Hidden Harm: A Becky & Flynn WWI Mystery (The Becky and Flynn Mystery Series Book 2) by Anna Elliott

Author:Anna Elliott [Elliott, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wilton Press
Published: 2022-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 22: BECKY

Becky rubbed her eyes, wishing it were possible to brew a decent cup of strong coffee in the back of a radiography truck. You would think some arrangement could be rigged up using Madame Curie’s dynamo. And after the day Becky had just had, she would have paid a significant amount of money for anything that would help her stay alert.

She had been entirely right about the inhabitants of Pierrefonds leaping at the chance to receive free medical care. Almost as soon as they had parked the truck in the center of the town square, they had been besieged with patients, ranging in age from a ninety-year-old man with a bronchial cough all the way down to a tiny newborn infant with colic.

Many of the people had even tried to pay them with gifts of food, tins of petrol—and even a cage containing three unhappy-looking chickens, which Becky and the Curies had politely but firmly refused.

Now Irene and her mother were sleeping in beds procured at the local inn, while Becky sat in the truck and kept watch on the bakery. It was only just after 10 pm, but the town was utterly still and dark, the streets deserted. Not a single light showed in any of the windows.

Long months of war had trained the residents to pull their blackout curtains tight and hunker down in their houses the moment night fell.

Unfortunately, the bakery was also just as dark and just as deserted as the rest of the town. The windows of Pierrefonds might be dark, but there was bright moonlight tonight, allowing her to see across the street to the bake shop. Nothing moved inside, and no one approached from without.

Where are you, Flynn?

Nightmare possibilities had been lurking at the edges of her thoughts all day, and now they crowded her head in full force. Flynn could have been the one who’d been wounded in the bakery. Or he and Vogel might have been caught, captured, and hauled away by whoever those other men had been.

Becky leaned forward to peer through the window screen, willing a familiar figure to appear on the street opposite.

What if Flynn didn’t come to the bakery after all? Without any direction, searching for him was a completely lost cause. But how long could she reasonably wait in Pierrefonds, hoping for him to make contact?

A low, sputtering roar sounded in the distance overhead.

Becky gripped the steering wheel more tightly. Exactly what this night needed. An air raid.

She couldn’t even hope that they were allied planes, since by now, she could tell the difference between allied and enemy craft by the sound of their engines. She could, though, hope that they were on their way to Paris, and wouldn’t be dropping any bombs—

The roar of an explosion seemed to flatten the ground around her, and a section of the horizon somewhere just beyond the town began to glow fiery red and orange.

They must be dropping incendiary bombs.

This just got better and better.

Becky shut her eyes for a moment, debating.

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