Defensiveness reared inside Annabelle. “You sing with him. How long before the show?”
“Two days. There won’t be much time to rehearse, but Dr. Prever said he’ll allow anyone who wishes to practice in the auditorium without masks.”
Annabelle frowned. “Why would he do that?”
Penelope shrugged. “I thought it was strange and maybe dangerous.” Penelope winked. “But isn’t the idea of singing delicious?”
Annabelle laughed. “Positively tasty. And a very bad idea.”
Penelope tilted her head to the side. “Do you ever do anything unwise? I think you do. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I’d say that you and Captain Hale have a certain penchant for each other.”
Fear of discovery had become Annabelle’s constant companion in the last day. Since she’d kissed and caressed Cade, a day had passed and a new morning had begun. It seemed far longer than that. “Think what you want, Penelope. I don’t have a good voice.”
“Oh feathers. That is not true.”
Deep inside, Annabelle’s excitement had flared to life at the idea of singing for the boys. “It’s been so long. I haven’t sung a decent song in ... well ... at least two years.”
“Since before the war?”
“Essentially.”
“Then it’s past time to try again. Believe it or not, Margaret found some old sheet music stored away in the basement. She also found a Victrola that would play gramophone records.”
The hair along Annabelle’s body prickled. “She went into the basement?”
Penelope shrugged. “We both did when Dr. Prever told us his plan. He asked us to look for the music and the records. I wish we had some whiskey stored somewhere. I’m dying for a swig.”
Annabelle laughed and patted her friend on the shoulder. “I second that.”
Penelope sat up and pinned Annabelle with her gaze. “What’s really bothering me was that mass dream the men had. I can’t get that out of my head.”
Annabelle was sick of thinking about the strangeness that had settled firmly over the asylum. She pushed it aside for cheery thoughts. “Now, tell me what music we’ll be singing.”
“Till We Meet Again and My Sweetheart Is Somewhere In France. Captain Hale would sing The Rose of No Man’s Land and perhaps a few of the more rousing songs such as Over There. I’ve never liked the way Enrico Curuso sings it. Another favorite is Shine On Harvest Moon.” Penelope’s face brightened. “And what about The Man I Love?”
“I know all those by heart.” Annabelle rose from the bed and went to her small desk. “Does Cade honestly know how to sing?”
“Cade?” Penelope’s voice dripped with insinuation. “I thought he was Captain Hale.”
Annabelle made a small noise of disgust. “He is.”
Annabelle retrieved her brush from the desk, flipped her hair over her head, and started to brush gently. She liked the fullness it gave her tresses.
Penelope finally answered. “According to a couple of the men, they heard him singing in the shower.”
Ah, the shower. As Annabelle brushed her hair, she imagined what his hard body would look like under the water. The wet would dribble down his chest, trailing between and over his pectorals, touching the flat stomach and down to unmentionable places. Unmentionable, perhaps, but that didn’t prevent her from thinking and imagining what he’d look like. A hot vibration stirred in her stomach and burned like a slow torch.
Penelope managed to slice right through that good feeling with a few words. “My mother called this morning from New York City. Things are awful there. I don’t even want to tell you how many people are dying.”
Annabelle managed to say, “Tell me.”
“Fear is breaking things down there. Society as we know it is falling to pieces under the disease. Mother said people are selfish and angry and pointing fingers.”
Annabelle felt cynical to the core. “That’s all normal. The blaming and pointing fingers. Nothing new there.” She lifted her gaze to Penelope and saw the worry in her friend’s eyes and softened her response. “Your family is all right?”
“My Uncle Cedric got the enza, but he survived and he’s getting better. No one else in my family has caught it.”
“Thank God for that.” Annabelle kept brushing.
“Then the phone line went dead. The phone isn’t working at all now. Apparently emergency calls are the only ones they’re putting through.” Penelope grunted. “Who is going to show up for the emergency, that’s what I wish to know. No one will help us if we need it, Annabelle. No one can.”
“Fear rules us all.” Annabelle flipped her hair back and it fell in waves past her shoulders. “Even when we think it won’t. No one was ready for this, Penelope. How could we be?” Annabelle recalled the fear she’d experienced in the basement, and wanted to blurt how it proved as choking and as awful as any bout with enza. “Nurse Summit said that over four thousand people died in one week this month in Philadelphia,”
“Oh, God, have mercy.” Penelope’s eyes had turned glassy with tears.
“I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Do you think we’re safe?”
“I don’t know.” Annabelle wondered if the supernatural could be as dangerous as a disease.
They went quiet for a considerable time until Penelope said, “Dr. Prever called into Simple.”
“And?”
Penelope’s tears didn’t spill, but they looked as if they might. “Two people have died in Simple. They’re certain it’s enza. It’s closer to us. It’s closer. The sheriff tried keeping everyone out of Simple with guards and barricades but how do you keep everyone out if they slip through? Gunnison has succeeded so far in keeping everyone away from their town.”
Annabelle’s heart sank. “Yet it’s here in Simple.”
“They think a miner from Denver came in and that was all she wrote.”
Wanting to reassure her friend, Annabelle spoke strongly. “The disease isn’t coming up here. We’ve been quarantined. No one has been in or out since then. We are safe.” She didn’t know if that was true, but what else could she say to help her friend? “We made it through a damned war. A war far worse than a disease.” She forced a smile. “One song at a time.”
Penelope heaved a smile as she stood. She placed the mask back on her face. “We can’t sing songs with the masks on. We’ll practice without them tomorrow. Well, I’d better get back to work. I have Vicks VapoRub to count. Enjoy your day off.”
“It's not exactly day off.”
“True, but it sounds better to call it a day off, doesn’t it?” Penelope winked. “I will tell Cade Hale you’re to do a duet with him.”
Annabelle panicked. “No, no. Don’t promise that.”
Penelope laughed and waved as she left and closed the door.
Chapter 14
Annabelle stood in the auditorium with Penelope and waited for others to come in for practice. The piano was ready, and one of the nurses knew how to play the music they required. A full accompaniment of instruments would have sounded more glorious, of course, but they’d make due with the piano and the Victrola sitting on a table nearby.
Cade walked in with Private Lopez and a tall, blond, Corporal Benjamin Davis. Penelope gave Davis an interested smile, and Annabelle frowned and shook her head.
After they’d welcomed each other, Cade wandered to the piano. “What should we try first?”
“We have to pick who will sing, obviously,” Private Lopez said.
Cade leaned back against the piano and folded his arms. In a strong, darkly beautiful baritone, he soothed his way into The Rose of No Man’s Land. As he sang with deep conviction, his face expressive and sensitive, the nurse at the piano took up the song. The song flowed flawlessly, his voice mesmerizing.
Cade’s eyes filled with genuine pathos, his voice rich with sincerity. An ache, sweet and delicious, started between Annabelle’s legs. A man’s voice had never filled her with such longing. She heard things i
n this song that she could relate to with ease. The song spoke of never forgetting the red roses, as so many soldiers had called the women who had saved their lives or given them comfort.
When he directed his attention her way, their gazes tangled, and the words became special, his voice speaking to her and no one else. She longed to know him in a more intimate way, a deeper perspective. Already she’d learned so much about him, yet she knew nothing. If she could get closer to him, could feel him on a deeper level, she would understand this mysterious longing that demanded fulfillment. She didn’t want to think that he meant more to her than any man before, but what else was this feeling if not that? As he finished everyone broke into applause.
Penelope clapped the hardest. “That is amazing Captain Hale. I didn’t know you were so talented.”
“Do you know The Roses of Picardy?” Private Lopez asked.
“I know the song, but I’m not hogging the stage.” Cade moved away from the piano and strolled casually toward Annabelle and Penelope. “I think you should sing it Lopez.”
So the young soldier crooned the song. While his voice didn’t have the skill of Cade’s his sound was undeniably pleasant. They clapped for him when he finished, and Cade let out a shrill whistle that made them all laugh.
“Bravo,” Cade said. “What’s next?”
Penelope handed more sheet music to the pianist. “Till We Meet Again. This requires a man and a woman.” She gently urged Annabelle toward the piano. “Captain, you and Annabelle should sing this. And what about Shine On Harvest Moon? That would be a good one, too.”
Before Annabelle could protest, Cade smiled and headed for the piano. “Sounds good. Let’s try Till We Meet Again first.”
Trapped. Annabelle tried to school her face into a calm mask as her heartbeat picked up in anticipation. Everyone stared at them with expectation. She knew the song by heart. Cade smiled, his expression filled with an eagerness that surprised her. The pianist started the introduction.
The next few moments took Annabelle off her guard. As they stumbled through one bar and then another of the song, trying to coordinate their voices, they also laughed. Enjoyment returned to her heart, and the people around them laughed. Their voices blended and Annabelle liked the sound. She knew when it worked and when it didn’t. Encouragement came from all sides. They could manage it.
“I think this will take longer than just the time we have today,” Annabelle said at one point in the rehearsal.
“I’ll take the men back to the ward for a meal,” Penelope said.
Cade crossed his arms. “I’d like to stay and practice.”
“I have to go back to work,” the nurse at the piano said.
Annabelle feared staying with Cade, but at the same time she longed to remain. “We have part of tomorrow to work on this.”
Cade’s gaze caught hers. She yearned to stay with him, but knew the appearance of impropriety remained too great. Disappointment and regret hit her. She didn’t understand her interest in him when nothing could come of it.
Cade nodded. “You’re right. Tomorrow it is. What time?”
After they’d decided on a ten in the morning start for practice, they headed back to the main building. Conversation on the walk back to the ward was stifled, as if they’d drained all they'd had singing. An idea came to Annabelle—a ridiculous one, perhaps, but a good one. “Perhaps you should start a choir, Captain Hale. Here at the asylum.”
Penelope made a sound of approval. “A wonderful idea.”
“I’d join,” Private Lopez said with a smile.
A couple of other men chimed into the idea with positives. Cade came alongside Annabelle and Penelope. “I don’t know about me being the one to start it. I don’t know the first thing about organizing a choir.”
“You have a fine sense of music,” Penelope said. “I don’t know anyone else here who could do it. Perhaps a small barbershop choir?”
He gave his signature grunt—a male sound that didn’t say yes or no. “Maybe. I’ll think about it.”
As they returned to the back entrance of the main building, Annabelle felt a sudden disturbance in the air, as if the trees nearby, the wind ... all of it had stirred at the same moment and warned her. Something strange and unnatural was about to happen, and she didn’t know what, how, or exactly when. It left her unsettled in the worst way. All the beauty of her time singing with Cade disappeared like smoke.
* * *
“The concert for the soldiers has been put on hold,” Nurse Summit said a few hours later. “A soldier is missing.”
At first Annabelle didn’t believe what Nurse Summit had just said to the group of nurses finishing their meal in the dining hall. After all, the nurse wore a mask and maybe the words had become muffled. “A soldier is missing?
“Yes.” Nurse Summit’s sigh was exasperated. “Unfortunately.”
“Who?” Margaret asked. She sat next to Penelope and across the table from Annabelle.
Nurse Summit’s voice was grave. “Corporal Roger Colleto.”
Murmurs started around the room. This didn’t bode well. Annabelle noted worry in the other nurses’ eyes.
“He’s the most ... pardon the unkind expression,” Margaret said, “the most loony of them all.”
“He’s not a bad man.” Annabelle heard herself defending him, as she would all the men. “He is far more ..."
“Unpredictable.” Nurse Summit’s assessment couldn’t be argued. “If I had my druthers he would be penned up for his own safety and ours. He showed tendencies toward violence from the moment he arrived.”
Penelope sipped her coffee. “How and when did he go missing?”
Nurse Summit paced the front of the room. Annabelle had never seen the woman look nervous until now. “Sometime this morning. Cade Hale reported him.”
Annabelle frowned. “Why didn’t he tell one of us?”
“He told me, and I immediately spoke with Dr. Prever. Dr. Prever has ordered Hale to look for him.”
Concern and doubt flooded Annabelle, but she pressed her lips together. She couldn’t object or others would have fuel for the belief that she favored Cade. Even if she did, she needed to keep that fact hidden. Why would she object anyway? Cade could take care of himself. She knew that down deep, a part of her wanted to shelter him from evil, a force she didn’t understand and barely believed in herself.
Nurse Summit rubbed her hands together as if she were cold. “The corporal told one of the other soldiers last night that he kept hearing voices and seeing dark shadows everywhere he looked. That’s why he wanted to run away.”
Hair prickled everywhere on Annabelle’s body. Shadows? Apprehension invaded at the implications.
“That’s preposterous. I mean, the shadows,” Margaret said.
“Be that as it may,” Nurse Summit said, “we need to find the man and quickly.”
Penelope said what Annabelle thought. “Dr. Prever doesn’t think Captain Hale is a risk to flee?”
Nurse Summit continued her slow, methodical pacing. “Remember that Captain Hale checked himself in here. He’s not under any specific orders to stay. If he wanted to leave tomorrow he could.”
Annabelle kept forgetting that fact as well. She could wake up one day and find he’d left. Maybe it would be better if he did.
“Hale volunteered to look for him,” Nurse Summit continued. “If the corporal is confused, he may be out in the wilderness without supplies and could die of exposure.” Nurse Summit directed her attention to the women. “Captain Hale is taking Ziggy with him because the man is a good tracker. They need a nurse to go with them.” Nurse Summit looked straight at Annabelle. “That will be you, Nurse Dorrenti.”
Annabelle’s mouth opened, but at first the words wouldn’t come. “Why me?”
Nurse Summit’s cool glance raked Annabelle. “Are you refusing to help?”
Heat filled Annabelle’s face as her colleagues stared. “Of course not. I just don’t know why you picked me.”
>
“You have the most experience dealing with soldiers. Dr. Prever suggested you and I agree. You’ll leave in thirty minutes,” Nurse Summit said. “You’ll need to check with Captain Hale on what supplies to bring with you and how to dress.”
After the short meeting finished and most of the other nurses had left the dining area, Margaret and Penelope went with Annabelle as she left to prepare.
They’d retied their masks, which made Annabelle want to groan. If there were an infection to be found, wouldn’t it find them as easily in the dining hall where they had to remove their masks to eat? Annabelle didn’t know.
“More time for you to spend with Captain Hale,” Penelope said.
“Don’t be a loony.” Margaret gave her fellow nurse a light punch on the shoulder. “She’s also going to be with Ziggy. That doesn’t sound like a good opportunity to spend time with Captain Hale.”
Annabelle’s frustration with her friends reached boiling. She glared. “That’s not what this is about. There’s a man missing who might need help. If the town quarantined themselves like we have, they might shoot him if he approaches Simple.” The other women went quiet, and Annabelle stopped in the hallway and turned to her friends. “I’m sorry.” Annabelle hugged first one and then other. “I know you’re concerned. I’d better hurry.”
She dashed off. Annabelle stopped by the supply room first and grabbed a bag of medical supplies, and then hurried to locate Cade. She went to the game room first and the men there said he’d gone to his room to pack, but when she went there, there was no sign of him. She located him standing outside of her room, leaning against the door. His face was straight, his gaze unfettered by concern or worry.
“What took you so long?” He sounded every inch the military man.
His commanding question gave her pause. “Trying to find you.”
“You heard about the corporal?”
“I did.”
He followed as she opened her room and entered. He lowered his voice. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
She immediately went to her closet to hunt up her warmest coat, scarf, hat, and gloves. Her knee-high boots would have to do. She’d wear her nursing uniform because it was warm. “Looking for him? I find that hard to believe.”
Shadows Rise Page 17
