Read Chapter 28: The Sniper's Bullet

The cold wind off the channel carried the smell of salt and diesel. Elise lay flat behind the dune grass, her cheek pressed against the damp sand, watching the boat pitch in the surf fifty yards out. A single figure stood in the bow, a woman in a dark coat, clutching a bundle to her chest. She was alive. She was real.

Jameson crawled up beside Elise, his breath ragged. "That's not our trap."

"No," Elise whispered. "It's someone else's."

Ashwell's voice cut across the beach, crisp and military, carrying over the wind. "Seven men, spread out. I want the beach sealed before that boat touches sand." He stood at the top of the shingle slope, a tall silhouette against the grey sky, his hand resting on his holster. Seven German soldiers fanned out behind him, rifles slung but ready.

Elise's fingers found the torn page in her pocket, the ten names burning against her thigh. The boat was one of those names. Someone had used her forged letter, passed it up the chain, and pulled this woman out of hiding—out of a safe house or a cellar or a church—and delivered her to this shore at this exact hour. And now Ashwell was going to take her.

"We can't just watch," Jameson said.

"We don't have a choice." Elise's leg screamed where she'd landed on it. She'd be lucky to walk, let alone run. "There are eight of them. We're two, and one of us is bleeding."

Jameson's jaw tightened. "We're two people who know the truth about Ashwell. That means we're worth more than eight soldiers who don't."

The boat grounded. The woman stumbled into the shallows, water soaking her shoes, her coat clinging to her thin frame. She looked around, bewildered, searching for the signal that was supposed to be there. Elise's forged letter had promised a safe landing and a contact on the beach. Instead, she found Ashwell's smile.

"Frau—" Ashwell called out in German, then switched to French. "Madame. Come ashore. You're safe now."

The woman took a step forward. Then another.

Elise counted the soldiers. They were flanking wide, cutting off any retreat along the beach. Ashwell walked slowly toward the water, his hands raised in a gesture of welcome. She watched his face, looking for the lie, looking for the moment the mask would slip and she'd see the man who sold names to the Nazis—

The shot came from inland.

It was a clean, sharp crack, the sound of a hunting rifle, not a soldier's carbine. It echoed off the cliff face behind them and rolled across the water. For one heartbeat, nothing happened. Then Ashwell's chest bloomed red and he pitched forward onto the sand, his hands still reaching for the woman who was now screaming and running back toward the boat.

"Down!" Jameson grabbed Elise's shoulder and shoved her flat as a second shot cracked over their heads, kicking up sand where they'd been lying.

The soldiers scattered, dropping to their knees, rifles swinging toward the cliff. The woman dove into the surf. The boat, untended, began to drift back out with the tide.

Jameson rolled onto his back, gasping. "The hell was that?"

Elise looked at him. His face was pale beneath his stubble, and there was a dark stain spreading across his shoulder where the first shot had caught him—not Ashwell's shot. Hers. No. *His.* The second shot had been meant for them.

"Jameson." Elise's voice came out strange, thin. "You're hit."

He looked down at his shoulder as if he hadn't noticed. "Oh. That's—" He tried to laugh but it came out a wet cough. "That's inconvenient."

She pressed her hand against the wound. It was high, punching through the muscle where his neck met his shoulder. Blood was hot and thick between her fingers. "We have to move before they find us."

"They're not looking for us." Jameson turned his head, gesturing with his chin. The soldiers were all converging on Ashwell's body, shouting in German, one of them pointing at the cliff. "They're looking for the shooter."

"He's still up there."

"He is." Jameson's eyes met hers. "And he shot Ashwell. Not you. Not me. Not the soldier next to me. He shot the traitor."

Elise's mind raced. Ashwell was dead. The man who was selling refugees was dead on the sand with seven German soldiers standing over him. The woman was swimming back to the boat, and the boat was drifting out of reach. And somewhere on the cliff, someone was lying in the grass with a rifle, watching through a scope, deciding whether to pull the trigger again.

"Your shoulder," she said.

"I'll live." Jameson gritted his teeth. "But we have to go *now*, before they decide the sniper had an accomplice."

She hauled him to his feet, his arm over her shoulder, and together they limped backward into the dune grass, away from the beach, away from the shouting soldiers, away from the dead man who knew all their secrets. Every step sent fire through Elise's leg, but she kept moving. The sand gave way to shingle, then to scrub, then to a narrow sheep track that switchbacked up the hill.

Behind them, the shouting faded. The tide continued its slow, indifferent retreat.

They made it to the ridge before Jameson's knees buckled. He went down hard, dragging Elise with him, and she landed on her injured leg and saw white for a moment. When she could see again, Jameson was propped against a stone wall, his face grey, the front of his coat soaked dark.

"Leave me," he said. "Get to the cave. Find André."

"Don't be stupid."

"I'm being practical." He gestured at his shoulder. "I'm slowing you down. And that sniper is up there somewhere. He saw us. He knows we were on that beach."

"He shot the traitor, Jameson. He's on our side."

Jameson shook his head weakly. "No one's on our side."

A sound came from the track ahead. Footsteps. Light, deliberate, coming down the hill toward them. Elise tensed, looking for a weapon, but there was nothing but sand and stone and her own exhausted body.

The footsteps stopped.

A man stepped out from behind the wall, a rifle cradled in his arms. He was in his forties, thin-faced, wearing civilian clothes under a German greatcoat. His eyes were pale and flat. He looked at Jameson's wound, then at Elise, then at the beach below where the soldiers were still milling around Ashwell's body.

"You're the postwoman," he said. It wasn't a question.

Elise said nothing.

The man reached into his coat and pulled out a small, tattered strip of cloth. Red wool, frayed at the edges. A scarf. Her brother's scarf, the one he'd worn when he left for France, the one their mother had knitted, the one that had come back without him.

The man held it out to her. "Your brother. I was there when he died." He paused. "I'm the one who killed him."