Evelyn hurried home with a newspaper tucked inside her raincoat. Frau Engel was the smartest and best informant imaginable.
Evelyn’s feet were damp despite her umbrella, and the wet sidewalk shimmered in the cold light of the streetlamps.
Engel meant angel in German, an appropriate nickname for the woman with the halo braid who had fed Evelyn information since the plebiscite. Every week, Evelyn went to a train station or streetcar stop, and Frau Engel would be there reading a newspaper. When the train or streetcar arrived, Frau Engel would say she was done with her paper and did Evelyn want it?
Yes, she did, thank you. Frau Engel tucked messages inside the papers, including the time and location of their next meeting. Every tip had been as golden as those heavenly streets.
Evelyn opened the door to her building, climbed the stairs, and set her umbrella in the hall to dry. Light came from under the door, meaning Libby was home early from her concert. She opened the door.
“Ach!” Helga, the cleaning lady, stood at Evelyn’s desk. She startled and dropped some papers. “You are already home?”
Something was very wrong. “Why are you here?”
“Ach! You and Fräulein White!” Helga clucked her tongue and shuffled papers. “She is here the whole day, and you come and go. I waited for you both to leave so I could finally clean.”
Evelyn clutched the newspaper to her chest under her damp coat, her blood as chilly as her feet. “You’re reading my papers.”
“Ach, nein.” She fussed with those papers, hiding what she’d been reading, no doubt. “You are messy, Fräulein. And I am a simple cleaning woman. I do not read English.”
“Those are my private papers. Put them down.”
“Why?” Helga frowned over her shoulder at Evelyn. “Do you have something to hide?”
Evelyn pointed to the door. “That is all for today, Helga. Thank you.”
“But I—I’m not done.” She patted the scarf tied around her graying blonde hair. “I haven’t—”
“That is all for today. Thank you.”
Helga grumbled, grabbed her bucket of cleaning supplies, and departed.
Evelyn locked the door behind her. She’d tell her landlord to hire a new cleaning lady. Many of the foreign correspondents complained about cleaning ladies placed by the Gestapo to spy on them. Some reporters had been questioned by the Gestapo and expelled from Germany.
Evelyn shrugged off her raincoat, set her purse and newspaper on the desk chair, and inspected the papers. A dozen letters from home were interspersed with story notes and drafts.
A sick feeling filled her stomach. She might not be organized, but she knew what was on her desk and what wasn’t, and those letters had been in a drawer.
Helga had been snooping—and she’d lied about not speaking English. Maybe Evelyn should buy a lockbox to store anything sensitive.
“Lord, I could use some help.” A morsel of guilt plunged into that sickness. Libby teased her about only praying in emergencies. But praying for help when she could do very well on her own felt silly.
Regardless, a spy reading her papers was an emergency.
A pounding on the door.
Evelyn jumped. The Gestapo?
“Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord.” Her heart raced, and she opened the door.
Peter? What was he doing here? And so late?
And so wild-eyed.
“Peter?”
He charged past her, no hat, his unbuttoned raincoat flapping open. “Where’s your notebook? Your purse? Your coat? Come on, let’s go. A story.”
Crimson stains covered one side of his chest. “Peter! You’re bleeding!”
“What? No.” He lifted his elbow and inspected his raincoat.
“Where are you hurt? How badly?” Evelyn grabbed his lapels and tugged off his coat.
“Not me. The rabbi.”
He wasn’t making sense, and he wasn’t wearing his usual jacket and vest. She patted down his chest, looking for the injury, but no blood marred his white shirt. “You’re not hurt?”
“We need to go. Before it’s over.” He moved to step around her.
Evelyn planted both hands on his chest. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on.”
Peter’s gaze darted around above her head, and his chest heaved, warm and very firm beneath her hands. “The synagogue. The Nazis are going to tear it down.”
“What? No!”
“I—I went to help.”
Her hands recoiled as if burning. “You did what!”
“No. No.” He raked his fingers through his rain-darkened hair. “I went to help the congregation get their things out. The government gave them until tomorrow morning.”
Evelyn clapped her hands over her mouth. Oh no! How could she have judged him so wrongly? So quickly?
“Come on. Your purse, your coat.” He edged past her and grabbed her purse from her desk chair. “Notebook inside?”
“Yes, but Peter—the blood.”
He shook the purse by the strap. “You’re the only correspondent for the ANS in town, right? I’ll drive you to the synagogue to see, to interview the mob.”
She waved her arm toward his coat in a heap on the floor. “The blood. Peter—where did it come from?”
He grabbed her heavy winter coat from the rack. “It’s raining.”
Evelyn took the coat and exchanged it for her raincoat. “If I come with you, will you tell me?”
Without helping her, without his own coat, he opened the door and left. “Come on. No time to waste.”
Evelyn pulled on her coat and followed. She had to. He had her purse.
At the curb, he opened the passenger door to a black four-door convertible. After they were both seated, he raced down the street.
Evelyn buttoned her coat and tried to decipher the man beside her. “What happened?”
“The synagogue. There was a mob. They were beating up a rabbi. Herr Gold was protecting him.”
She gasped. “Herr Gold? He was there? Is he all right?”
“Some cuts, bruises. He’ll be fine. But the rabbi—they beat him badly. And he’s elderly.”
“Oh no. It was his blood. You—you helped him.”
Peter cranked the car around a corner. “I got the mob to back off. Just had to talk tough. Then I took the rabbi and Herr Gold to the rabbi’s house. We called a doctor. Then I came here.”
“And you? You’re all right?”
Peter didn’t look at her, hadn’t really looked at her since he’d barged into her apartment. He just shook his head a bit, his face agitated.
Evelyn took a deep breath to calm her racing emotions. Peter Lang had stood up to a mob. To the Nazis. To help the Jews. And why was she so relieved that not one drop of that blood was Peter’s?
He wheeled around another corner.
She braced herself on the dashboard. “You’re taking me to the synagogue?”
“The mob will come back. You can interview them. Then I’ll take you to the rabbi. You need both sides, right?”
“Yes.” Evelyn stared at him in his white shirtsleeves and tousled hair. Men usually tried to hold her back from danger—not drive her into the middle of it.
“Both sides. Both sides.” Peter rapped the steering wheel with his palm. “Justice, kindness. Order, liberty. Both sides.”
“Peter?” She fought an urge to smooth his hair, to straighten his tie, to make him neat again, Peter again.
He pushed his glasses higher on his crooked nose. “Freedom without order, without justice—it leads to chaos and violence. I know that.”
Evelyn bit her lip. She’d heard him talk like this, but never in such turmoil.
“Why couldn’t I see?” He thumped the steering wheel again, making the car swerve a bit. “But order without freedom, without kindness—it makes you hard. Cruel. It leads to chaos . . .”
“Violence,” Evelyn murmured.
Peter raised one finger in the air. “Once you asked me where I draw the line. Well, I draw it here. Now.” He stabbed that finger into the seat between them.
“All right . . .”
“I want to do something. I need to help.”
“You—you did. You helped the rabbi and—”
“More. I need to do more. I’m going to help you.”
“Me?” She didn’t need help.
Peter slowed, peering into the night. “Otto and his friends in the German Students’ League—they trust me, think I’m one of them. Of course! Of course, they do!”
How could Evelyn disagree, when she’d thought the same thing?
“Otto keeps inviting me to local Nazi Party meetings. He wants to draw me in deeper. I’ll go. I’ll be your ears and get you leads, tips, whatever you call them.”
Evelyn’s mouth watered with the possibilities. Foreign correspondents couldn’t attend those meetings, but boy, did they want to.
Peter made a right turn. “You always say how hard it is for you as a woman. Well, this will help even things out.”
It would, but it didn’t sit right. This would be different from using an informant. “I don’t need help.”
He glanced at her, the first he’d really looked her way all evening. “Sure, you don’t need help, but don’t you want it?”
Yes. No. She groaned and looked out the window, at the shivering trails of raindrops across the glass. Depending on others made her feel weak. It felt confining. And she’d be bound more closely to Peter, which didn’t seem wise.
“I’ll find out who’s coming to town,” he said. “I’ll find out about events like this. Then you can just happen to be there. Maybe I can get you some interviews. Please. I need to do something.”
He parked the car. A streetlamp illuminated his face. Turmoil still rippled across his forehead, but his eyes shone with a strong and steady light.
Evelyn wet her lips. “It’d be dangerous. If they find out you’re feeding me—”
“I know. I don’t care. I want to do this. I want to help you speak out.”
All she wanted was the chance to speak, to stop having her voice stifled in insipid articles. “All right.”
“Great. Thank you.” Peter got out of the car and held open her door. “It’s one block down. I’m coming with you.”
For heaven’s sake. She leveled her gaze at him. “I don’t need a chaperone.”
“For crying out loud.” He flung his arm to the side. “I’m not—I’m not trying to stop you. I brought you here, didn’t I?”
The rain had stopped, and Evelyn’s posture softened. “You did. Thank you.”
“But there’s a mob. A violent mob.” His expression managed to be gentle and firm at the same time. “Yes, you can handle it yourself. But you don’t have to handle it alone.”
Now her heart softened, her gaze, everything inside her. He wasn’t standing in her way—he was standing beside her.
Peter’s arm drifted back down to his side. The top button of his shirt was unbuttoned, his tie hung loose, and his hair was a riot of damp waves.
She fastened that button. “If you insist on coming along, let’s make you as presentable as possible in just your shirtsleeves. Do you have a comb, Lang? You’re a mess.”
He reached into his shirt pocket, his hand brushing hers, and he pulled out a comb and went to work with it.
Evelyn wiggled the knot of his tie into place and made the mistake of meeting his gaze.
All turmoil erased. Only that strong and steady light. “Let’s go, Brand.”