“Bloody hell. I thought she was unconscious!”
Ignoring the protests of her battered body, Rose rolled into a crouching position. Frantically, she scanned the moonlit beach, searching for deadly shadows. She saw nothing but her wrecked Bearcat and shimmering white sands. Forcing her shaking muscles to cooperate, she stayed low and slunk to the overturned vehicle. Peeking over one of the tires, she spied two dark shapes about fifteen yards away. One, to her increasing horror, looked particularly massive and brutish.
With trembling fingers, she reached inside the Stutz for her reticule. It took her two attempts to undo the latch, but she managed to pull out the trench knife that a grateful French soldier had given her after she’d driven him to safety. Forcing her hands to steady, she sliced through the straps on her silver evening shoes, the blade nicking one of her ankles. Ignoring the burn, she tossed the pumps but kept her purse.
Drawing in another agonizing breath, Rose took off in her stocking feet through the sand. The men gave a shout, and her skin prickled at their closeness. Not risking a glance over her shoulder, she dropped the knife into her beaded evening bag and searched for her gun. Instead of her snub-nose British Bull Dog revolver, her fingers found the blade again. She sliced her middle finger but not enough to slow her down. It wasn’t easy searching the tight opening of the reticule as her feet pounded over the uneven sand, but finally she felt the cool, cylindrical metal of the barrel.
After pulling out the weapon, she started to cock it, but her uneven gait almost caused her to drop it. Cursing now, she pulled back the hammer with her thumb. She might have bought the little revolver as a lark to scandalize her mother, but Myrtle’s relatives had taught Rose how to shoot.
Before Rose could turn and fire at her pursuers, though, she heard Myrtle shout her name. A male voice followed and then another. Rose’s original bloodcurdling scream must have been heard, perhaps even the crash too. A concentrated beam of a flashlight broke through the silvery night.
Thank goodness for Myrtle and her taste for expensive, newfangled gadgets.
Rose glanced backward. The shadowy figures had gained on her, but they’d stopped now, their bodies positioned away from the bobbing glow. Clearly, they did not wish to be seen. Rose hoped they would decide that being caught was riskier than letting her go. They had admitted they had no idea if she knewanything.
Which she didn’t. At least not much.
But she was certainly going to find out everything now.
The cries of the partygoers grew louder, and the beam of light spread around Rose’s feet. The illumination seemed to prod the attackers into a decision. They stopped their pursuit and melted into the darkness, as if they’d never existed.
Rose didn’t stop her mad dash. Luckily the loose style of her Greek-toga-inspired garment allowed her to employ her full stride. Soon she could make out the shapes of new figures—familiar ones,safeones. The chief of police, dressed as a Roman centurion, reached her first. He was a tall, imposing man, his barrel-like chest puffed out. The fake gold helmet with its garish plumes somehow suited him.
“Two men,” Rose gasped out as she gestured behind her. “Spies. One of them huge, the other of average build.” She couldn’t describe them beyond that, as their facial features had been shrouded in darkness.
At her third word, the chief’s footsteps faltered. But he did not pause. The tinfoil that he’d used on his legs to simulate leg armor flashed in the moonlight as he pounded down the beach.
“Are you okay?” Myrtle asked, throwing her arms around Rose. “What happened?”
“There were two attackers. They tampered with my Bearcat.” Rose gave her friend a brief embrace before she sank to the ground, finally allowing herself to feel the aches spreading over her body.
Thank goodness her shout had brought reinforcements. Rose had always had a knack for theatrical screams—a skill she’d previously put to use only during boarding school pageants and house partyperformances. She’d never thought that one day her ability to create earsplitting shrieks would save her life.
Her family physician knelt down next to her. His long and obviously fake beard brushed against Rose’s bare arm. Dressed as Rip Van Winkle, the man wore tattered clothes and a crumpled tricorn hat.
“Did your car crash, Miss Van Etten?” Dr.Stevens asked. “We heard an odd sort of thud during a lull in the fireworks.”
Not one to show weakness, Rose did as she’d done since she was a little girl trying to please her parents, who had no tolerance for tears or pouts: she hid her fear and pain beneath blitheness.
“The Stutz did crash, but I’m unharmed except for some bumps, bruises, and minor cuts. Sand is much more forgiving than gravel.” She shook back the bangs that had fallen in her eyes. She’d been one of the first society ladies to lop off her hair. She’d done it as a lark and to stir up some minor scandal, but it had proved useful on the Front, especially given some of the spartan living conditions she’d faced.
“I still should check you over, my dear.” Dr.Stevens’s voice had taken on that kindly but undeniably stern tone that men liked to employ upon “headstrong” women. Rose had never done well with stern.
“No need.” Rose forced herself to pop up from the ground and stretch her painted lips into a wide, carefree grin. “I’m as right as rain.”
“Are you certain?” Myrtle asked.
“Nothing I haven’t experienced before,” Rose said, “except for the spies.Thatwas novel.”
“Spies?” Dr.Stevens asked, his fuzzy gray eyebrows pulling downward in concern ... but not the kind of worry one would normally express after an announcement that foreign agents were nearby. “Are you experiencing another nervous upset, my dear?”
A nervous upset.What a domestic, prosaic way to describe the piercingly sharp memories that would slice through her consciousness without warning.
Before Rose could respond, the police chief returned, huffing a bit. His helmet listed to the right, and a piece of his leg armor had come loose, making a crinkling sound when he walked. Aside from looking disheveled from his run, he thankfully did not appear harmed.
“Did you encounter them?” Rose asked Chief Montgomery.
“The, er,spies?” The man’s mustache twitched on the last word.
