PRESENT DAY
RUE DU MARTRAY
LOUDUN, FRANCE
“To be in police custody is garde à vue over here, which means they could keep us for twenty-four hours if the owner of the property wanted to press charges for trespassin’.”
Quinn opened the door for her, letting her swing through in front of him.
“But they’re letting us go anyway?”
He nodded, following her out into the sunshine. “Titus must have spoken up for us. Good thing, because the owner doesn’t want to press charges, apparently. So the prosecutor is lettin’ us off the hook with a warnin’. But what say we shake this off and go get breakfast? Maybe regroup on all this. I need some coffee and we can call Marcel over from the vineyard to pick us up at the café.”
“That’d be heaven. Because I can’t think about anything but a strong cup of coffee at the moment.” Something told Ellie she’d just scored points for honesty and she turned, sending a tentative smile his way. “You?”
“Praise be. Because I just wasn’t in the mood for French tourism right now.”
Ellie gazed down the length of the street, a curve that rounded the hill with shops and businesses and a moderate bustle that kept patrons moving all the way down to an ancient stone gate at the end. A mounted plaque stood out along the way, the bronze corners shining in the early morning sun.
She placed a hand on his elbow. “Quinn, what is this place?”
“The gate is Porte du Martray. Historical landmark here in Loudun.”
“I’ve read about it. But what is that—the plaque halfway down the hill? In front of the church? I’ve been looking through the historical records in Loudun, visiting every monument that might mention the castle. I didn’t find a thing. But I never came this far through the gate, so I missed that one.”
“Ellie . . .” Quinn shook his head and sighed, kicking his shoe against a stone that dared cross his path on the sidewalk. “I must be mad, but let’s go then. Lucky for you the café’s on the corner behind it or I’d have said no.”
The walk was bright. And Ellie felt a little drumbeat in her chest with each step along the sidewalk. Quinn had, in his own stubborn way, bought into the curiosity of the what and how in the castle’s story. He pretended to bristle of course, with hands buried in his pockets and reticent manner in place. Though if she had to judge, he just might have been a half step ahead of her the entire way.
They reached it, and Quinn gave a rough translation. The plaque didn’t mention the castle, but Ellie ran her fingertips over the blue-green patina of the one engraving she did recognize: 1944.
“It says a band of French resistance held off a German attack at the bridge to Loudun. This chapel was used as a hospital during the war, and for many months after the Allies liberated Paris in August 1944.” Quinn tipped his shoulders in a light shrug. “Well, there’s 1944. It’s worth a shot, isn’t it? That’s the year on your photo. Maybe they’ll know somethin’ about what happened to the castle. It’s not that far away.”
Not far away . . . The thought sent fresh prickles of doubt to provoke her. To have been so close a number of times, yet so far away from the truth in the same breath—Ellie wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
“What do you think? Should we go inside? It could be another dead end.”
“And you won’t have any peace until you know for sure.” His smile was a gracious one, a sign he wanted to step through the doors maybe as much as she did—if only to make her happy. “That much I do know, Ellie Carver.”
“I suppose I wouldn’t.”
“And you didn’t come all this way to France just to get arrested, now, did ya?” He released a quick wink as he reached for the scrolled iron handle on the front door and opened it wide. “Come on then. I’ll see if we can find someone inside to answer your barrage of questions.”
The chapel’s street-side façade was deceptive; it boasted a nave nearly three stories in height, with long, chair-lined alcoves on either side and a grand central altar set far down at the front. A rose window—impressive for the small provincial town it was—dispelled the color of light piercing through stained glass.
While Quinn wandered to a tourist counter and began flying through an explanation in his quirky Irish-French accent, Ellie explored the wings at the back, looking over display cases with heirlooms of the chapel’s history: Relics for the Sacrament in silver and gold. Illuminated manuscripts, exquisite in their hand-tipped details and, if one could guess, quite old. There were a number of portraits of chapel patrons and stained-glass windows backdropping the arrangement with fractured color.
“Quinn!”
Ellie froze for the seconds it took to process the contents of the case at the end of the row. She turned, saw him trotting in her direction.
“What’s the matter?”
“She’s . . .” Ellie pressed her palm to the glass case. “Here.”
Ellie pointed to photos—dozens of them, hung in neat rows behind plate glass.
There was a straight razor and leather satchel. A 1940s Mycro brand camera and leather case. Even a rifle, the wood now aged. And there, smack-dab in the center of the display for the French Resistance in World War II, was the photo image of a British lady with ebony hair and a telltale dimple in her left cheek. There was a team huddled in front of a stone wall. A distinguished-looking man with a bow tie. A young girl with long, dark hair. Another photo of the team at the ruins of a castle, the majesty of its façade painted over with a garish V. And another of the group standing in the woods, weapons resting on shoulders or raised above their heads.
“Quinn, look,” Ellie breathed out, her fingertips drifting from photo to photo, moving along the glass, as if she could reach out and grasp the memories. “It’s Grandma Vi. The dress she’s wearing here matches the photo I have. But the rest . . . I’ve never seen her like this. She’s poised for battle. How could my grandmother have fought in the French Resistance, and I knew nothing about it?”
“You look so much like her. I wondered.” Quinn eased in beside her, his shoulder brushing against hers. “Well, you did it, Ellie. Look at all this. You found her.”
“Did I really? She’s in these photos, but did I find her, or more questions? Because I’m no closer to the truth than the first day I came here. She’s a completely different person than the woman I know.”
“But isn’t that your castle?” He pointed to a photo of a group of fighters posted in front of the Château des Doux-Rêves’ six-story tower.
Ellie traced a faint V on the glass, following the lines on the photo. “I think it is. Yes.”
“And that’s your grandmother standin’ in front of it, yeah?”
“It’s her. There’s no question about it.”
He sighed. “Then I’m sorry. It looks like we’re going to have to get our coffee to go. You want answers, then we need to go home and talk to the source.”
Quinn eased his palm over hers, directed Ellie’s index finger to press the glass over the photo’s caption. “Because this one says the commander of the Maquis resistance at Château des Doux-Rêves was this man—by the name of Julien Vivay.”