Chapter 8 Halvorsen

Earl was already waiting when I got to the diner back booth, coffee steaming, tie loosened like a man who knew this was going to be the kind of conversation that put holes in things.

The place was nearly empty. A waitress wiped down menus that hadn't been touched since Eisenhower was a captain. The jukebox was broken, or pretending to be.

Earl didn't smile when he saw me.

He slid a folder across the table. Yellowed. Stamped RESTRICTED. No flair. Just a fact.

"You're digging into something with bones older than your dress size," he said.

"I didn't know names came with footnotes," I said, opening it.

They did.

HALVORSEN, ERNST H.

Former OSS, Counterintelligence Division. Languages: German, Russian, French. Known associate of post-war Black networks. Last known location: Berlin, 1947.

"Vanished?" I asked.

"Official story", Earl said. "Unofficially? He got too smart for the wrong side. They didn't kill him. Just made him disappear."

I flipped the page. A photo. Black and white, mid-conversation with someone whose face was redacted. Halvorsen looked sharp. Precise. Not the kind of man who lost track of details. Or people.

"Where is he now?"

Earl lit a cigarette, ignoring the No Smoking sign.

"House in Echo Park. Registered under a dead cousin's name. Locals call him 'Professor'. Keeps to himself. Doesn't leave unless it rains."

I raised an eyebrow. "What's he hiding from?"

"Or", Earl said, "what's he waiting for?"

I closed the file.

"Anything else?"

Earl hesitated. Then leaned forward, voice low.

"He was in L.A. once. Briefly. 1942. Met with a woman. Young. Southern. Seamstress by trade."

He looked me dead in the eye.

"She signed the motel ledger as Dumas."

My throat tightened.

"My mother?"

Earl nodded.

"Looks like this story's older than you thought."

The house at 47 Caldera Street looked like it belonged to a librarian with a heart condition. Trim the lawn. Closed curtains. Mailbox so clean it felt suspicious.

I wore sunglasses and carried a clutch that held more questions than powder. Knocked twice.

The man who opened the door was old but not fragile. He had the posture of someone who used to give orders and the eyes of someone who remembered when those orders cost lives.

He wore a brown cardigan, neatly pressed slacks, and shoes so polished I could see myself in them.

"Miss Dumas", he said, not asking.

So much for aliases.

"You have me at a disadvantage," I replied.

He stepped aside. "Not for long."

The house was silent. Furniture placed with intention. Books alphabetised. Curtains drawn tight. There was a chessboard in the corner, mid-game. Only one side had pieces.

We sat at a table in the front room. He poured tea into matching china.

I didn't drink.

"You knew I was coming," I said.

"I've been waiting since Berlin."

His voice was even. Crisp. Like he taught speech at Yale and shot men behind churches.

"You're Halvorsen."

He inclined his head once.

"And you're not just her daughter. You're the one she said would show up. Eventually."

I leaned forward.

"You knew my mother?"

He didn't answer right away.

Just reached into a drawer and pulled out a photograph.

My mother. Twenty years younger. Standing beside him.

Both of them are smiling.

Both of them are dangerous.

The photograph felt unreal in my hands.

My mother, barely twenty, in a trench coat and gloves. Halvorsen beside her, taller, looking like he'd already seen three wars and didn't plan on dying in any of them.

"She told me she was a seamstress," I said.

"She was," Halvorsen replied, voice calm. "She stitched silk. And secrets."

I looked up.

"She was part of the OSS?" I asked.

"Not officially. They didn't allow women like her in those rooms. Too Black, too brilliant, too hard to control. So we put her where no one would suspect her."

He poured another cup of tea. Didn't touch it.

"She worked in embassies. Dance halls. Even sewed curtains for a Nazi diplomat's mistress once. While she was there, she rewired his phone."

I couldn't breathe for a moment.

"Why didn't she tell me?"

Halvorsen looked at me, eyes gentler than they had any right to be.

"She wanted you to be safe. She thought the war had ended."

"Did it?"

"No," he said. "It just changed names."

I set the photo down.

"And Bishop?"

"He knew her. Admired her. Maybe even loved her. Until she said no. Until she walked away. And then he watched her."

He leaned forward now, expression sharpened.

"And he's been watching you since she died."

My skin prickled.

"Why?"

Halvorsen's answer was soft.

"Because she hid something. And he thinks you know where it is."

"She hid something?" I repeated, barely above a whisper.

Halvorsen nodded.

"Blueprints. Names. A list. No one knows what exactly. But she was the courier until she wasn't. Somewhere near the end, she kept a piece for herself."

"Why?"

"Because she stopped trusting the people giving her orders."

"And you?"

"She didn't trust me either."

He said it without resentment. Just a fact.

"She told me", he continued, "that someday a man named Bishop would come looking. Not for her. For you. Because that's how he works, he doesn't erase what threatens him. He waits for it to rot."

I looked at the photo again, my mother's smile now more coded than warm.

"So what am I supposed to do?" I asked.

"Find it before they do."

"And if I don't?"

"Then you're not bait anymore," he said. "You're a witness."

He stood, walked to the bookcase, pulled down a thick volume of Russian literature and handed it to me.

Inside: a pressed flower. A dried lily.

And tucked behind it, an address scrawled in elegant handwriting.

My mother's.

I stared at it.

"You knew she left something," I said.

He nodded.

"But you didn't know where until now."

His silence was confirmation.

No one in this story was just a witness.

Not her.

Not me.

And not the man in front of me who had just put a new target on my back.

I left Halvorsen's house with the book clutched tight, my fingers numb around the spine.

The address inside wasn't just a location. It was a lock waiting for the right ghost to turn the key.

The streets were quiet as I headed west, Sunset Boulevard laid out like a tired ribbon under the night sky. My headlights carved through fog that hadn't been there earlier. My nerves ran tight, but not panicked. Not yet.

Then I saw it.

Two headlights. Same distance. Same rhythm. Three turns later, still there.

The car stayed back just far enough not to push. Just close enough to whisper.

I sped up. So did they.

My hands tightened on the wheel.

At La Cienega, they changed tactics. Pulled closer. Too close.

I swerved.

They swerved harder.

My tyres screamed against the asphalt. A horn. A flash of chrome. I clipped the kerb and barely missed a mailbox that leapt out of the dark like a dare.

Then silence.

When I looked back, the car was gone.

No plate. No make I recognised. Just the memory of it. Like a hand that touched your back and vanished before you could turn around.

I pulled into an alley behind a dry cleaner and killed the engine. My breath came in fast pulls, like I'd just run a race against something without a face.

I sat there a long time.

Then I opened the book.

Stared at the address again.

And knew one thing with terrifying clarity.

They weren't following me to stop me.

They were making sure I got there.