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“That’s not nothing,” Ruan said softly. “You’ve actually got quite a bit.”

“Don’t forget we now have someone who wants me to leave…” I gestured toward the back lawn of the boardinghouse and the ominous painted message on the wall. “I need to find that imposter. I also need to talk to Father Étienne. I still know nothing about the third patient—the one who disappeared with my mother that night? Is he alive … does he even exist?”

“Or she…” Ruan asked softly. He was right. Two dead women, a missing girl. I swallowed hard. The third patient could as easily be a woman as a man.

Ruan left his chair and settled down onto the floor, gazing up at me. He kept one hand on my ankle. The slightest contact, enough to know he was there. “Do you think whoever disappeared with her that night is our killer?”

I sucked in a sharp breath, not liking the sound of any of this. “I don’t know what to think—but it has to mean something, doesn’t it?”

“I have a feeling you are going to want to find that out as well,” Ruan said with a rueful smile.

The edge of my mouth curved up slightly as an entirely incomprehensible warmth bubbled up in my chest. “You don’t mind?”

He shook his head, holding my gaze.

“How…? My curiosity always ends up causing you all sorts of trouble. I’ve nearly gotten you killed—you’ve been shot. Kidnapped. You’ve been tied to a bed for goodness’ sake.”

Ruan reached up, brushing a curl back from my forehead. “And I would not trade a second of it. Not one.”

It ought to warm my heart, but somehow Ruan’s love only caused the bone-deep ache in my chest to worsen. My mother had loved me too … and see where it had gotten her. I eyed the silver flask on the table that I’d filled with the brandy from Mrs. Wauters, before glancing down to Ruan’s warm hand resting tenderly on my ankle.

I cleared my throat and scrambled to my feet. I stretched before crossing the room to grab my coat, slipping it over my shoulders, and dropped the flask into my pocket. “I am going to take a walk … clear my head. See if I can find our imposter here in the village. Perhaps learn more about that missing girl while I’m at it. And then tomorrow…”

Ruan sat there on the floor watching me, waiting several seconds for me to finish before prodding. “And tomorrow…?”

“Tomorrow I will go back to the lake and see what there is to find that someone clearly does not want me to find.”

CHAPTER FOURTEENThe Knot Tightens

THE midday sun was bright overhead and the air fresh and clear despite the cold as I set off to see what the village had in store for me. Birds sang out a cheerful song from the nearby woods—an altogether charming scene were it not for the alarming number of dead or missing people here. Several of the village buildings remained abandoned after the German occupation and years of war. I swallowed hard, trying to shed the palpable sorrow shrouding this land. I could not even admire its beauty without recalling the German atrocities committed here only a handful of years before. I’d not ever heard of Saint Oda’s but I’d known many other towns like it. Of men, women, and children senselessly slaughtered—and for what? For one land’s right to redraw lines upon the earth? Dividing up a world for little more than avarice and power. The blood of those sacrificed upon the altar of war still stained my own hands. And no amount of scrubbing would remove the mud and viscera from my soul. I may not have killed them, but I had been powerless to save them, and, deep inside, it was one and the same.

God. I worried about Ruan returning to this place, but in truth it was me who did not want to return here. Did not want to remember those bleak days of war. My eyes blurred with tears for men I’d not even known. I squeezed my fists tighter, my hand moving unerringly to the flask in my pocket. I unscrewed the silver cap, bringing it to my lips, and took a long drink, allowing Mrs. Wauters’s gifted brandy to burn away the grief I’d carried since the armistice. A grief made all the worse by the fact I had killed my mother. If not by my actions, then by my inaction. One for the living. Two for the dead.

Another pull from the flask as the world trembled beneath me. It’d been months since I’d reached for my flask, seeking the siren call of oblivion, and it was here I broke. Was it the echoes of war, or something else altogether? Perhaps my suspicion of the German doctor was prejudice—my own experiences coloring my investigation.

I ran a trembling hand over my face. No. Something was odd here. The stories did not align. The facts did not meet. After all, who was that other missing patient, and what had truly happened to my mother? For I did not believe for one moment she had drowned in still waters.

My fingers knotted in the chain of my locket, the one housing the photographs of my parents. I stood on the step of that second village shop having learned no more than when I set foot inside the first. Each question asked in hopes of locating the imposter led to more apprehensive looks away. Rushed apologies. Hasty departures. The people here did not trust me. Not that I could blame them—but after a half dozen false starts, a girl begins to take such things personally. But what’s more, it underscored that something terrible must have occurred here and that the villagers knew what it was. Were they protecting the imposter, or were they afraid of her?

Continuing down the lane, the winter wind whipped at my skirts, freezing me to the bone. I began to understand why Mr. Owen hated this time of year. Damp and cold made a dreadful combination. I should have brought Ruan along with me rather than leave him behind with Mrs. Wauters. While I’d believed he might learn something from her, I sensed he’d have learned a great deal more from the mood in the village.

My stomach rumbled, reminding me I’d eaten very little today. Brandy and coffee would not get me far. Nor would my housekeeper, Mrs. Penrose, take kindly to me starving myself in pursuit of justice. On the far side of town sat a small café, more akin to a pub from back home in Exeter than the Parisian cafés I’d grown accustomed to during my periods of leave during the war. I’d emptied my flask and needed another drink, something to quiet these voices in my head.

And I knew without a doubt I shouldn’t have another. For that road led back to the dark place I’d just started to leave—and yet I was powerless over it. I could only pray to Ruan’s old gods he would not judge me too harshly for it.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER I was seated in the corner of the dark taproom with a hearty beef stew and a second malty pint of ale in my hands. The beer barely touched the hollowness within me. The sun dipped a little lower in the sky. Ruan would be worried, but I could not summon the energy to be concerned. I could feel the eyes of the other patrons boring into me, watching. Waiting to see what I would do. Something in it reminded me of those horrible days after my scandal in New York—when I could not so much as leave my house with my mother without a camera flashing, waiting to catch me in yet another compromising situation.

I took another sip of the rich unctuous broth, wishing food would heal what alcohol could not. I’d not expected discovering the truth about my mother would rehash every wound I’d ever suffered. One girlish mistake—believing in love—doomed my family and changed my life forever. I dipped a bit of crusty brown bread into the soup and took a bite, watching as the fellow behind the bar stared at me. The other patrons had made themselves scarce. Escaping one by one until only two souls remained within the café. Me and the man whose job it was to run this place.

I half expected him to demand I leave, but he remained behind the smooth walnut counter, running his fingers over the surface. Back and forth. Then back again in an irksome, ponderous sort of gesture. He was a young, strikingly handsome fellow with short dark hair and a beard a shade or two lighter. He wore a deep green waistcoat and a pale blue shirt. A silver watch fob dipped from the buttonhole, disappearing into his pocket.

My head swam with too much beer and not enough stew. I raised a brow at him in challenge. “Is there a problem?”

He let out a throaty laugh, glancing around his empty taproom, as if he’d been waiting on me to speak. “I’d say so.” There was a playful glint in his eye I didn’t much like. “You’ve frightened off my customers.”

He came around the bar without a hint of fear, crossing the old wooden floor and joined me at my table. An image surfaced in my mind—of sightless eyes staring up into a purple sky.

Perhaps he should be afraid.