Rose narrowed her eyes, frustrated anger replacing her shield of blitheness. “Yes, the spies. The men who laid an ambush for me.”
Chief Montgomery exchanged a speaking look with Dr.Stevens over Rose’s head.
“I did not see anyone.” The chief spoke gently, as if mere words could break her.
“What about footprints?” Rose asked between gritted teeth. “How many sets were there?”
“How fast were you driving?” The policeman’s tone softened even more, making it clear he did not regard this as a true investigation. Very likely, he hadn’t even believed her enough to search the scene for evidence. Rose wished she had on her tailored uniform instead of a flowy, fancy dress. Yet she doubted even that would improve her credibility to these men.
“Did you even attempt to corroborate my account?” Rose demanded. Just as it had been her duty to transport the wounded to safety, it was now her responsibility to stop these spies.
Again, the man’s eyes flicked toward Dr.Stevens. The two men’s gazes held, and frustration welled inside Rose. Theydidn’tbelieve her.
Dr.Stevens gave her shoulder a pat that was supposed to be reassuring. It was not.
“Now, Miss Van Etten, you know how easily you can become overset—”
“Overset!”The word exploded from Rose like a shell from a dreaded Paris Gun. “My Bearcat was sabotaged, I was chased by two men speaking of conspiracy, and I amoverset!”
Dr.Stevens glanced around nervously. Taking in the growing crowd of wide-eyed party guests, he started to steer Rose out of hearing distance. She shook off his hand, but she still followed. Although she generally didn’t give a fig what high society or the press said about her, she was not about to have the gossips dissect her shell shock over canapés and cocktails.
When they had moved far enough away from the rest of the crowd, Dr.Stevens cupped her elbow again. “My dear, you have been ... well ... prone to ... shall we say ... flights of fancy. Your nerves have simply not recovered from your time in Europe.”
The physician spoke as if she had simply been on a Grand Tour of the Continent.
“I believe the word you are searching for ishallucination,” Rose said crisply. “And yes, my service on the Western Front has left its mark on me, but the attack wasnomirage.”
Chief Montgomery clasped her other arm, as if the two men were trying to prop her up like a fainting damsel in a dime novel.
“Miss, the war is over. Why would there be spies lurking about the beach in Florida?”
“Perhaps because I may knowsomething.” Rose crossed her arms—against both the men’s words and the twinge of doubt they’d triggered.
Ithadbeen real. Hadn’t it?
But she’d been so jumpy lately. It wasn’t even just the war memories. Even an unexpected tread of footsteps could send her clambering to her feet, ready to fight.
“She has a point.” Myrtle, who had been standing a few feet away, spoke quietly, and she stepped closer.
“My dear, you were anambulancedriver. You do not need to fear that the crippled German Reich has any interest in you. This is merely an offshoot of your hysteria—quite a common occurrence in a lady of delicate breeding such as yourself,” Dr.Stevens said as he hoisted his gaslight lantern.
“It just doesn’t make sense, now, does it, miss?” The chief spoke softly and earnestly. Neither of the men meant offense. Her family was too wealthy, too connected, and too powerful—and not just in Florida, where her father had practically single-handedly built the state’s infrastructure. The men seemed to be trying to placate her, not insult her.
Rose, though, had listened to enough. She’d bottled up her words all evening, hoping to spare the good folks from the well of acid burning holes inside her. It was time to unleash her irritability.
She leveled her gaze first on Dr.Stevens in his Rip Van Winkle garb. “It makes as much sense as one would expect from a man who slept through the war.” Then she turned toward the police chief dressed as a Roman centurion. “Or from a man who ran away from an empty tomb just when things were about to get interesting.”
Wishing that she felt as certain as her words sounded, Rose marched away toward the house, her face once again turned to the sea. She grabbed a cig from her ever-handy reticule and stuck it into her mouth and sucked on it as she stared out at the pinpricks of light dotting the sky.
“If it’s any consolation, I believe you.” Myrtle caught up to her, matching her angry strides.
“It’s more than a consolation,” Rose said, taking the paper tube of tobacco from her mouth and walking it through her fingers as she tried to calm the clawing frustration. Lately it seemed that if she wasn’t trying to contain her anxiousness, she was battling back crankiness.
“Rose, you always accomplish the impossible. You’re capable of convincing the right people.”
Myrtle wasn’t entirely wrong, but she wasn’t completely right either. Rose didn’t persuade people. Her father did. Politicians, businessmen, leaders—they all listened to the titan of industry—or, at the very least, to the amount of wealth and influence he had amassed. And Daddy ... well, Daddy would pull any strings to mollify his“hysterical” daughter, even if he thought her utterly mad. And sometimes she feared that she was. Just a little.
Momentarily stopping, Rose bent down and plucked a shell from the sand. After standing back up, she heaved it out to sea. She waited until the waves swallowed up the flash of white before she spoke. “Why do you believe that this wasn’t another one of my hallucinations?”
