The Pieces We Keep (18 page)

“Sorry. I had some things to take care of.” The light turned green, prompting Audra forward.

“Things, huh? That sounds cryptic.” Tess barely paused before pressing, “And?”

“And ... it was nothing. I was just out . . . seeing this guy . . .” Audra didn’t know how to continue unless she told her friend everything.

Tess gasped. “You’re seeing someone?”

“What? No. That’s—no.”

“Oh, my word. I can’t believe you’ve been holding out on me. Who is he?”

“Nobody, my tush.” The woman even cursed like a perfect mother. “Don’t make me skip my appointments to go find you.”

Audra tried to argue, but a laugh escaped instead. The whole idea was ridiculous. Besides, in two months, barring a horrible twist, she and Jack would be moving to Boston.

“Seriously, Tess. I’m not dating anyone.”

“In that case, who is this guy you’re
not
dating?” Tess clamped down like a pit bull.

Audra fended off the inquisition as she steered through the parking lot and into her spot. “I’ve got to meet Jack at the bus stop. I’ll call you later.”

In the midst of her friend’s objection, Audra hung up and laughed again. She couldn’t recall the last time she had enjoyed her day this much.

She hopped out and headed for the apartment. The yellow transport would be rolling up soon. She could sort through the mail, even pay bills, while she waited.

“Are you Audra Hughes?” A lean man in a navy windbreaker stepped away from her door.

“Can I help you?”

“Are you Audra Hughes?” he repeated as if robotically programmed.

“Yes. Who are
you?”

He handed her a thin packet of papers and walked away.

“Hold on a second. What is this?”

He straddled his motorcycle, threw on a helmet, and started the engine. As he zoomed away, Audra regarded the document.

“A summons?” she read.

She skimmed the pages, first not understanding, then in disbelief. Every word was a brick, every line a steel beam. Yet she continued on to the end. As comprehension bore down, her arms nearly gave out.

Meredith and Robert had filed a petition.

For sole custody of Jack.

N
othing about the note reflected the person Vivian had once loved. No term of affection. No resemblance in handwriting. To be certain of this, she compared the letter from Euston Station. While cursive and print structurally differed, not even the
V
in her name matched the style of Isaak’s hand. Moreover, there was no logic in the secrecy.

It could all be a cruel prank. A glass of spring water could not be clearer. Still, here she was in Prospect Park, on Binnen Bridge in the dark of night.

Bringing company would have been wise, but whom? Even if Luanne or Gene had been an option, their presence might have kept the caller away. In which case, Vivian would never know for sure. And she had to know. Simply for answers, if nothing else.

“Awfully late for a stroll, young lady.” The policeman, barrel-chested with a double chin, appeared by the far railing. He waved his nightstick like a reprimanding finger. “You should be at home where it’s safe.”

“You’re absolutely right, Officer.” Vivian issued her most compliant smile. “And that’s exactly where I’m headed. Just as soon as my brother arrives to walk with me.”

Any allusion to a romantic rendezvous, based on the policeman’s presumed code of morality, could end up spurring him to lurk in the area.

“How soon you expecting him?”

“Any minute now, sir.”

In an assessing manner, he looked over at the patches of forest, the boathouse down below. Light from the full moon cast shadows over his heavy-lidded eyes and broad nose. “I’m just getting off my shift,” he said, “but why don’t I wait till your brother gets here.”

“That’s so kind of you, though truly not necessary.” She caught sight of the man’s ring, a traditional gold wedding band. “I’m sure you’re anxious to see your family after a long day. And in your line of work, your wife probably frets enough without your running late.”

After a moment, his head bobbed a little in amused agreement. He twisted the nightstick in his hands as if seeking an answer by feel. “You sure you’re comfortable out here?”

“Oh, certainly. I appreciate your concern, of course. As I said, he’ll be here any time.”

He exhaled heavily through his nose. “All right,” he said. “You have any trouble, just give a yell. Another officer ought to be right in the area. Understand?”

“Yes, sir. Thank you. I will.”

He nodded, then strode off into the blackness.

The rushing of a small waterfall helped to drown unwelcome sounds, the snapping of twigs and cooing calls from creatures in the trees. The air smelled of dirt, faintly of stagnant water.

She angled her watch to view its hands by the moon. It was a quarter past ten. For more than a half hour she had waited in this sprawling park, a maze of archways and tunnels, foreboding sculptures with leering eyes. She felt them closing in.

Waiting longer would be fruitless. It was a joke, or a mistake. If the person was really her Isaak, he would find her at home, reunite with her in daylight. To believe in his existence, only to be crushed by another loss, could leave her in too many pieces to recover.

Taking her cue from the officer, she surveyed the area before stepping off the bridge and continuing on to the pathway, along the curving river and dense forest. She hugged her arms against a cool breeze that rustled through the branches.

A footfall came from behind.

She spun around, went still as a park statue.

No one there. No other noise. Just the jagged cadence of her own breathing.

It was only her imagination, she contended. Yet her inner child went unconvinced, still afraid of monsters lurking in the closet. Her legs insisted she run, not to halt until secure in her room.

She turned to do just that, an overreaction or not, when something reached from the trees. A hand grasped her arm. She recalled the officer’s warning and opened her mouth to yell. A hand muzzled her attempt. Her fingers flew up to pry the grip away. She sensed the body of a man behind her.

“Don’t scream,” said the husky voice, before he whisked her into the shadows.

T
he world went quiet, frozen on its axis.

“Mom, are you okay?”

Audra detected the faint sound of her son’s voice. It echoed through the long, dark cavern of her mind, where confusion and hurt and shock had pooled.

She gripped the steering wheel like a hammer. The urge to swing grew with each passing mile.

“Mom?” Jack said from the backseat.

She supplied a reassuring answer, though the words might have been jumbled. Her brain was still whirring from the loop of accusations, the formal outline of grounds to steal Jack from her life.
Get in the car,
she’d told him the instant he stepped off the bus.

Robert and Meredith, one way or another, would reverse what they had done.

Audra parked along the curb at the base of the couple’s driveway. The charming shutters and vibrant flower beds suddenly appeared a façade.

How else could she have missed this coming?

Yes, there had been ongoing tension. And yes, it had reached a new high at Jack’s birthday, when Meredith made her suspicions known. But what kind of relatives file for custody without giving a hint of warning?

A guy in the next driveway sponged suds over his windshield. Across the street three women sat on a porch, all sunglasses and drinks, while children played tag on the lawn.

Audra had a sudden urge to alert them all, to expose Robert and Meredith for the people they truly were.

She told herself to calm down. No good would come from making a scene. She would be smart about this. She would reason it out once she’d thought everything through.

“It’s Grandpa!” Jack said.

Down the driveway came Robert Hughes. His strides were those of a seasoned commander headed into battle.

A flood of betrayal returned; it fueled Audra’s anger to a combustible level. A solitary spark and she just might explode. She needed to leave right now.

With great effort, she placed her hand on the key to restart the motor. But in a final glance over, she noticed Robert’s eyes connect with Jack. A target to be captured.

Audra’s restraint snapped in two. Again, she was on the Philly-bound plane, determined to protect her son. Primal instinct took over and sent her charging from her car to block Robert’s path.

“Audra, listen,” he said. “I know you must be upset.”

“Upset? Are you kidding me?” Her voice spiked to a boom she didn’t know she possessed. “Just because you want to destroy what’s left of my family?”

“Hang on, now. We’re not trying to destroy anything.” He showed his palms, a false show of innocence. His name, too, was on that petition.

Past his shoulder, there was movement in the window. Meredith was spying from the curtains. Bold enough to hire a lawyer but too cowardly to face the accused.

“How long have you been planning this, Meredith?” She aimed her fury toward the house. “How long?”

“That’s enough,” Robert said, low but gruff. He motioned discreetly to the car.

Jack. Jack was watching. Fear and bewilderment contorted his small features.

The heat in Audra’s veins dropped ten degrees, cooled by a shot of remorse.

What was she thinking? How could she have brought him here?

Sounds of splashes pulled her gaze. The man washing his car held the nozzle of a hose, his attention locked on the drama. Water missed its mark and streamed toward the gutter. The mothers and children had also stopped for the show.

“We just want to work out what’s best for Jack,” Robert said to her. “Please know, that’s our only intention.”

Audra didn’t reply. She couldn’t without saying something she might regret. She rounded the car in a composed manner and lowered into her seat. Her hand quaked as she drove away. She focused on the road, striving to keep Jack safe, a priority she had just trampled.

Paused at a stop sign, she dared to look over her shoulder. Jack firmly rubbed at his plane, a distant haze in his eyes.

“Jack, I am so, so sorry. I shouldn’t have lost my temper.” At the break in her voice, the rising of tears, she turned back around. Her first goal was to get them home, her second to fix this mess.

In the entry of their apartment, she apologized again. She gave him a hug, which he didn’t return—not that she blamed him. “Baby, why don’t you go run a bath? Let me know when it’s ready and I’ll put a bag over the cast. Then we’ll have some dinner. Okay?”

He nodded, shoulders toward his ears, and treaded away.

The apartment never felt so small.

Audra geared up before retrieving the phone. In the privacy of her room, she called the last person she could count on.

“Tess, it’s me.”

“Hey. I hope you’re calling to fess up. Because you are so not off the hook.”

Audra cut straight to it. “I need to know—could your husband take on a new case?”

Tess went quiet, changing gears. “I’d have to ask him. Why? Who’s it for?”

Her answer stalled, hindered by the memory of Devon’s old saying:
nuttin’ but a scratch.
The problem was never bad until you acknowledged it aloud. But this was more than a scratch; it was a gash through the heart by people she loved. Family she trusted.

“Audra?”

“It’s for me,” she managed to say. “I need a lawyer, in order to keep Jack.”

A
rms pinned to her sides, Vivian shuddered from a cold rush of helplessness. The man behind her tightened his hold, one hand on her mouth, the other around her chest. Trees surrounded her like bars of a prison.

Again, he sent hushed words into her ear, but she deciphered none of them. Her internal screams wailed too loudly as she struggled to break free. Not a single soul knew where she had gone. The note from the cafe, stored in her jewelry box, would not be found in time.

The horror of it all slowed the scene to a crawl. Her thoughts stretched out, long and thin, the strands of an endless web.

She had become the missing little girl, the one from the paper, leaving loved ones to grieve with few clues and no answers. She saw her own mother weeping, her father distraught. This would be the tragedy to revive the couple’s bond, or sever it forever. She pictured Luanne and Gene, dazed by a swarm: officers and detectives, rookie reporters. In the midst of world war, the abduction of a diplomat’s daughter would barely make a headline.

Could it be for a ransom? How long had the man followed her?

How did he know of Isaak? The thought of exploiting that memory, the malice of such bait, altered Vivian’s fear. It boiled and mounted into an eruption of anger, doubling her will to escape.

She shoved her shoulder downward and wrestled an arm loose. With every ounce of her strength, she jabbed her elbow into his gut, causing him to moan. She pushed through his grip and started to run.

“Stop,” he said.

She swerved around a tree before the roots sent her tumbling. She scrambled to rise, wanting to bellow at full volume, yet her throat, constricted by terror, blocked any rise of sound.

“Darling, please!” His tone resembled a plea. But it was the familiar rasp and endearment that forced her to glance backward.

Moonlight illuminated the man in his overcoat. He was reaching out, but not chasing. The sway of branches caused a flicker over his face. Like the flashing of a time machine, it transported Vivian across the Atlantic. Once more, in the velvety seats of the London cinema, she watched the black-and-white images of a newsreel reflect and dance across . . .

Isaak.

This man was Isaak.

“Are you hurt?” he said.

She could only stand there. The whisper of his name swirled in her head.
Isaak.
His golden curls had been snipped away, but she recognized the deep-set eyes, the dimple of his chin. The handsome lips that so often-more in her dreams, regrettably, than in life-had laid trails over her skin.

“I didn’t mean to frighten you.” He approached with tentative steps. “I’d have met you on the bridge, but the policeman was circling around.”

His accent was stronger than she remembered. She could be dreaming, hallucinating, encountering a ghost.

Guided by hope, she hazarded to touch his sleeve. She rubbed it between her fingers and confirmed the reality of fabric. The reality of his existence.

“It’s you-” She covered her mouth, withholding a sob that sprang from a buried well.

His lips slanted into a smile. It was the very one she had feared she was doomed to forget. He wiped a tear from her face and clasped her fingers tight. His hands were warm and smooth, like mittens lined with silk.

“My God, how I’ve missed you,” he said. Emotion burned in his gaze.

Whether by his effort or hers she could not say, but suddenly she was in his arms. The thumping of her heart formed a drumbeat against his chest.

“Vivian, Vivian,” he said over and over, as if to hypnotize her with the word. His mouth brushed her cheek. Her neck tingled from the heat of his breath. Could this really be happening?

She closed her eyes, savoring the feel, the scent of him. She inhaled the sweetness of tobacco and sage, or was it the forest? No. There was no forest, no passage of time. They were back in a dank cellar, the air electric from the gliding and joining of their bodies, and a song played out....

But the song was not there; it was here. Here in the cursed present.

Isaak, too, must have heard, for he ceased any movement.

Beyond the labyrinth of trees, an unseen person whistled “Shepherd’s Serenade.” The second officer must have been making his rounds.

Vivian considered the traits of such a duty, the honor and righteousness. The heroism embodied by the uniform. And from the thought came the memory of another man. A fellow whose kind and caring nature had not only fractured the shell over her heart but seeped through the hardy cracks.

Although Gene had agreed to a casual courtship, a budding of guilt opened within her.

The whistling drifted away.

She edged backward from Isaak, her loyalty torn. Her gaze slipped from his face and fixed on a discovery. In the gap of his coat was a neckerchief. She followed the sailor’s tie to an insignia she recognized from newsreels and propaganda ads, an eagle perched on a wreath.

Inside the wreath was a swastika.

“What is this?”

He traced her attention. In a frantic sweep, he cinched his coat closed. Their bout of struggling had exposed his uniform. “I can explain,” he said, reaching out.

Vivian instinctively stepped away. The heat of her skin had dissolved, the fluidity of her limbs gone rigid. “All this time ... I thought . . . I thought something horrible had happened to you.”

“Please. Hear me out.”

“Instead, you were serving for the Germans?”

“It wasn’t my choice.”

Truth gathered like a cloud, threatening to empty in a downpour of stones. She revisited the option of screaming for the police.

But Isaak’s eyes locked her in place. “I went to see my mother, as I told you I would. I wasn’t there more than an hour before the Gestapo pounded on the door. They took me in for questioning.”

From the angle of his face, the moon highlighted a line on his cheekbone, a scar Vivian hadn’t noticed until then. The inch-long mark bespoke an interrogation that had entailed more than words.

“What did they want from you?”

He was about to reply yet stopped. Without more, her imagination would supply the worst.

“Isaak. I deserve to hear it.”

He took a breath. “They wanted details . . . about us.”

“Us?”

“Our relationship. More than that, any political information you’d given me.”

Vivian recalled the old basement, the tidbits that had floated through the vent and onto a platter she so eagerly delivered.

“What did you say?”

“I told them I knew nothing. I said that you had no interest in politics. That we never discussed your father’s dealings. But they didn’t believe me.” He shook his head, his jaw muscle flexing. “I thought they were going to kill me, Vivian. I was lying there on the floor, murmuring prayers in my head. Then another man came in, a senior lieutenant-though at the time I could barely make out his boots. My eyes were swollen shut. But I knew his voice.”

The memory of the scene played across Isaak’s face. For a fraction of a moment, he was back in that room.

“And you knew him–how?” Vivian said, and he again met her eyes.

“It was Professor Klein.”

Despite the reeling in her head, she visualized the man’s features. The chiseled lines and beardless face, the thick eyebrows and jet-black hair. At last, the incongruence became clear; he was more suited to a Nazi uniform than a teacher’s garb.

“You’d told him about me,” she realized. “That’s how they knew.”

“When I first mentioned our dating, he discouraged it. I didn’t know he was trying to protect me. Maybe both of us. He just said that any distraction from my studies could jeopardize my funding. That Mr. Mueller wouldn’t approve of wasting his money. But I couldn’t stay away from you. As much as I tried, I couldn’t.”

“So you kept us a secret.”

He affirmed this with a solid nod. “Then you came to the campus looking for me, and it became obvious to him that I hadn’t heeded the advice. In some ways, putting the truth out there was a relief. I knew he had family in Germany, so I told him of the news you’d shared. He and my father had been friends since childhood. For years, with my father gone, he looked out for me like a son. But I had no idea he was a retired officer.”

The full picture was taking shape, including the real reason she couldn’t reach the professor by phone. He hadn’t evacuated for the purpose of safety; he had been called back into service by Hitler.

“At first, he was compelled by his duty,” Isaak went on. “But he assured me, he never meant for me to be harmed. I truly believe, darling, if he hadn’t come in and stopped them, I wouldn’t have lived through that day.”

The gratitude in his voice encircled her like a net. She felt herself drawn in until skepticism pushed back.

Something didn’t fit. The equation was off-balance.

“You’re saying they arrested you. Used brutal force for a confession that you wouldn’t make. And yet, they trusted you enough to let you join their military?”

“I know how it sounds. I swear, it was all the professor’s doing. He convinced an old comrade, an officer in the SS, that the report about me was mistaken. He told him my loyalty remained with the Fatherland. The home of my parents. In the end, they decided that my English skills, and my ability to blend in here, could make me a strong asset for a special assignment.”

“But if you wanted to blend,” she pointed out, “you wouldn’t be wearing a German uniform.”

He regarded his collar and agreed. “I was instructed to wear this only until I made it ashore, so if I were caught I’d be treated as a POW I was then to bury it and change into civilian clothes. But in doing so, I’d be labeled a spy.”

“And that isn’t what you are?”

“I was sent here as a scout.” He said this firmly, desperately, as if trying to convince himself there was a difference. “I’m only to confirm data and contacts before meeting at a rendezvous point.”

Part of her insisted that the less she knew the better. But after years of unanswered questions, she could not rest without the full story.

“Who is it you’re meant to meet there?”

He glanced around in a precautionary manner. Evidently what he was about to reveal was more incriminating than all that preceded it.

“A week from now, or shortly after, eight agents will be delivered by U-boat, just as I was. Half at Long Island, the rest in Florida. They were trained at the German High Command for Operation Pastorius. For two years, they’re to sabotage waterways and canals, magnesium and aluminum plants. Anything to delay war production, but also to demoralize citizens. They’ll target train stations and Niagara Falls. And department stores too–though just the ones owned by Jews.”

Her thoughts stumbled, attempting to keep up. “Why?” she breathed.

“They want German Americans to be blamed. The Führer is convinced Roosevelt will turn on them, just like he did to the Japanese here in the States. Then those with German blood will retaliate, bringing more power to the Reich.”

The magnitude of the mission far surpassed Vivian’s comprehension. The details soaked into her with the power of acid. She strained to salvage a shred of reasoning.

A week, he had said. They still had a week.

“It’s not too late,” she assured him, and herself. “You have plenty of time to let authorities know what’s coming.”

“And I plan to,” he said, yet a stipulation resounded in his tone.

“However ... ?”

He moved a step closer. “First, I have to know my family is out of Germany. They need papers-exit visas, new identities-so they can cross the Swiss border. Which is why,” he added slowly, “I need your help, darling.”

“My help?”

“Through your father. With all of his connections, surely he can arrange this. There are only five of them. I brought a list of their names for you.”

As he delved into his pockets, Vivian mentally grasped his request. What followed was the impossibility of fulfilling it.

“He can’t,” she said. “That is-my father isn’t here.”

Isaak looked up, the folded paper in his hand. “Where, then? At the Capitol? Wherever he is, we could-”

“Isaak,” she said, “he never left London.”

The lines on his brow deepened. “I thought that by now, your father would have come . . .”

She shook her head.

Another ill twist of fate had befallen them. Isaak rubbed at his hair-his buzzed, military cut–as if to stimulate new ideas. “There has to be a way. I can’t turn myself in until they’re safe. I simply can’t.”

The repercussions were woven into his voice, his eyes: As relatives of a traitor, his family would never be granted the luxury of a formal interrogation. One knock at the door and they would vanish into dust.

“I’ll find someone,” she heard herself say.

He gawked at her, a series of wordless questions.

Her mind scraped for the answers. “Who knows, maybe my father can still help. He also has colleagues in DC, men I’ve known through the years.” Whether she could trust anyone in regard to Isaak, she would determine as she went. “I’ll just . . . tell them I’m friends with your family. Nothing about you for now. And that they’re in imminent danger and have to be saved.”

Isaak paused before nodding. Through a layer of dimming hope was the need to believe. All of his faith, the fate of his family, he would place with her.

He spoke softly as he came closer. “I despise dragging you into this. My God, I never should have left your side, darling. Never.”

When he lifted his hand to touch her cheek, it took all of her will to stop him. Innocent lives were at stake, both on the home front and abroad. For now, these would take priority over the sorting of her heart, and her feelings for Isaak Hemel.