He pressed a kiss to her forehead then pushed her toward the escape.
But she turned at the door. “Then… Promise me you’ll run, Peter.”
He gave her a hard look then pressed the now dry cloth to his face and tunneled back into the smoky hallway.
Please… Oh, please… She thundered down the stairs, her feet slamming against the metal, turning the corner, tripping down to the soft, moist grass.
Fire engines lined the streets, a spray of water arcing from the main truck, snakes of hoses from the other. She caught up to Bertha, found her staring at the building, fire reflected in her eyes.
“Mama!” Sadie leaped into her arms. Esther cocooned her, turning to survey the destruction, her heart a boulder in her chest.
Fire clawed out the windows on the east side of the building, the windows in the solarium now spitting out flames. Glass shattered, showered the shrubbery to the gasps of the onlookers, most of them gathered across the street in the parking lot of the St. John’s Lutheran Church. Nurses and able-bodied men—many of them wearing suits—oh, yes, her wedding!—carried patients across the lawn on sheets. Others hobbled toward safety on crutches or the shoulders of others. She spied Mrs. Hahn, with her hand to her face, locked inside her husband’s embrace. She looked up, saw Linus, and broke away toward him.
Water hung in a high, soggy mist, layered Esther’s skin, her dress.
Sadie clung to her, legs in a vise around her waist.
She should do a head-count of the patients on her floor—except, well, she hadn’t worked in over two weeks, and she didn’t have any idea how many patients they might have.
“Esther!” The voice lifted over the chaos, and Esther turned as Caroline threw her arms around her. “I was so afraid—Teddy picked me up late, and we were parking the car when the building blew—people are in there—what happened?”
“Peter thinks it was prisoners—escaped prisoners from the camp.”
She hissed it, wanting to clue Caroline in, but she stared at her. “Peter is here?”
And that’s when Linus, who had collapsed on the lawn, staring at the building, his expression lost, came back to himself.
“Peter.” He said the namewithout emotion. He looked up at Esther. “Peter?”
She swallowed.
“That was his name. The man in Germany who…” He blinked at Esther. “He’s the prisoner of war. He’s the one who saved my life.”
“Twice,” she said quietly.
“He’s an escaped prisoner.”
Esther looked back, toward the hospital. Hurry, Peter.
Then, as if by the force of her conjuring, he appeared, standing like a hero at the top of the fire escape, Charlie tossed fireman-style over his shoulder.
He muscled Charlie down the stairs. Hurry.
“Are you okay, Esther?”
She turned then, and her voice left her. Just simply vanished beneath the gaze of Dr. O’Grady. He wore a suit, as if he’d been—attending her wedding? He crouched next to Linus. “Are you okay, soldier?”
But Linus just stared past him, past her, his gaze on the man hitting the grass, moving toward them, Charlie over his shoulder.
Peter tumbled Charlie in the grass. Leaned over him, pressing his fingers to his neck. Checking his breathing.
“It’s him,” O’Grady said, a strange tone in his voice. “It’s—that prisoner.”
At his words, Peter looked up.
Met the doctor’s gaze.
Run. She wanted to leap up and, with everything inside her, throw herself at O’Grady. Cover his eyes with her hands.
Please.
Peter stood up. Drew a breath. Glanced at her with a wan smile.
And then, as Esther’s breath left her, Dr. O’Grady slammed his fist against Peter’s jaw. Peter sprawled to the ground, and she screamed.
“No!” Get up, Peter. Get up and run!
But Peter stayed down. Just pressed his hand against his jaw.
“You’d better stay down, or I swear, I’ll make sure the police shoot you on sight!” O’Grady turned toward the fire engines, the patrol of officers. “Help! Help! Over here! I’ve caught him!”
Run, Peter, run.
But he stayed down, even as the police came, even as they shoved him face first into the soggy grass, the burning hospital like eyes winking at his destruction. They cuffed him, none too gently, and dragged him away.
Then Linus’s gaze turned to her, something in it that stripped her of every thought save one.
Run.
CHAPTER 16
“He coerced you to get into the hospital. He used your friendship to sneak in, to sever the propane line, to let the gas fill the boiler room.” The judge spoke without emotion, his back to her, as if he might be reading the titles of the cloth-bound books lining his study.
“No.”
“He wanted to kill Linus, because he was in love with you.”
“He went into the fire to save him. He was trying to keep me from making a mistake.”
The judge’s jaw tightened as he turned and pressed his hands into his smooth mahogany desk. “I’m just trying to keep you out of prison. But if you want to continue to defend him, go ahead. Of course, there’s no way we’ll let you marry Linus. But maybe we’ll let you visit Sadie now and again.”
She closed her eyes. Let herself hear Peter. God loves you more than you can imagine. Oh, she hung on to that now, had to. Her voice came to her with more strength than she’d supposed. “Peter is innocent. He came there to ask me not to marry Linus. Not to blow up the hospital. He was going to go back to camp.”
“Sure he was. Why didn’t he want you to marry Linus?”
The judge’s gaze shot to his son, seated in the chair behind her. He’d said nothing since they’d returned to the house, since he’d brushed off Dr. O’Grady’s private examination then settled himself in the judge’s cigar chair. Not one word in her defense, even as the night bled out into morning and she’d fought to defend herself.
She gripped the arms of the chair. “Why didn’t he want me to marry Linus? Because Linus doesn’t want—”
“Did you sleep with him too?”
Her mouth opened. She swallowed. Closed her eyes. “Of course not.”
“Then why?”
She didn’t recognize her voice, something about it so foreign to her. So rife with hope. “He loves me. He wanted me to wait for him.”
The judge let out a huff of air that resembled the noise her father’s hogs made.
“Why would he love you?”
Now that question she didn’t have an answer for. She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
The judge had no more words. Just sat there, drumming his hands.
She ran her hands across the leather arms of the chair, watching the rain through the window spit upon the grass, drag debris from summer down the street, spill into the drains. The bells rang from St. Peter’s, a mournful cry that dragged out the hours.
You don’t need to become a woman who you think God wants—you already are the woman He wants, the woman He loves. And you’re not lost—because God has found you.
God had found her. He’d stood up for her. He’d…forgiven her. She knew it, even as she watched the judge stand, take out a pack of Luckys, light one up. He came around to the front, sat at the edge of the desk, letting the smoke spiral out.
“This won’t do. Not at all.” He drew in his cigarette, blew it out. Looked at her. “I guess you only have two choices. Either you conspired with this Nazi, or you let yourself be seduced by him. Which I would guess that no sane woman would allow of herself—I mean, to fall for an enemy of her country. Yes, I believe you must have been out of your mind.” He drew in another breath. “Probably they’d be able to treat you at Reedmont.”
Reedmont Psychiatric Hospital. She met his eyes. “I’m not crazy.”
“Then you’re guilty.”
“You’re an evil man.”
He sifted the ash off his ci
garette. “All you have to do is tell us what he did to you. How he coerced you. How he used you.” He bent close to her. “Five people died, Esther. They’re already lining up the firing squad.”
“I swear to you, he didn’t do it. He’s a good man. He saved your son. Twice. That should tell you something.”
“This, from his harlot.”
Harlot. Yesterday the word would have found the soft places inside, burrowed deep, branded her. It would have silenced her, turned her against herself. Loosened her from any moorings… Made her feel lost.
Now, it only illuminated Peter’s words.
You are not found by fitting yourself into what you think is the right place, but by letting God forgive you, letting Him mold you into the life He wants for you.
“I’m not a harlot. I am a woman who made a mistake. Just like your son did.”
You are only found when you have surrendered yourself into God’s hands and let His love transform you.
“Peter is innocent. I am innocent.” She drew in a breath, found a voice she didn’t ever remember having. “And I’m done paying for my crimes.”
“I agree.”
The voice jolted her, slicked the saliva from her mouth.
“That’s enough, Father.”
Linus sat up, looked at his father, then at Esther. “I’m sorry.” He closed his eyes, then something ranged around his face. His jaw tightened, and he drew a breath. When he opened his eyes, something about the look seemed so familiar—
Yes. She saw it then. The carefree, almost buoyant chap who’d bandied her around the dance floor. Strong and confident and Linus—back to himself.
The Linus she had, ever so briefly, fallen for.
“Linus.”
“I’m sorry, Esther. I’m sorry for the way my family’s treated you. And for the things my father—for the things I called you. I’m sorry I didn’t want Sadie—that I still don’t want Sadie.”
“Linus—don’t be rash,” the judge started, but Linus held up his hand.
“Don’t, Father. You never wanted me either. Let’s just be truthful here.”
She saw the sadness in his eyes, void of bitterness.
Out of her periphery, she watched the judge’s mouth tighten.
Linus’s voice hardened. “I have a feeling my grandfather had a similar conversation with my mother, perhaps with you sitting in this very chair.”
The Judge’s face twitched, he gazed out the window. “We need to pay for our mistakes.”
“The only people paying for ‘our’ mistakes, father, are the poor women we’ve made them with.”
Linus turned to Esther, who still hadn’t caught up, her heart whooshing about her chest, untethered. “I’m sorry, most of all, that I behaved so poorly. That I did to you what my father did to my mother.”
The judge crushed out his cigarette. “That’s enough, Linus. I think you’ve done enough damage.”
“No, Father. You have. And if you don’t want our crimes spread around this town—although I have to believe that everyone already knows—then you’ll leave us alone. Right now. Esther and I need to talk.”
Talk? About what? But she had no bones to move, to protest.
Linus reached for his crutch. His father went to help him as he struggled to his feet, but Linus slapped his hand away. “I don’t need any help.”
The judge pulled back. Glanced at Esther, then back at Linus. “No, I guess you don’t.”
Linus bore a sweetness, almost, to his smile when his father closed the door behind him. He leaned against his father’s desk, pushing the ashtray away. “I hate the smell of his cigarettes. Always have.”
She let herself smile, but it fell away fast. Just in case.
Linus’s eyes softened. “I am sorry, you know.”
She wanted to know. To believe him, right down to her bones. And perhaps, yes, the way he started to reach out, then let his hand fall, perhaps yes.
“You don’t love me.” She tested the words more than declared them.
“No. I’ve always loved—”
“Rosemary.”
He nodded. “But, to be honest, you don’t love me either. We never did, really.”
“No.”
His chest rose and fell. “War. It turns everything over, makes it urgent, desperate. I was feeling invincible—and terrified that night. And you—” He met her eyes then. “You are so beautiful, Esther.”
It made her forgive him, just a little. More forgiveness would take time. But she would find that inside too.
“Have I broken your heart?”
Still the arrogant Hahn inside him. However, she shook her head, a warmth in her eyes. “No. You’ve set me free.”
He reached down, took her hand. “Good. Because I want you to be free. And I will help you. Whatever you want. Wherever you want to go.”
“And Sadie?”
He ducked until he met her eyes. “I will learn to be a sort of father, if you let me. And pray that Sadie will someday have a proper father.”
She caught a tear on her fingertips.
“I—I probably shouldn’t ask, but… What about Peter?”
Linus tightened his grip on her hand. “Like you said, he saved my life. Twice. And I still have some pull with the local law.”
Thank you. The words breached her lips, but she couldn’t mouth them. Instead, she returned his touch, her hand tight in his, fast, and it was enough. However, “Linus, that night we were together, I—I lost a part of myself.”
He let go of her hand. “Me too.”
Outside the rain had died, the sun bearing through the gray dawn.
“Do you think it’s possible to find that person you were again?”
She shook her head. “I think maybe, with God’s love, we can find someone better.”
Peter had expected to be shot at dawn, like the villain in a Ringo Kid comic of his youth. After all, the mob that carried him away—if it hadn’t been for the Roosevelt police, he might have been drawn and quartered on the front lawn of the hotel—threatened all manner of execution by daybreak.
And the way Linus had looked at Esther… Peter lay on his cot all night, drawing her name into the ceiling with his prayers.
But the sun had found the morning, parting the night and drawing stripes through his cell by the time he heard footsteps down the hall, the jangle of keys against the leg of his guard.
The deputy appeared. “You have a visitor.”
He hoped it might be Bert, ready to transport him back to camp.
“Linus.”
The man appeared, clean shaven, his hair slicked back, wearing his uniform—gray-green jacket, insignias on the collar, leaning on his crutches.
Linus stopped before the cell, looked at the guard, and nodded.
“Are you sure?” the guard said. But Linus just brushed past him, down the hallway, and nudged open a door at the end. He had already found a seat across from the pine table when Peter followed him in.
The guard shut the door behind him. The bolt slid into the lock.
Peter stood before the table and couldn’t help the mental comparison. He knew he appeared rough—he’d caught his reflection in the window and noted that he’d fared better in town than he had with his fellow Germans. Then again, he’d never call Fritz and Ernst and Hans his fellow Germans.
Also, he looked like a prisoner of war. Linus looked like a hero. A man worthy of Esther, if Peter didn’t know the truth.
“Sit down, Peter.”
Linus gestured to the seat and Peter pulled it out. Linus worked something out of his jacket pocket. “I brought you some of my mother’s zucchini bread.” He laid the waxed paper package in front of Peter.
Oh, how he wanted to inhale it, his stomach roaring to life, but he kept his hands knotted on his lap. “Why?”
Linus offered a smile—something quick, even apologetic? “I thought you might be hungry.”
“How’s Esther?”
Linus’s smile dimmed, and in that
moment Peter saw himself coming over the table, wrapping his hands around Linus’s throat. “This wasn’t her fault.”
“Calm down. She’s fine. She and Sadie have moved to her friend Caroline’s house, for now.” The way he said it, without a fragment of anger…
“I don’t understand.”
“I think you do.” Linus nudged the bread toward him. “Have some breakfast. You must be hungry.”
Peter considered Linus for a moment. Something…seemed different. Healed, or perhaps set free. And a sudden warmth in the texture of his eyes made Peter reach out for the bread.
He held it in his hand, broke off a piece, and willed himself not to turn into a fool.
“I should have known that you and Esther would find each other. That you’d see inside each other that compassion that makes you people who would race into a fire and rescue a coma patient.”
“How is Charlie?”
“I don’t know. But I was referring to me. I was stuck inside the chaos and heat of what I saw in battle, what I suffered. Most of all, the future looked gray to me. I came home to my shame and couldn’t break free.” He pulled out a picture, handed it across to Peter.
“I thought you’d like to have this.”
Peter slid it toward him. Yes. A picture of Esther in her nightingale uniform, probably taken before the war.
“Where did you get this?”
“Esther gave it to me before I left. It was in my gear when it was sent back.”
“You had another woman’s picture in your helmet.”
“Yes.” Linus took off his hat, ran his fingers along the brim. “I love Rosemary. And, if she will still have me, I want to keep my promise to her.” He closed his eyes for a moment, his shoulders rising and falling. “I hurt her pretty bad with my behavior.”
And Esther? Linus still couldn’t see—
“But I hurt Esther worse.” Linus put his hat on the table. “I used her and called it love, but of course we as men know it was nothing of the sort.”
His words weren’t helping calm the rising simmer inside.
“You should know that I could have loved her. And, I think if I had my right mind overseas, I would have never written that letter. And yesterday I would have married her. Because, even when I couldn’t see her, she was there, late at night, early in the morning. Deep down, I knew that she could help heal me, if I let her.”
Nightingale Page 19