Strangely, Young seemed to know better than Laura did. “I am sorry. It’s a—well, a hell of a thing to hear. I know that. You—maybe I’d have been unhappy too. Truly. But this isn’t right. Put the gun down. Please.”
“It’s not worth it,” said Winter to Pim.
“He’s not worth it,” echoed Laura, finding her tongue. “Pim—whatever the reason—it’s not…” She trailed off. The despair in Pim’s face was absolute, and it frightened her. Fearful sweat poured down Gage’s face.
“Maybe not,” said Pim, and pulled the trigger.
· · ·
It was loud and it was messy. The general lurched and sank down. Laura crossed the room and kept him from crashing to the floor. His gaze was already fixed, his body twitching.
Pim dropped the gun. There was noise in the corridor outside, shouting, banging. Young, standing rigid, had not reached for the bolt, had not opened the door. Christ only knew what they thought was going on inside.
Gage’s blood pooled on Laura’s skirt.
Pim’s breathing was hard and noisy in the confined space.
“You—” Young started, then stopped. He licked his lips. “Is this why—from the beginning?—to get tohim?”
Pim nodded. “You can arrest me. It’s all right.”
Laura said, “Pim,youtried to shoot the general in the hospital, didn’t you?” Then she understood. “Winter stopped you.”
Passionately, Pim said, “I never meant for him to die for me. I’d have told everyone. But first I had to do this.”
“But why?” whispered Laura. “For God’s sake, Pim, why?”
CHÂTEAU COUTHOVE AND POPERINGHE, FLANDERS, BELGIUM
April 1918
Freddie came back to himselfby painful degrees. He was in a dark place that smelled like old fabric. It wasn’t the hotel. It was colder, harsher somehow, the insulation of wine and music and lost memory gone. He was back. In that moment, he didn’t want to be. He yearned after vanished oblivion. Where was Laura? He’d come back for Laura. And for—
Winter.
He’s going to die,someone had said.
The thought roused him.Coward,Faland had called him. Maybe Freddie was. But he was a coward with a purpose, and he’d been long enough a soldier to see how purpose strengthened even the weakest men. He forced himself to open his eyes and sit up and exist, for the first time in months, in a place that was neither shielded nor confined by Faland’s overwhelming presence.
The room was dim, bare, and prosaic, but there was no smell of dust or decay. Just something mildly astringent. He was lying on a bed, with a trunk at its foot, a folding table beside him. A man was sitting next to him, a man with big, bony wrists. Brilliant dark eyessoftened a hard jaw, a hawklike nose. Freddie remembered him, vaguely. He’d called his sister Laura. Freddie raised himself on one elbow. “Who are you?”
“I’m a surgeon. Name of Jones,” came the measured reply.
“Can you tell me what is happening?”
The dark eyes regarded him levelly. “If you’ll do the same. Damned if I know, really.”
Freddie tried to organize his mind. He remembered the hotel. A beautiful woman with golden hair. He’d seen her head bent near Faland’s—where? In the hotel? Somewhere else? A dark place. Both of them wrapped in music. No—in noise. The wide blue eyes. What had she seen in the mirror? What had Faland told her? Then? And later? Where was Winter? Where was Laura? Freddie said, sharply, “Tell me first; where’s my sister?”
Jones’s dark eyes measured him. “In Poperinghe. With her friend Mrs. Shaw. Who was behaving very peculiarly.”
Freddie caught Jones’s wrist, his mind ticking over faster, like a watch newly wound. “She’s the woman with the yellow hair, isn’t she? We need to go to them. Something’s wrong. He’s not done with us. We need to go.”
Jones shook him off. “You’re ill, you’ve had an ordeal, and you’re still in considerable danger. Which, frankly, I’m not sure I would care about, except that I care very much for your sister. So for her sake, I am going to keep you—”
This time Freddie’s fingers closed with desperation on Jones’s forearm. “Let me explain. And you decide. But I don’t think there’s much time. You see, I’ve seen that woman, Mrs. Shaw, before.”
The black eyes grew sharper still. “Talk then, Iven.”
