I should have seen this. I should have known Henry was in trouble—deluded or confused or just plain broken. My gaze went back to the bullets on the table and my heart sank all over again.
“When did you buy the gun?”
“I bought it just before Christmas when I was in a bad way. I was going to—” He broke off, squeezing his eyes shut. “I didn’t buy it for Rhodes.”
“Henry,” I choked out on a sob. No. “I want to hear about that. I want to talk to you about that and tell you how much I need you here. But right now, I need to know about this morning. Where is the gun now?”
“I dropped it.” He squeezed his eyes closed, frustration on his face. “In the yard. You saw him the first time he came here, didn’t you? That was the only time he let you see him.”
“He wasn’t here that night, Henry.” It was a dream or, I finally acknowledged, a hallucination. Whatever had been happening in Henry’s brain, I had no doubt it felt very real to him.
“But he chased me this morning!” Henry choked out. “He was going to follow me here to hurt you! I had to stop him!”
“And is he…？”
“I think he’s dead,” Henry wailed, and the rocking started again. I drew in a deep breath.
Murder was a capital offense in Alabama. Henry was clearly not in his right mind, but I didn’t know if that would be enough to save him. He had done this trying to protect me, and now he needed my protection.
I flew off the bed and rushed to his closet. I pulled his suitcase down from the top shelf and started to throw his clothes into it. “Do you remember where that hospital was? The place where you had the insulin therapy?”
“I don’t want to go back there,” Henry said. “No, Lizzie. Please.”
“Honey, you just have to. You need help, and the VA is the best place for you to get it.”
“Did I shoot him? Did I dream that?” Henry said, after a pause.
“I don’t know, honey,” I said, although the sirens in the distance seemed to be multiplying by the second, so I had a fair idea that he had. Once the suitcase was full, I clipped it closed, then thrust it at my brother. “Take this. Go to your car right now. Do you have gas? Money for gas?”
He nodded mutely, staring at me through cloudy eyes.
“Henry, you have to drive yourself back to that hospital in Nashville,” I said slowly. I still wasn’t sure he understood. And right in that moment Henry’s mind was obviously elsewhere—with Jürgen Rhodes, or back in Europe, or already on the road. I took him by the shoulders and gently pulled at him, encouraging him to stand. “Can you do that? Can you get yourself back to the hospital?”
“I—Yes. I think so.” The hospital was almost two hours away, but I couldn’t think of any other way to get him out of town than to send him under his own steam.
“You can’t breathe a word of this to anyone. When you get to the hospital, you just tell the nurse you’re confused. You tell her you’re seeing and hearing things that aren’t there.”
“But I’m not—”
“Honey,” I whispered brokenly, “I think you are.”
“Like…like shooting Rhodes? Did I imagine that?” He sounded so hopeful.
“Yes,” I said slowly. “All of this. You’ve imagined all of it.” But then I imagined him checking himself into the clinic and immediately confessing to a potential murder, so I added hastily, “But you mustn’t tell them what you’ve been imagining. Okay? Just tell them you’re seeing and hearing things that aren’t really there and you need them to help you again.”
“Why is this happening, sis?”
“I think your mind is tired, and maybe that insulin therapy made it a little bit broken too,” I said sadly, reaching to squeeze his hand. “That’s not your fault. You need to take some care and rest, and you’ll feel better soon. So can you go to the hospital?”
“I can do that.” Henry nodded miserably. “Yeah. I can do that.”
“I’ll take care of everything else, but you have to go, and you have to go now before Calvin wakes up.”
45
Sofie
Huntsville, Alabama
1950
The paramedics said that Jürgen probably needed surgery, and that it was serious. Very serious. Klaus retrieved one of Claudia’s housecoats for me and I threw it over my nightclothes, intending to go with Jürgen in the ambulance—but then I noticed the blue flashing lights on the street outside my house.