I remembered the knife in my hand, and I thought of my father and that he’d finally done something good as I jabbed the knife into the soft tissue of his stomach and jerked up with the blade. Just like I’d been taught.
Graham’s eyes widened and he released me, taking a stumbling step back and then another. I fell to my knees and gasped in air. If he’d been able to kill me at that moment, I would have been a goner because I had nothing left. But he just stood there, looking down at the green hilt protruding from his belly.
He stumbled back once more and tripped, falling to his backside, so he was half propped against the cage and the wall. Blood covered the front of his shirt and blood dripped from the corner of his mouth.
“Just in case you need the information in hell,” I told him. “Never compare one woman to another. We don’t like that.”
A gray pallor came over his face and the life went out of his eyes. And Henry Graham, the Alliance’s most infamous spy and the man who’d made me hope for love, was dead.
Epilogue
“Holy smokes,” Ada said, her eyes wide and her mouth forming a soft O of surprise. “That was certainly not what I was expecting.”
“The best stories never are,” Scarlet said, giving her a wink.
“Mama is not going to like that you told me that end part. She says garbage in means garbage out,” she said, pointing to her brain.
“That’s true,” Scarlet said. “But I’d hardly call it garbage. I was a hero. I even got a medal.”
“I guess that’s okay then,” she said. “But just in case maybe we should keep this between you and me. I can keep secrets as good as any spy.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Scarlet said, turning the knife over in her hand. The picture in her mind of that day was just as clear more than three-quarters of a century later. She could still feel what it felt like to defend herself and she could still smell the blood.
“Did it make you sad to have to kill him?” Ada asked softly.
“Not really,” Scarlet said, and then she decided to tell the truth. “Maybe a little. I thought we might have a future together. There was a time in my life where I thought about having a husband who’d take me all over the world on grand adventures.”
“And children?” Ada asked.
“Nope,” Scarlet said. “I like wearing fancy dresses and drinking whiskey too much. Children tend to mess up aspirations like that. But I got to have your mama and I get to have you. And that’s just as good as having my own children.”
“I suppose so,” Ada agreed. “I’m sorry you had to kill him. He seemed nice at the beginning of your story.”
“Oh, he was a charmer,” Scarlet said. “But he had it coming. Though I prefer long-distance killing. A knife is awful messy, and hitting bone gives me the heebie-jeebies. Probably not something you’ll have to worry about though.”
“I should hope not,” Ada said. “What about the Cordiers? Did you save them?”
“I saved the children,” she said, frowning. She didn’t like to think about Dr. Meissner and what he’d done to those poor babies. It had taken her years to stop the nightmares after the war was over. “Unfortunately, Mr. Cordier had already succumbed to Dr. Meissner’s experiments. The children and I were all smuggled out of France just hours later. And it was right in the nick of time. Not two days later the Nazis bombed Marseilles, and hundreds of people were killed and all the homes and businesses along the waterfront were destroyed. It was a horrible time, and the Nazis were horrible people.
Ada chewed at her lip worriedly, and Scarlet forgot how young she was. It was an easy thing to do because Ada was as sharp as a box of tacks and had been reading almost as soon as she’d started talking.
“So they grew up without parents?” she asked. “That must have been horrible.”
“I imagine it was for a while,” Scarlet said. “But we got them out of Marseille to London, and they were smuggled on a ship to the United States. They ended up with a wonderful family, and they’re all still alive today.”
“You still know them?” Ada asked, excitement in her eyes.
“You get to be my age you know just about everyone.”
Ada nodded as if it were fact. “What happened after you got out of Marseille?”
“They gave me a job.”
“A job killing people?” Ada asked.
“Not exactly,” Scarlet said. “A job as a full-time spy. On loan, of course, from the American government. I’d stolen a lot of information from Wagner’s office, and I’d memorized his maps. I was able to save a lot of people with that information.”
Ada’s eyes were practically goggling out of her head. “I can’t wait to tell Paris Wheeler you were a spy and killed Nazis. Her family is a bunch of good-for-nothings.”
Scarlet had known the Wheelers for a lot of years, and she had to agree—they were a bunch of good-for-nothings, so she moved on.
“I felt right at home over there,” Scarlet said. “And I was good at a lot of things, like learning a bunch of languages and being sneaky.”
“That’s true,” Ada said. “Granny is always talking about how sneaky you are, and Mama says you need to do a better job of watching your language around me.” She screwed up her face and looked at Scarlet quizzically. “Is that the kind of language you’re talking about?”
“Kind of. Those words are good in every language, and if you’re going to be a good spy you’ve got to learn all of them. As far as being sneaky, it’s in the blood. My daddy snuck around making illegal whiskey for years and never got caught, and your mama’s whole business is sneaking around and spying on
