Patricia Potter (44 page)

An hour later, she watched Lisa leave with Kelly, thinking how good they looked together, seemed together. But how can you tell someone whom they ought to love?

She cherished that brief moment of intimacy she’d had with her daughter, and Lisa’s emotional response. Why hadn’t she made the gesture earlier? Had she become so brittle, so detached, that she had not realized how she had retreated from showing real feelings?

Meara remembered how hurt she had been years ago when Michael had distanced himself from her emotionally. Had she done the same thing to her family all these years? Had she learned all the wrong things from him?

She was desperately afraid she had, and hadn’t realized how much until she saw him on the beach a few days ago and everything had ripped out, feelings not only for him but for Sanders, for her daughter, for herself. She had been bottling them up for years.

Was it too late? She knew the agony of keeping secrets. Now they were greater than ever before. As were the lies. They were building, each lie upon the other, and she knew the weakness of that kind of foundation.

They had wreaked havoc twenty years ago. What would they do now? What could they do to Lisa?

Chapter Twenty-Three

T
HE SUN WAS
dipping in the west when Kurt approached his father’s grave. It was the second time, and he knew the trip was both stupid and dangerous.

When I get back, Kurt, you’ll meet the Führer. This family will be recognized, you’ll see. We are the new Germany, you and I.

His father had seemed so tall, so powerful, and his voice was compelling as he stooped down to clasp Kurt’s arms. He was wearing his uniform with the death head, and Kurt had trembled with the glory of it.

Always honor the Führer. He is bringing greatness back to us. He is Germany’s hope. And our hope. Fight for him. He is our honor.

How many times had he recalled those words, had tried to live up to them. And he had. He was helping to build a new Reich, a new society of which his father would be proud.

He hated the collective guilt of his people, the way they now denied the existence of something great, would still be great were it not for the traitors, those members of the military who spent their energies plotting against their leader and country rather than their country’s enemies.

They had been the shame, not National Socialism, not the goals to purify Europe and make it the strongest, most powerful nation in the world. Both Russia and America were countries of mongrels, and only Germany’s internal enemies had led it to a momentary defeat.

Kurt stared down at his father’s grave. Only a marker with a number. But I haven’t forgotten, he said silently. I haven’t forgotten anything you told me.

He slowly looked at the other markers. Strangers. Not only strangers, but enemies. “Somehow,” he whispered, “I’ll get you back, and I’ll find out what happened that night. I’ll avenge you. I swear it by Germany.”

He looked around the cemetery. There was only one other person, a woman whose face was shielded by a wide-brimmed hat and who was kneeling in front of a grave. Kurt turned around slowly and headed back to the car, his stomach twisting. He had been surprised earlier when he had called Lisa Evans, and, after the shortest of pauses, she had turned down the offer of dinner tonight, saying she had other plans.

The rejection, he knew, stung more than it should have. He had, after all, told her earlier, very reluctantly of course, that he would be unavailable until Saturday. But he was unused to rejection, and it had surprised him. Along with the knowledge that everything was taking longer than he expected. He’d thought the girl would be easy. Most of his conquests were. But after dinner with her, he had detected a strength he hadn’t really expected.

His plan would take longer, that was all. Once he had arrived and met Lisa and Meara Evans, he’d known exactly what he was going to do: seduce the girl and sleep with her. He’d then tell the mother what he had done, what she had done to his father, and then he would also take her. He planned to kill them both, but not until the woman told him everything that happened twenty-one years ago, not until she had paid in full.

In a way, the girl was a shame. She was a perfect Aryan, and her naive intelligence and admiration amused him. Seducing her should be both interesting and pleasurable. But he needed to keep his mind on the principal objective.

Kurt thought about bedding the girl. Soon. Perhaps even Saturday. His footsteps suddenly lighter, he reached the car and climbed inside.

The moment Meara had dreaded came even faster than she had anticipated.

She had heard Lisa come home with Kelly the previous evening, but Meara forced herself to lie still. She didn’t want Lisa thinking she was checking on her. Yet she had a terrible urge to get up and go to her daughter, to make sure she was all right, to warn her. To warn her to be careful, to warn her not to trust easily, to be wary of insidious charm.

But how could she do that without telling Lisa why?

If she felt this way when Lisa was with Kelly, how could she possibly allow her daughter to go out with Kurt Weimer? No matter how much protection she had.

When she finally rose after a sleepless night, Lisa was in the kitchen, eating a bowl of cornflakes and drinking a glass of juice. Meara started a pot of coffee for herself. Lisa had never cared for it.

“How was the movie?”

“Exciting,” Lisa said. She hesitated a moment. “What do you remember about the war?”

Meara froze. Lisa had never shown much interest in the war before. Was this new awareness because of the movie? Or Weimer? Or both?

“Not much,” Meara said finally. “A lot of rationing. There wasn’t much gasoline, and we walked everyplace. There were food shortages, clothing styles changed because cloth was needed for uniforms and silk for parachutes.”

“I don’t mean that,” Lisa said impatiently. “It had to be, well, rather exciting.”

Meara nearly dropped the cup she was holding. “I remember the woman next door receiving a telegram, informing her that the second of her two sons had died. I remember stars in her window, and so many other stars in so many other windows. Each one represented terrible grief, Lisa. There’s nothing exciting about death, and that’s all war is.” Meara knew her voice was full of emotion, but she couldn’t stop it.

Lisa was silent for a moment. “I can’t picture Kurt as an enemy, as doing some of the things they showed in the film.”

Careful, Meara told herself. Be very, very careful. “War changes people,” she said slowly. “You can’t always control events. Sometimes they control you. No country has a monopoly on good or bad, remember that, and loyalties can make you do things you might otherwise never do.” She stopped, realizing she was saying the words for herself more than Lisa.

“As for Kurt Weimer…I hope you will be very careful. You don’t know him. You don’t know anything about him, and…I…”

“What?”

Meara had been ready to say she didn’t trust him. Or like him. But she had said enough already.

“I don’t want you hurt, darling. He’ll be leaving shortly.”

And what difference had that made to you? she asked herself. It had only accelerated her feelings, made everything more desperately important. She closed her eyes against the feelings of déjà vu that were swamping her. Or was it exactly the same thing? Had Michael Fielding ever been any better than the evil he now attributed to Weimer. Had he ever been more than a spy, a traitor to her, a ruthless brigand who ended up deserting his country too? Had he ever been any of those things she had once thought she saw in him?

Would she never stop wondering about something she would never know?

“Mom?”

Meara shook her head to clear it and looked at her daughter. How she loved Lisa, had always loved Lisa. She had been so innocent, so untouched by evil and violence and betrayal. Meara had always wanted her daughter’s life to stay that way, had always wanted to protect her, to make her strong, stronger than she had been.

It was happening all over again. Another German was coming into their lives, threatening everything dear to her. And there was no one she could trust, not with the truth, not with the secrets that could destroy her daughter.

No one, no one but the person who had set events into motion twenty-one years ago. And she couldn’t even trust him. Not completely.

“I won’t get hurt,” Lisa was saying through the haze of memories. “He’s very, very nice.” With the complete confidence of the young, Lisa smiled and changed the subject. “Kelly has invited us over to dinner tonight. He said a friend of yours and Daddy’s is coming.”

It was another in a series of jolts. She had known a meeting between Lisa and her blood father was imminent. But this soon?

Yet she herself had helped arrange the meeting between Kelly and Michael. No, Chris, damn it. But he would always be Michael to her. Always. She closed her eyes. Concentrating. Chris. She couldn’t make a mistake now, not in front of Lisa or Kelly.

Damn! It was too soon. She should have expected Chris would take full advantage of the situation. He always had. That…persuasiveness of his had probably been the reason he was sent here as a spy. A spy. She couldn’t forget that. She could never forget that. He was a man of different faces.

Lisa was continuing. “I told him I would ask you.” She hesitated. “Kelly thinks you need to get out more.”

Meara wanted to say no. Perhaps if she did, Lisa wouldn’t go.

“Who is he, Mom?”

“Just someone your father met in business.”

“FBI?” Lisa asked with increased interest.

“No.” Even Meara knew the answer carried more emphasis than it should have. She softened her voice. “Chris Chandler is a lumberman. From the northwest.”

“How did Dad meet him?”

“One of…his cases, I suppose.”

“But Kelly said he knew you too.”

“He visited…us once…a long time ago.”

“What’s he like?”

What was he like? Meara wished she knew. She also wished she could say no to dinner. But it was useless. She was as drawn to him now as she had been as a girl. All she could hope for, pray for, was that this business be finished quickly and that Chris or Michael or whoever he was disappear from her life forever. She shrugged, hoping the gesture indicated an indifference she wished she felt.

Lisa looked at her intently, as if she detected something unusual.

“I don’t know him well. He’s about your father’s age.” What else was there to say? That he was charming, intriguing, dangerous. That he still made her senses swim giddily, that he could reach inside and know her every thought while she never knew what he was thinking. She looked down at her watch. “You’re going to be late, young lady, if you don’t get started.”

Lisa gulped down the juice. “You’re right, and Kelly’s been tolerant enough. What should I tell him about tonight?”

Meara’s heart thumped. It was a miracle Lisa didn’t seem to hear it. Say no. “Yes.”

“Good,” she said. “Oh, Kurt called yesterday and wanted me to go to dinner, but I already had a date with Kelly.”

“Did he say anything else?” Meara asked cautiously.

“He asked about you. I think he liked you a lot.”

“I think he’s probably just amusing himself,” Meara said stiffly, and immediately regretted the statement when she saw Lisa’s face. It had looked hurt, then resentful.

“I didn’t mean it the way it sounded,” she tried to recoup. “It’s just that he’s only here for a short time. A week or two, and I’m sure it’s nice for him to have some pleasant company.”

A
week or two.
It had taken Meara less than two days to fall in love. A week or two was a lifetime.

But Lisa’s strained expression didn’t relax, and Meara knew they had lost those few minutes of closeness, of real communication, and she wanted to kick herself.

“I’ll see you later,” Lisa said shortly and grabbed her purse as she whirled out the door, and Meara felt she had taken one step forward and two back. She listened as the screen door banged several times in closing.

The day did not improve. A thick, padded package arrived with the mail, and Meara saw John Malcomb’s name on it. She opened it and found a framed photo of herself and Lisa, and another of the three of them. She held them for a long time, feeling the warmth of the connection, a renewal of the sharp grief she felt at its loss.

She fingered them for several moments. For some reason, she didn’t want to let them go. She didn’t understand how she could feel the things she still felt for Michael so soon after Sanders’s death. She felt faithless and unworthy. She had asked Michael what kind of person he was. What kind of person was she that he still aroused such strong emotions in her?

Meara only knew she couldn’t deal with any more grief, any more guilt at the moment. She took the photos upstairs and placed them next to the jewelry box on the dressing table. It didn’t contain much, for she had never cared a great deal for jewelry. There was a string of pearls Sanders had given her on their tenth anniversary, some gaudy but infinitely dear brooches a young Lisa had proudly presented to her at birthdays or Christmases, a watch that no longer worked.