. The Englishman? How many others?”
“Better that than a whore to the Reich’s gold.”
Sylvie’s mouth twisted. She fired. A bullet burned Claire’s cheek as her ears recorded the shot. The Walther jerked twice in her hands. Two bullets tore through Sylvie’s chest. The fabric of Sylvie’s silk robe turned dark as blood flowed through her grasping fingers. She gaped at Claire, her face slack with shock, then crumpled to the floor.
Claire examined the body slumped at her feet. Sylvie’s face was blank; the set of the mouth and the discreet canniness in the eyes bled out on the rug. All that deception and greed wrapped up in silk and jewels. Paid for with the lives of everyone Claire loved. The heat inside Claire died away to ashes.
Heavy boots thumped up the stairs. Claire rushed for the door. She yanked the handle open. A rifle butt met her in the face. The world went black.
Chapter 13
THE CHOICE
11, rue des Saussaies, Paris. August 19, 1944.
Soft keening woke her. Her eyes closed, she didn’t move, trying to find her way back to the formless darkness and a reprieve from pain.
A sob echoed from across the cell. The girl was crying again. Maybe she was still crying. Claire couldn’t be sure; she had drifted between sleep and unconsciousness throughout the night. Her breath hissed between clenched teeth as she pushed herself to a seated position against the cold stone wall. Hot pokers pierced her ribs and stomach. After a couple of tries, she managed to open her eyes. In the dim morning light, the girl was just a lump across the cell.
A faint rumble caught her ears. “Did you hear that?” She winced as she sat forward, her ear cocked to the high barred window. “Quiet,” she said, toward the sobbing.
Weeks had passed, how many she couldn’t say. She had heard a shout one morning, when was it? It had come from down the hall, amidst the noise of a scuffle. The Allies are coming for you, boche. They are coming soon. It ended in