Chapter 3 Ingrid #2
Her supervisor departs without awaiting her reply. So much for her intended proposal.
Sighing, she gathers the documents left in disarray. While her colleagues depart for Hollywood to thwart potential threats,
she will be here. Organizing papers, compiling research, anything that relegates her to a desk.
Ingrid has nearly finished sorting and alphabetizing when she picks up the next document—and almost drops it again when she notices the face peering back at her.
Something stirs deep within—something that cannot be, because it is not possible.
Swallowing past the knot in her throat, Ingrid pats each jacket pocket, the usual places for her reading glasses, before she
notices them by her briefcase at the opposite end of the table. Her heels clack against the parquet floor. Like her mother’s
heels against the wooden floor six years ago, when she had burst into the bedroom: Wake up, the war is on. Moments later, the streets of Arnhem were flooded with soldiers.
Ingrid shakes her head and snatches her glasses. The war is over. Everything—and everyone—from that time is gone. What she
suspects cannot be true. But she can’t ignore the tightening in her chest as she peers at the image more closely.
This is a photograph of the actress Crenshaw mentioned, Ada Worthington-Fox. A woman with chiseled features, dark hair styled
in romantic waves, refined looks. A woman whose face Ingrid has seen every time she has closed her eyes these last six years.
Each breath sharpens as she reads the document slowly, awaiting the name from a time and a life long forgotten. A name that
will confirm her suspicions.
A name that no longer exists, because that woman is dead. She must be; otherwise she never would have broken her promise.
Ingrid reads the document once, twice, seeking an alternate birth name, an alias, anything. But no, nothing. No evidence of
the name she anticipated. Except Ingrid does not need a confirmed name to recognize the face she will never forget.
It is her. Alive.
She’s alive.
An unsteady breath catches in Ingrid’s throat.
She sinks into the nearest chair, removes her glasses, and rubs a trembling hand over her eyes, as if the gesture will help her to make sense of it all.
There will be time for the many questions swirling through her mind.
For now, she clutches the paper to her racing heart.
Communist ties. Crenshaw’s suspicions can’t be true. Still, if this actress is engaging in subversive behavior, Ingrid will
talk to her, will encourage her to listen. Not Archie, not anyone else, Ingrid.
This assignment will be hers. It must be.
She marches into Crenshaw’s office and sets the documents before him. “Sir, I’d like your permission to investigate Ada Worthington-Fox.”
He laughs. “Why? Because she’s a kindred spirit from jolly old England?”
“I’m from Holland.” How many times must she explain herself? Her accent is due to attending an exceedingly proper boarding
school in Kent, one formerly attended by her exceedingly proper British mother—that dreadful woman. “The actress is my age,
neither of us are from America, and I’m certain I can do this.”
“There’s far more to this job than commonalities. You’re a hard worker, and someday you might be ready for a task like this,
but I have men who have gone undercover, earned trust, gathered information. Everything you’ve never done.” Crenshaw leans
across his desk toward her. “You think you can do better than them?”
“Yes, I do.” She holds his gaze. “Women don’t trust men. We trust women.”
At this, Crenshaw chews on the ear of his spectacles. The file mentioned that Ada is incredibly private; such a woman will
never speak candidly to men like those in this office. With Ingrid, though, she might be more willing.
Connecting with this actress is the easiest and fastest way to sort out whatever trouble she’s gotten into with this Communism business—if Crenshaw’s concerns prove valid—and to keep Ingrid’s coworkers occupied elsewhere.
Otherwise they might ask questions that will lead to truths Ingrid has kept close for so long.
Her colleagues cannot take this case. Not when Ingrid knows this woman better than any of them.
The silence stretches like the quiet following a gunshot. Expectant, awaiting the next bullet, yet desperately hopeful that
the crack will not come and that, for now, the silence will extend into calm.
“I will send you to Hollywood to make contact.” Not even Crenshaw’s scowl robs those blessed words of their beauty. “If you
lose the ring.”
Guarding her feelings and reactions is essential in the workplace; yet as he nods to the gold band and diamond encircling
her finger, the absurd, infuriating request nearly makes Ingrid forget to control herself. Even her marriage is a strike against
her?
“How does my ring affect my ability to complete this task?” she asks with only the faintest hint of irritation.
“Think of the headlines if the tabloids see a married woman flirting with all the male celebrities. I need you to be invisible,
not to get your face splashed across the papers.”
No use explaining that she has no intentions of flirting with men who are not her husband. But he has a point: Being a married
woman will draw attention from anyone seeking a bit of gossip.
Whatever she must do to secure the assignment.
“No ring, then,” she concedes, despite the knot in her throat. The married male investigators will surely not be required
to abide by this stipulation.
Perhaps Crenshaw had thought the condition would deter her, but he gives no reaction and continues.
“The actress is rumored to be involved in an upcoming film, and Archie Stribling will be investigating its director, so you will share anything of relevance with him. You will contact me at regular intervals and compile a detailed report for your FBI handler—Klaus Stieber, who will make contact with you in California. And if you don’t give me anything useful within a week, I’m replacing you. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir, though I assure you it won’t be necessary.”
She departs before he can change his mind, though she hears him grumbling about how he’d better not regret this. Maybe she
has to work alongside Archie; maybe she has to report to a handler; neither can eliminate the thrill pulsing through her veins—a
combination of relief and eagerness she hasn’t felt in so long.
As she passes through sparse hallways smelling of stale coffee and too much cologne, Ingrid almost smells the tulips in Arnhem,
almost feels the wind tugging her skirt as she rides her bicycle toward home. How joyful those times were before Dutch laws
were replaced with German ones.
She shoves the memories back into the deeply concealed place where she keeps them locked away, then returns to her desk and
places a phone call.
“Federal Bureau of Investigation,” announces a brisk voice on the other line. “How may I direct your call?”
“Skip the formalities, Hattie, it’s just me.”
“Well, good morning to you too, Ingrid,” comes the laughing reply, one that brings an immediate smile to Ingrid’s face.
Darling Hattie, Ingrid’s dearest friend from boarding school who married a fellow and moved with him to America. Only a few
months later, they opened their home to Ingrid and Lars when they, too, arrived in America and Ingrid wrote to Hattie desperately
seeking refuge.
“Will you research a couple names for me?” Ingrid asks, then she drops her voice. “I’ll be traveling with a coworker on assignment—”
“Assignment?” Hattie interrupts with a squeal. “Well done! I know better than to ask what it is, but it’s about time you got
to have a little fun.”
“As much fun as one can have when forced to work with Archie Stribling. I expect everyone in my office is clean, but if you could provide some reassurance, I would appreciate it. And there’s one more—my FBI handler, Klaus Stieber.” Ingrid drops her voice again. “Was he one of them?”
Given the name, the man is certainly German, but not every German was a Nazi. The thought of working with one sends nausea
twisting in Ingrid’s stomach.
“Archie might take me a little more time, but I’ve spent the morning organizing new agent files, and I could swear I saw Stieber’s
name among them,” Hattie replies. “Let me check.”
Ingrid waits, casting an instinctive glance around to make sure no one is eavesdropping, tapping her heel against the floor
in anticipation. Moments later, Hattie returns to the phone.
“Yes. Just desk work, but yes,” she says, distaste apparent in her voice.
Ingrid bites her cheek to contain a curse. When Hattie told her of former Nazis being recruited to work for the American government
in exchange for pardons, she did not believe it at first. Now she will have to report to one. To a man whose party forced
her to flee from everyone and everything she had ever known. She curls her hand into a fist until her wedding band presses
into her skin, battling memories she cannot consider because she cannot afford tears.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” she says at last—although Ada’s face returns to her mind. Someone will be investigating her. If the responsibility is to fall to Ingrid, she has no choice other than to report to a former Nazi.
Hattie sighs. “Nothing to do except make the best of it, I’m afraid, if you want the job. Although I don’t like it any more
than you do.”
“I know you don’t,” Ingrid replies gently, wishing she could pull her friend close.
When the Blitz broke out in England, Hattie’s husband, Ian, had insisted on going home to enlist and begged his wife to stay in America, since returning to her parents’ home in Birmingham might have subjected her to bombings.
Following encouragement from Ingrid, Hattie had moved in with her and Lars.
And while living in their spare bedroom, Hattie received the news that her husband’s plane had been struck down and his body never recovered.
“After I lost Ian, I didn’t think I could do anything ever again,” Hattie murmurs. “You assured me I could, and you were right.
I found work, I went back to living on my own, and I’m happy. So it’s my turn to assure you: You can do this, Ingrid. And
I’ll be there for you the same way you were there for me.”
The encouragement softens the tension in Ingrid’s chest. “You have been there for me from the moment I reached America, and
long before.”
Hattie promises to be in touch after she researches Archie, then they hang up. Ingrid settles back. Hattie is right. Even
if she must work with a former Nazi as her handler, she can do this. She must.