Page 103 of The Number of Love
Night had fallen again. It was cold and clear and only days until Christmas, but just now those days mattered not at all compared to the minutes before them now. Fingers still knotted together, they ran down the familiar streets.
Her building looked like it always did these days. All the windows were dark with blinds and curtains, the musty smell close around her when she pushed through the door. She dug out her keys as they ran up the stairs, not counting the steps or the rungs or calculating the change of pitch of the railing. Up to the third floor, down the hallway to her door.
The lights were off in there, of course, as she’d left them yesterday morning. But the light from the corridor was enough to show her the rectangle of white on the floor, where someone must have slid it under her door. She picked it up while Drake switched on the lights, slit it open while he closed the door, pulled out the single sheet of paper while he returned to her side.
Numbers, in a familiar pattern. The simple code Drake had been using, the one that used the poetry book as a key. She moved to the table, where she always keptLes Heures Clairesset out, waiting for the next day’s sweet nothings.
She hated that he’d taken this. Stolen their unspoken secret and used it against them. The first time they acknowledged the notes aloud shouldn’t be like this, when it was Dieter Regnitz who had used their book to write her a message instead of Drake. It was like an inkblot on a page of newsprint. A mar on what had been perfect.
Suddenly she recalled the notes that were out of order, that night she’d gone on a whim to Drake’s flat and ended up fleeing again. The night she’d apparently collided directly with Regnitz and hadn’t even realized it. He’d been following her, not just watching Drake. He’d been in here. In her haven, in the place that had always been safe. He’d touched her belongings, and she hadn’t even known it. She’d been too focused on those stupid newspapers. Too distracted by the muddle of her own mind.
No, not her mind. Her heart.
Perhaps her disquiet showed on her face, or in her stillness, or in the way she held the letter. Because Drake rested a hand on her back and pressed his lips to the side of her head. “You know, I have two matching volumes ofDon Quixotein Bilbao. I’ll send one to you.”
She leaned into him for a moment, gave him a smile. And then moved to her chair at the table. They hadn’t the time to waste on regrets and horror now. “I suppose we ought to see what he has to say.”
“I’ll help.” He sat at the chair next to her and slid the book of poetry toward him. “You read the numbers off, I’ll find them.”
It would probably take a bit longer that way, but no numbersrioted about within her to say that two extra minutes would make a difference, so she nodded. “Two. Five. One.”
He flipped to the second page, found the fifth line. Read her the first word in French.Je.
She wrote the English translation on the blank sheet of paper awaiting her pen.I.
A few minutes later, the short message looked back at them from the expanse of white.
I regret to have to use you lovely ladies for this purpose, but I have my orders. My superiors are in need of your codebooks. Acquire them however you must, if you want to see your friend alive again. Tell her brother to come with them at midnight. Deposit them at the crossroad below, in the rubbish bin at the mouth of the alley. I will signal him, and he may then proceed to the address below to collect his sister.
The final words on the page weren’t in code. They were just there at the end of the list of numbers. Two directions to somewhere in Woolwich. An hour’s ride on the tube.
Margot felt as though she were breathing for the first time in an hour. “It doesn’t sound as though he’s hurt her. If he’s being truthful.” She looked up. “Is he after the codebooks or revenge, though?”
“Both, I daresay, if he can get them. It’s a smart plan. Have me drop the codebook in one location. While I’m fetching Dot, he could fetch that and be away before I could then catch him. Assuming he doesn’t have some sort of trap planned forme,which I’m not willing to assume.” Drake checked his watch. “We have plenty of time. I can let Hall know. He can give me an outdated codebook, perhaps—”
“Oh, he’ll give you a new one.” Her lips turned up in a ghost of a smile. “We’ve long been prepared for this. In the first days of the war, he had us create a false code to pass along if necessary. I still have the original in my desk here....” Sucking in a breath, she remembered again those letters, out of order.
She never should have taken that original home—why had she? But she’d wanted to improve it, have a second version. And surely the German hadn’t found it, or he wouldn’t still be demanding it. Right? She dropped to her knees, pulled out the lowest drawer of her desk, and reached up to where she’d hidden it.
Still there. Her fingers brushed the paper, gripped the stack, pulled it out. A relieved sigh shook its way out. “There. We can simply get Hall’s permission to use it.” She stood again and dropped the false codebook onto the top of her desk.
Drake breathed a laugh. “Always surprising me. Perfect, Margot. I’ll find him, we can put a team together. I’ll take you back to Abuelo and Red, or to your brother, and—”
“No.” She covered his hand with hers. When had it become such an easy move, such a comfortable one? When had his fingers begun to feel as familiar to her as her own?
He frowned at her. “Don’t insist on coming, mi alma. Please don’t.”
“It isn’t that. It’s that he must know how you’ll respond. He must know you won’t come alone. We must think differently. We mustactdifferently.”
His brows were still gathered over the knot in his nose. But his breath eased out. “We should listen to my mother. She always said never to neglect our prayers.”
Margot would have liked his mother. She nodded and let her eyes fall closed.
Her spirit still felt a bit raw. The ache of her own mother’s absence was no less there. But that waterfall of His voice still filled her. She sought the words to match the numbers in her mind.I’m sorry, Lord God, for shutting you out. I’m sorry for saying no when you asked me to pray. AndI thank you, I thank you so much for preserving him anyway. For bringing him here, so that he could help me to see my own heart. And that it’s all right to have one.
Her fingers tightened around his.Help us now, Lord God, as only you can. Help us to find the move in this game Dieter Regnitz has set up that will turn the momentum inour favor. That will save Dot. Help us to get her back to Red. Help us, most of all, Father,to findthe path that will bring you the most glory. Ten, one hundred, one thousand, ten thousand...
Her words ran dry, but her spirit didn’t, and the powers of ten multiplied beautifully in her mind for another long moment, a new zero marching into line each time. A perfect circle. Without beginning. Without end. Eternal, like the One who had come before.
