Drawing Blood (18 page)

“We came to stop him,” the first man said in halted English. “He was in a rage. He saw what they did. He thought she turned them in, but we knew she hadn’t. He took my truck. We had to run on foot.”

She recognized Richard Petit then, and David flicked his eyes her way. She nodded. He lowered the rifle. The men were still staring at him, but they lowered their hands.

The second man spoke next. “You are one of the missing Canadians, yes?”

David silently returned their gaze, not blinking.

“Your friends told us to be on the lookout for you.” He pointed downward. “You are bleeding.”

Abigail noticed it when David did. The pajama bottoms had a mark of blood on the thigh, seeping downwards.

“Shit,” David muttered, coming forward to sit on the edge of a kitchen chair, keeping the limb locked like he had apparently forgotten to do on his way down. The second man slid another chair forward and helped him elevate the leg.

Abigail pulled herself to her feet by gripping the table. She didn’t want to be anywhere near the body. She found the thread and needle on top of the fridge, coming forward slowly. “I’ll fix it,” she said, voice still very rough.

Richard took the far chair and brought it alongside David for her. She smiled best she could, and when she sat he put a hand on her shoulder, comforting like the touch of a father.

The second man spoke as they left. “We won’t tell anyone where you are. Believe us, please.”

David just nodded.

“
Bonne nuit
,” they both whispered as they crept quietly out the back door.

“You scared the living hell out of them,” she tried to speak normally, but it hurt and it came out husky and strained.

Instead of answering he seized her face, forcing her chin upward, then growled “He bruised your neck.” She leaned away out of his grip.

“I’m fine.”

“Jesus, he almost killed you.”

“But he didn’t. You stopped him.”

He took her hand, and she stilled while he wiped the blood off the back. “I had to shoot high. I didn’t want to risk hitting you.”

Abigail looked at their hands, joined as they were in his lap. He had lovely hands, she realized. Strong and masculine, but the fingers were long, tapered, and straight. Not just lovely, but now she knew they were strong, capable, and dangerous. He gave Phillipe the chance to stop and put his hands up, she reminded herself. It was Phillipe’s choice to pull a gun.

“Abigail … who was he talking about?”

She pretended not to understand him. “Who? When?”

“Did someone … did someone hurt you?”

She looked up at him, trying to keep her face neutral. When he reacted by clenching his jaw and flaring his nostrils she knew her expression had likely given everything away.

“Was it this officer? The one that gave you that champagne?”

Abigail looked away as her answer. There was a moment of quiet.

“I’m sorry, it’s none of my business.” She didn’t answer to that, either. “And I’m sorry that I shot him in your kitchen.” Still no answer. “Why do I think you’re scared of me now?” He joked, giving an uncomfortable laugh.

“You’ll have to take these pants off,” she finally answered.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

David

He cleared his throat. Tried not to obsess on how her thumb was drawing circles against his palm. It was making every part of him tingle. “Uh—what?”

She nodded. “Your leg. I have to re-stitch you.”

“Oh. Uh … I can’t.”

“Why?” Her voice sounded like it hurt her. He hated that.

“I’m not … wearing anything under these.”

She sighed, looking down at her needle and thread. She set them back on the table, went to the cupboard, reached over the body and opened a drawer to find some scissors. She also brought a bottle of vodka and put it on the table next to him.

She snipped the pant leg off from around his thigh, rolling it down and out of the way. The damage was obvious. He’d popped out three stitches. She dumped vodka on it without giving him any chance to steel his nerves for it, not that it would have mattered. Then she picked the threads out that he’d torn. That hurt even more.

“Oh fuck – Jesus. Sorry. That hurt.”

“Sorry,” she croaked, and he felt like an ass again. He was making a real habit of that.

As she leaned over to stitch him back up, he was very aware of her breath on his skin, tickling the hair on his leg. He closed his eyes, trying not to feel how much it was hurting; not just the stitches.

Had he really spilled his guts to her? Made her cry for fuck’s sake? It’s not bad enough to come across as a whiny jealous twit; he also had to be an asshole on top of that?

When he did open his eyes, he focused on her hands. They moved so deftly he could barely feel them on him. He really wanted to. Then as she moved back to cut the thread on the first new stitch the light caught her wedding ring.

She has enough of her own guilt, he reminded himself. She’s clearly embarrassed and horrified to be having any feelings for anyone. Besides, with her, would you want it to be a fling? A quick roll in the sack and that’s it? Isn’t she a bit better than everyone that came before? And if some fucker really had forced himself on her … Why in the world would she want to be with anyone?

If he was the one she wanted he would do it, he just knew he wouldn’t be able to stop himself. But he’d regret it. David knew he couldn’t have her, and he wouldn’t reflect on that until well after. He could never bed her and forget her.

“What happened?”

David jumped three feet in the air, and so did Abby. Murphy was in the doorway, panting like he’d just done a marathon. He took in the bloody gap in David’s leg, the look on David’s face, and then the crimson splatter still decorating Abby’s face and dress. David reflected then that he should have told her to get cleaned up.

Then Murphy saw the body. “Jesus.” He set the rifle down next to the door, at the ready.

“He’s local,” Abby said, her voice painfully rough. “He came in here, thinking I’d turned in his friends in the Resistance to the Germans. He was going to kill me, but David killed him.”

“What’s wrong with your voice?”

“He was strangling her to death,” David piped up, wishing she’d save herself some pain. “I told him to stop. He was going to pull a gun.”

Murphy crouched down next to the dead man. He picked up the Luger, shaking his head. “They hate Germans but they always want their guns.”

“It’s a good sidearm,” David conceded, “thought I might keep it for myself.”

Murphy straightened, putting the revolver on the table. “You keep what you kill,” he muttered, circling around them and sitting on the other side of Abigail.

With one hand on her leg Murphy had her undivided attention, and with the other he tilted her head away from him, using the light over the table to examine her neck. She stilled, hands on David, but she let Murphy touch her. He tried not to be jealous.

“That must hurt.” Abigail opened her mouth but he cut her off. “Don’t talk. It hurts, I can tell.”

She was quiet. David sat watching them, Murphy looking at the marks on her neck, Abby trying her best not to look at him like she was ashamed. He felt like the third wheel in a married couple’s home watching them have a moment. The trouble was they weren’t married to each other.

He shifted, bringing Abby back to what she was doing. She made another stitch, causing him to hiss. “This could get infected,” she said softly, despite Murphy shushing her. “Can you take penicillin?”

David shrugged. “I think so. I don’t know that I’ve ever been on it.”

She got up wordlessly and made her way down to the root cellar. David didn’t let his eyes trail after her, and neither did Murphy. Instead he leaned forward to get an eye-full of David’s cross-stitch work.

“How much does that hurt?”

“Not too bad. How much blood can you lose before you lose your mind?”

Murphy shrugged and didn’t ask what he meant by that.

Abby returned with a pill bottle, shaking one capsule in to her hand and handing it to him with the vodka. He washed it down. “If this gets infected you could lose your leg. Remember that, okay?”

He nodded. The change in her demeanor was understandable. She’d been about to die and brought back from the brink. He could relate.

Murphy was examining the pill bottle. “Do these go bad? This is six years old.”

“My father stocked up on a lot of supplies for me.” Her voice broke a bit and it wasn’t the damage done to her windpipe. “He wanted to make sure we all would have made it through the initial attacks. Then my mom died and he … he knew he wouldn’t last much longer. He’d stayed strong for her. Then he … showed me the shelter.”

David and Murphy shared a look in perfect unison. “Shelter?” David repeated. “What shelter?”

“There’s a bomb shelter off the cellar. Hidden door, secret escape hatch. Shelves of dry and canned goods. Medical supplies. Anything he could get shipped from friends back home. He started after the Germans occupied Warsaw.”

Murphy slumped back in his chair. “Jesus.”

“You’re the only ones, other than whoever built it, that know about it. I was sleeping down there every night in case people came in to the house to take things. But you two were the only ones to break in during the night.”

David and Murphy exchanged looks again. “Can I see it?” Murphy sounded like a kid again.

“I left the door open.” She returned to the final stitch. Murphy sprung to his feet and crossed the kitchen like there wasn’t a dead body on the floor and blood all over everything.

“Christ. I really made a mess,” David muttered. “I’m so sorry. I’ll clean it.”

“No, I will,” she rasped. “You pop another stitch and I’ll cut this leg off myself to save us all from the smell.”

He was surprised by that because it sounded like a real threat. When he looked at her and not the blood and tissue splatter on the wall he realized she was smiling at him.

He chuckled in spite of the fact that it was his leg in danger. “All right. I won’t move around so much. But if you’re being hurt again, I’m popping out all the damn stitches if I have to.”

She was still smiling as she finished that last stitch, leaning forward and blowing across it. Just like his mom would have done. Then she stood again. “We’ll need to wrap that up.”

He nodded his understanding as she passed by him. She was going to the cellar again, where Murphy was. He kept his jealousy in check at least, likely because as she passed next to him, she rested one cool hand on the back of his neck, playing with the hair that was just starting to get a little too long. Then he was alone in the kitchen with the dead man.

Chapter Thirty

Elliot

The lights in the shelter were on, and Abigail avoided his gaze as she went to the trunk on the floor and opened it. Clean, sterile, and never-before-used bandages were lined up neatly down one side with packets of sulfanilamide, and various bottles and syrettes of morphine down the other. She had penicillin tablets as well liquid, with syringes of course. Elliot gave a low whistle. He knew it was military-issue stuff.

Abigail stood up again. “I had a German soldier brought here with a terrible wound to his arm. He was young, maybe eighteen. He was screaming. I knew I had morphine here and I didn’t give it to him.”

“Because they would have found out about the one safe place you had,” he finished for her. “There’s no shame in that.”

“I couldn’t let him die, and I couldn’t make him comfortable, either. He ended up losing his arm.”

“But not his life.”

She was still, staring down in to the trunk. “I never even cut myself this whole time. I would lie awake wondering what it would be like to give myself stitches, if I would be able to. And the last four years … I don’t even remember having a headache.”

Her tone was worrisome. She was very detached. She must be in shock. “You’re lucky.”

“And I wasted all these supplies that could have been helping people.”

Elliot said nothing so she looked up at him. He averted his gaze to the shelving, which was mostly bare. “This is … I don’t even know what to say. I’ve been wondering where you could have possibly been that night we got here. I never thought of this.”

“It’s selfish. And I never questioned it until now.”

Elliot was surprised. “Survival? Yeah, it’s selfish. And it’s expected.” Abigail shrugged. She didn’t believe him. “Your father did this to keep you safe,” he assured her. “He’d be proud of you for making it through this.”

“Maybe.” She carried a bandage, sulfanilamide, and gauze up to the kitchen, so he followed, turning the shelter light off .

David looked up expectantly as they entered. “What’s it like down there?”

“Like a shelter. A concrete box underground, tall enough to stand in.”

“Even you?”

Elliot chuckled. “Even me.”

As Abigail was sitting back down, unrolling the gauze, the sound of tires on gravel was heard on the other side of the door. Both men froze, and Elliot went for this rifle where he left it, by the door. No one said anything, Abigail looked terrified to move. The tension in all three bodies was palpable.

A knuckle rapped softly on the back door. “Abigail?
Nous sommes ici pour recueillir Phillipe.
”

Elliot looked to Abigail. She nodded. “They’re here to get Phillipe.”

He opened the door to reveal Richard and the same man from before. “We have a truck,” said the younger man. “We will take him away. For burial.”

Elliot nodded them over. They were eyeing up both soldiers and Elliot couldn’t blame them. He held his rifle low, but he still held it like he was ready to bring it up if he had to. David was a bit more relaxed.

“Elliot,” Abigail said after a stressful moment. “It’s fine. They’re not here to hurt anyone.”

He looked down at his hands and realized, almost as a surprise, that he was holding the rifle in the first place. It must have been reflex to pick it up. He put it flat on the table with David’s and the Luger. He doubted Abigail had ever had so much firepower in her kitchen before.

The two men made carrying a body look easy until it came to the door. Elliot helped them with that. David watched calmly, like help was here to deliver a new sofa. Abigail wasn’t taking it as much in stride, Elliot realized. She likely hadn’t seen as many dead people, and certainly none so violently killed, as he and David had.

Elliot helped the men load Phillipe’s body in to the bed of their truck. They touched the brims of their caps in thanks and left in a cloud of dust, leaving him on Abigail’s stoop again. He took out another cigarette, realizing his hands were shaking.

He’d come running when he heard the rifle shot, switching back in to soldier mode in a breath. Elliot had been terrified of what he’d find. He hadn’t expected a dead French man. But Abigail’s face had been the worst of it: she was terrified, but also completely horrified by the man’s death. Her relief to be safe and guilt over the death was obvious. Elliot could relate. Every day he survived and a member of his company didn’t was the same story for him.

The thought of those bruises on her neck made him clench his jaw. It made him wish he’d been the one to kill the guy, not Cleary. He flashed back to the girl in the alley, too. War leads to a momentary lapse in civilization, he realized. There were no police. Local vigilante justice ruled in these parts. And people seen to have helped the Germans were being killed. Mostly the men, some of the women, too. He could remember the cries of women in villages as their heads were shaved and they were stripped down for beatings. Stopping that wasn’t their assignment. Work with locals for their intelligence about the enemy and leave the civilians to their own enforcement. That was their prerogative.

He’d only heard the firing squads taking out French traitors. He hadn’t seen it, hadn’t wanted to.

He still would have killed the man that put violent hands on Abigail, as irrational as it was. It was much too specific concern, his worry about this woman he didn’t know. He was concerned and wanted to take care of her, not just a civilian. It was because it was Abigail.

He exhaled, chastising himself under his breath and looking through the window on the door as she was fixing David’s leg. He had to get away from her soon, but until reinforcements arrived David couldn’t go anywhere. He needed to be moved by truck, definitely.

And just as irrationally as his concern for her; he didn’t want to leave David here with her now. He didn’t trust the kid to be alone with her. He knew what the Cleary charm could do once it was turned on full-force.

What an idiot
, he decided.
I really have lost my mind.

He put the cigarette out with his boot, shoving hands in his pockets. He had no concerns about locals seeing him now. Those two men knew with certainty that he and David were here and who they were. So Elliot walked out to the road, picking his way in the moonlight. It was incredibly bright considering it wasn’t quite a full moon. When the rumbling started he stopped in his tracks, neck craning upward, turning to try to locate the source.

It was a bomber, he knew by the deepness of the rumbling. When it came in to view he found himself smiling. It was RAF, he just knew it. They flew overhead in a huge, monstrous formation, sounding like death and destruction itself. He could almost imagine the noise was making the ground quake.

They were headed for Calais.
It’s about to start,
he realized. They’ll bomb it nearly in to the point of no return, then send in the Army. Any day now help would arrive.
Just sit tight, wait, and learn to control your urges.

Sounded easy enough. He’d only been with Janet his whole life. A few more days of being faithful wouldn’t kill him.