Take Me Home (9781455552078) (27 page)

“He's behind all of this, I'm sure of it,” Peter said. “I'll gladly accept whatever punishment I have coming once Otto is stopped. But until then, I want to do my part to help capture him.”

Olivia watched her father closely. She wondered if he would be able to accept Peter's offer. She thought of his lifelong hatred of Germans, of the bitterness that had been forged on the muddy battlefields of France. Could he overcome decades of bad feelings? Would he even want to try? Though Peter had admitted lying to him, could her father see past that and trust the man who had saved his life, as well as those of both of his daughters?

For his part, Billy had already made up his mind.

“You can't possibly be considering this!” he argued incredulously. “For all we know, they're working together. It could be a trap!”

Olivia held her tongue, fearful of what she might say.

John seemed hesitant. “Do you know where to find him?”

“Maybe,” Peter answered. “I know how he thinks.”

“He'll fight?”

“The only way to stop Otto will be to kill him.”

More silence. Finally, John got up out of his chair. “We'll do it your way,” he said, raising his hand to silence Billy's coming objection, “but when it's over, you'll have to turn yourself in. I'll have to call the Army. Is that acceptable?”

Peter nodded. Olivia shivered.

“All right then. Let's go find our man.”

The wind that whipped through the open passenger's window was cold, but Peter made no move to roll it up; after fighting his way through a second fire, he wondered if he'd ever forget the feel of flame near his skin. John drove quickly through the darkened streets, cutting sharp turns as his hands gripped the steering wheel tightly. It was almost three o'clock in the morning.

After leaving the Marstens' garage, they'd gone to the police station. There, John had tried to call Huck, but he hadn't answered. Frustrated, he'd decided to drive over to the deputy's house, but had asked Olivia and Billy to stay behind. Peter had understood; the sheriff didn't want to let the escaped German prisoner out of his sight, but he also wasn't comfortable with the idea of leaving Peter alone with his daughter.

“Why burn down
my
house?” John asked, turning to follow the creek.

“I suppose it was because your police car was parked outside. Otto would want to strike at whatever authority he could find.”

“Like on the battlefield. Take out the head and the body follows.”

“Exactly,” Peter agreed. “The first two fires he set were a matter of feeling things out, wanting to give people a reason to be afraid. Now that he's started, Otto won't stop until the whole town is nothing but a pile of ashes.”

For a while, they drove in silence. Peter stared out the window. The sun wouldn't begin to peek over the horizon for a couple more hours, so darkness prevailed. He couldn't have known exactly where, but Otto was out there somewhere, planning his next attack.

“It bothers me that I can't raise Huck,” the sheriff said.

“He's probably just asleep,” Peter suggested.

“Maybe,” John said without any conviction.

Pulling into Huck's driveway, John parked his police car right behind the deputy's; Peter saw the way the sheriff's jaw tightened at the sight of it. Huck's house was dark and silent, like everyone else's on the block. They got out of the car and went to the side door. John had his hand on the butt of his pistol. He rapped hard on the frame twice, waited, and then knocked again.

Nothing. The hair on the back of Peter's neck stood on end.

Olivia's father turned the knob and pulled the door open on squeaky hinges. Peter followed him inside. Instantly, he knew what had happened.

It smelled like death.

There was a time when Peter wouldn't have known about what happens to a man when he passes on. But then he had gone to war. Civilians and soldiers suffered the same fate. Initially, the smell had nauseated him, but as time passed, he'd slowly grown used to it. Still, it was unforgettable.

John recognized it, too. He turned on a light in Huck's living room and stopped, staring at the unmoving, lifeless form of his friend. Peter backed out of the room, giving the man some privacy.

When John stepped back outside, he'd managed to compose himself.

“I'm sorry,” Peter offered, though he knew it wasn't much.

“Not as sorry as that son-of-a-bitch is going to be.”

Together, they drove back into the night.

W
ELL INTO THE AFTERNOON
, they continued to search for Otto. After John and Peter had returned to the police station, the sheriff had organized dozens of men from Miller's Creek and the surrounding countryside. They were all older, some wrinkled grandfathers, many with sons fighting overseas. John spread out a map and directed groups on where to search. Peter had described the man they were looking for and what he'd done; when it was announced that he was an escaped Nazi, the men gasped and began to talk angrily. When someone asked about Huck, the sheriff had fallen silent; everyone instantly understood, giving the whole operation a greater sense of urgency.

Together, they had tramped up and down the hills surrounding town, worked their way through narrow gullets, checked behind outcroppings of rock, peered into ditches and drainage pipes, and tramped back and forth across the creek. They walked down the railroad tracks and through the depot, throwing open every rail car. They searched abandoned buildings like the cabin in which Peter and Otto had first sought shelter. On the opposite side of town, high in the hills, a group had come across the remnants of a campfire, but it hadn't been used for days. All morning, they searched high and low, leaving no stone unturned.

But no one saw Otto.

“Do you suppose he's run?” John asked Peter.

“No. He'll stay and do as much damage as he can before we catch up to him. Otto is many things, but he's not a coward. He's not afraid of dying.”

With an unseasonably hot sun beating down on them, John gave his volunteers a break for lunch. Some of the men went home while others trudged into Goslee's Diner. Peter went to look for Olivia.

Back at the police station, Peter found some of the men looking over the map, marking off the areas they'd already checked. Olivia was at the stove, pouring cups of coffee. She looked out on her feet; her hair was a tangled mess, her face still streaked with soot, while dark circles hung beneath her eyes. She hadn't slept all night; none of them had. When she saw him, she managed a weak smile.

“Any luck?” she asked.

“No, not yet. You should go and try to get some sleep.”

Olivia shook her head. “There's too much work to be done. I can rest all I want after he's been caught. I can't walk away now, not after what he did to Huck…” Her voice faded as she struggled to hold back tears.

Peter took her hand. “We'll catch him.”

“It's…it's just that…”

“Why don't you go over to the apartment and close your eyes for a while. As soon as you're rested, you can come back.”

He thought that Olivia was going to disagree, to continue to insist that she was fine, but her shoulders slumped and she nodded wearily.

“Maybe you're right.”

“Let me walk you over there and you can—”

“I'll take her.”

Peter turned to see Billy push himself up and out of a chair beside the jail cells; he hadn't noticed the man when he came in. Olivia's friend looked as tired as everyone else, but either stubbornness or worry kept him at his former fiancée's side. When he reached Olivia, he put a protective hand on her arm and pulled her away from Peter; her hand slipped from his, too tired to resist.

“Billy…” she began.

“I'm not leaving you alone with him,” he argued. “Not for a second.”

“It's all right,” Peter replied, knowing that this was neither the time nor the place for an argument. “I just want you to get some rest.”

Olivia nodded and let Billy lead her toward the door. But then, only a few feet away, she pulled her arm free from his grip and returned to Peter. Rising up onto her tiptoes, she kissed him, a gentle touch that lingered for a few dozen fevered beats of his heart. When she pulled away, she smiled at him.

“For luck,” she explained.

Watching her leave as Billy frowned, scarcely able to contain his growing jealousy, Peter figured that he just might need it.

Olivia knew that it had been impetuous to kiss Peter, that it would only make Billy more irritable, but she was too tired to care. As they walked silently down the street, she considered everything that had happened over the last twenty-four hours; the war in Europe had ended, she'd made love with Peter, her family's house had been burned to the ground, and poor Huck had been murdered. Worst of all was the realization that as soon as Otto was apprehended, Peter was going to be taken away from her.

“What is your father thinking?” Billy complained, his hands stuffed down deep into his pockets. “He had that
German
standing up there in front of everyone, acting like he was one of us! They should lock him up and throw away the key.”

Olivia sighed; the weight of her friend's criticisms had finally become more than she could bear. She'd had enough. Stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, she turned to face him. “I know that this is hard for you, Billy,” she said. “Seeing me fall in love with someone else. But you need to stop being so angry. You need to accept that Peter isn't the villain you want him to be.”

“How can you defend him? He's an escaped prisoner!”

“Who saved my life. My father and sister, too.”

Billy finally faltered. “Olivia…” he muttered, his face pained. What he wanted was for time to rewind itself, to before Peter Becker had become a part of their lives. But that wasn't possible. It had happened whether he liked it or not. “I just don't want to see you hurt.”

“I won't be,” she reassured him.

“You don't know that. Not for certain.”

“Who does?” she asked him. “Sometimes, in order to be happy, you have to take a chance. That's what you did when you asked me to marry you. In the end, because I was too much of a coward to be honest, you paid the price. For Peter and me, the die hasn't been cast. Maybe you're right. Maybe Peter will go to prison or be shipped back to Germany. But if I don't try to make it work, if I don't trust in him now, I'll spend the rest of my life wondering about what might have been.”

“That sounds awfully familiar,” he said with a frown.

Olivia stepped closer and kissed him softly on the cheek. “I will always love you, Billy Tate,” she told him. “You know, I've thought an awful lot about something you said the day you proposed.”

“What was that?”

“That you didn't want to do anything to damage our friendship.”

“Turns out I was right to be worried. I've ruined it.”

“No, you haven't,” Olivia disagreed. “Things might never be the same, but that doesn't mean we can't still be there for each other like always.”

“Do you really think so?” Billy asked.

“I do. At the very least, it's worth a try.”

Slowly, Billy began to smile.

The rest of the walk to Peter's apartment was better, lighter now that they had unburdened themselves. Tired, Olivia opened the door, ready for some much-needed sleep. The apartment was darker than it was outside so it took her eyes a moment to adjust. When they did, she almost screamed.

There, glaring at her, was a man with a gun.

Olivia had no doubt who was standing before her; it was Otto, the man who had escaped the prison train with Peter, the bastard who'd murdered Huck and burned down her family's house. He was physically intimidating; muscular and menacing, he scowled at her, his eyes narrow. The pistol was gripped tightly in his hand, its barrel pointed right at her. When Billy followed her inside, as unsuspecting as she had been, he froze, just as shocked.

“Rien hier! Mach schnell!”
the man barked; Olivia didn't understand a word he'd said, but the meaning was clear. She and Billy raised their hands and shuffled away as Otto came over to them. He quickly looked outside, then frowned before shutting the door.

“Wo ist Becker? Warum ist er nicht bei euch?”
Otto asked. He stepped close to Olivia, the smell of his sweat thick. Leeringly, his eyes roamed up and down her body.
“Bist du ihm schon zuviel geworden, du Hure?”

“Leave her alone,” Billy warned, though there wasn't much steel in his voice.

Otto sneered cruelly, a disturbing sight.

“What are you going to do with us?” Billy continued.

“Halt's Maul, Amerikaner,”
the Nazi soldier growled menacingly.

Though it was clear that his words were meant to be threatening, Billy didn't take the hint; Olivia could plainly see that he was trying to protect her. “You'll never get away with what you've done,” he kept on. “We've already beaten your damned Führer! When they catch you, they'll—”

Faster than Olivia would ever have expected, Otto raised his pistol and whipped the hard steel across Billy's face. Her friend crumpled into a heap, unconscious before he even hit the floor. The only thing that kept Olivia from screaming was the fear Otto inspired in her.

“Richtig so, Hure,”
he smirked.
“Halt's Maul oder dir passiert das Gleiche!”

Olivia shut her eyes and prayed. She'd never been so frightened in all her life.
This
was the nightmare she'd dreamed of all those years before.

How was she ever going to wake up?

“All right then, I want Phil and Walter to go check that shack northwest of Alice Palmer's place. It's small and worn enough that it'd collapse in a stiff breeze, but we're gonna look it over anyway. Mike and Ben, you go to the embankment where Baker's Road meets the highway and snoop around under the bridge. The water's low this time of year, so there shouldn't be…”

Peter listened absently as John explained the next steps in the search for Otto. After Olivia and Billy had left, the sheriff had approached him and asked his thoughts about where the Nazi could be. After some brainstorming and a close inspection of the map, those plans were now being put into action. Still, something nagged at Peter's thoughts, as if there was a clue he was missing, just out of reach.

Ever since the fire, he'd been trying to think like Otto, to remember their shared experiences and training. Where would he go? What things would he require in order to stay alive? What risks would he be willing to take? It was like trying to put together a puzzle, only he didn't have all the pieces. Desperation began to gnaw at him; he knew that the longer it took to catch Otto, the greater the risk that someone else would die.

Right this instant…where are you…?

When the meeting broke up, the men began to head for the destinations they'd been given. John came over to Peter. “You and I are going to head down to the old flour mill,” he explained. “There are a bunch of small caves notched into the rock wall to the south of the creek. It'd be awful hard to get in and out of there, but with this guy, anything seems possible.”

On their way to the car, the sheriff added, “You know, I may not like everything you've done, the lies and all, but I'm still glad you're with us.”

“I just want him caught,” Peter said.

“We'll find him. If anyone knows how this guy thinks, it's you.”

The truth hit Peter like a punch to the gut. After the two lawmen in Miller's Creek,
he
was Otto's biggest threat. If the bloodthirsty Nazi was going to inflict the most damage possible, removing his fellow soldier and escapee was the surest means to that end.

It was obvious to Peter that Otto had been around town enough to have identified John and Huck. He'd followed them home, waited for just the right moment, and then struck. Who was to say that Otto hadn't done the same with him? It wasn't as if he'd been trying to hide himself; he thought about his walks with Olivia and eating at the diner with both her and her father. If Otto had seen him, then stayed out of sight to watch his comings and goings, then that likely meant that he knew where he was staying. If he knew where the apartment was…

Olivia!

Peter started running. An icy chill raced through him. He was only a couple blocks away. Behind him, John shouted his name and then started to follow; Peter didn't bother to turn around. He pushed himself as hard as he could.

He might have sent the woman he loved straight into the hands of a madman.

Otto stepped closer to Becker's woman, causing her to shrink away. Her discomfort pleased him, so he did it again. Her fearful eyes stole a glance at him, but quickly looked away. She was attractive to him, in a harlot sort of way; he imagined what it would be like to see her as the traitor undoubtedly had, naked and vulnerable. Possibilities filled his thoughts; maybe after he'd slit his former companion's throat from ear to ear, there might be time for him to have a little pleasure.

“You will never forget this day,” he told her.

The sound of his voice made her flinch. While the woman didn't understand a word he said, she had no trouble grasping the meaning. Her fear was delicious. Surely she knew that he was the one who had lit the fire that killed her family. His only regret was that he couldn't tell her about it in excruciating detail.

Absently, Otto looked at the man he'd pistol-whipped. Who was he? Probably a Jew. Annoying and weak, both at the same time; if every American man was as pathetic, it'd only be a matter of time before Germany's fortunes turned and the war would be won in the Fatherland's favor. Still, he'd wanted Becker.

“Where is he? Where is your lover?” Otto growled at the trembling woman. “Why are you here without him? Is he meeting you?”

He was growing frustrated. When he'd left the fire, he had thought about retreating to his hiding spot in the hills outside town. He would plan another attack and execute it the following night. But then he'd had a moment of inspiration. He knew where Becker lived. All he had to do was go there and lie in wait. Eventually, the bastard would return, either alone or with the woman. Murdering them both would have been a pleasure.