“You may help by telling us where your brother is hiding.” Wölfle spoke fluent English with a Canadian accent.
Fern added a sweep of eyelashes to her smile. “I assure you, Herr Hauptwachtmeister, my brother has no need to hide.”
“Then you have no need to fear a search.” He brushed past her into the hall.
Ivy stumbled backward as the men shoved inside. One man flung open the door to Ivy’s office, another marched toward the back door, two men pounded up the stairs, and Wölfle slammed a leather satchel onto the receptionist’s desk. Papers fluttered from the desk to the floor.
“Do you recognize this?” Wölfle asked.
With the engraved nameplate on top of the satchel, proclamations of ignorance would be most unwise. But her voice bounced, silent, in the depths of her gut.
“It’s Charlie’s.” Fern fingered the nameplate. “Where did you find it?”
“On the beach at La Rocque where a group of cowards tried to desert to France last night.”
To desert? To escape? Charlie? Ivy’s hands clenched together.
A man shouted in German from the back of the house and rattled a doorknob.
“The door is locked.” Fern snapped her gaze to Ivy. “The supply room. Quickly, before he breaks the lock.”
She would never be able to replace the lock that protected medications and foodstuffs and her bicycle, and she ran down the hall, wrestling the key from her pocket. “Please! Please stop. Wait. I have the key.”
Fern called out a translation as Ivy ran.
Despite shaking hands, Ivy inserted the key in the lock. She opened the door for the field police. “See? No one is hiding here.”
The man shoved things around on the shelves, and bottles crashed to the floor.
“Please don’t,” Ivy said. “Please. We have shortages of medicines.”
Fern translated in a longer version, and Ivy used the break to catch her breath. When it mattered, she could count on Fern and their mutual love for Charlie.
“Come here, ladies,” Wölfle called from the receptionist’s desk. “I’m not finished questioning you.”
Without glancing at Ivy, Fern strolled to Wölfle wearing a sedate smile.
Ivy’s feet tangled with each other, and she fumbled for the wall, fumbled for breath. “What do you mean—Charlietriedto escape?”
“A party of youths deserted by boat.” Wölfle patted the satchel. “Our men shot one of them. He dropped this bag.”
Ivy clapped her hand over her mouth and gasped.
“Shot?” Fern flung out a splayed hand and braced herself against the wall.
“Last night the patrol found this bag but no other trace of the injured man, so they assumed his comrades had rescued him. But this morning, we found blood leading away from the beach.”
“Oh no.” Ivy’s voice came out muffled. “Charlie.”
“You’re a doctor.” Wölfle’s gaze carried both restraint and intimidation. “He came to you for treatment.”
“No. No, he didn’t.”
“Where did you hide him?”
“I didn’t.” Ivy’s head swung back and forth. “Oh no. Where is he?”
Thumps arose upstairs, and Ivy sent a fractured plea heavenward. What if Charlie had indeed come home last night? What if he was hiding in the house? No, if he was injured, he would have awakened her.
