The Metropolitan Club on East 60th Street was the kind of place Catherine—Marie, she had to remember, Marie Chevalier—would never have entered in her previous life. Old money, old power, old men in dark suits discussing matters of consequence over brandy and cigars.
But Marie Chevalier, French refugee with impeccable credentials (forged) and tragic backstory (partially true), had been sponsored by Mrs. Patricia Aldrich, a society matron who collected charitable causes the way other women collected hats.
"My dear Marie," Mrs. Aldrich was saying now, steering her through the club's reception room, "you simply must meet Mr. Hastings. He's on the War Production Board, absolutely vital work. And recently widowed—his wife passed just before Christmas, poor thing. He could use some cheerful company."
Catherine allowed herself to be introduced, cataloging everything about Robert Hastings in the first thirty seconds: late fifties, expensively tailored suit, Phi Beta Kappa key on his watch chain, wedding ring still on despite the widow status, eyes that assessed her with clinical interest.
"Miss Chevalier," Hastings said, his handshake firm and brief. "Patricia tells me you escaped France just before the occupation. That must have been harrowing."
"It was," Catherine said, letting her accent carry through. The story was practiced now, polished through repetition: fled Paris in June 1940, made it to Lisbon, eventually to New York with help from the American Friends Service Committee. All verifiable, all documented, all carefully constructed lies built around a skeleton of truth.
"Your English is excellent," Hastings observed.
"I studied at the Sorbonne before the war. English literature." Another lie. Her English was excellent because French intelligence had trained her in it, but Hastings didn't need to know that.
"And you were in Paris when the Germans came," Hastings said, his tone sympathetic. "That must have been... June of '40, wasn't it? I imagine the roads south were absolute chaos."
Catherine felt something cold touch her spine. The sympathy was perfect. The knowledge was too specific.
"Yes," she said carefully. "June. Everyone was trying to leave at once."
"I've heard the Route Nationale 20 was particularly bad. Strafing runs, refugees packed like sardines." Hastings shook his head. "Terrible business."
Route Nationale 20. The specific highway. Not something you'd know from general news coverage. Something you'd know from intelligence reports. Or from someone who'd been tracking refugee movements very carefully.
Catherine kept her smile in place, but her mind was racing. Was Hastings testing her? Did he suspect something? Or was he simply well-informed, the kind of man who read detailed reports for his War Production Board work?
"It was terrible," she agreed, deliberately vague. "I try not to think about it too much."
"Of course, of course. Forgive me." Hastings's expression shifted to practiced contrition. "I didn't mean to bring up painful memories. Patricia's always telling me I'm too focused on details."
"Details matter in wartime," Catherine said.
"They do indeed." Something flickered in Hastings's eyes—approval? Calculation? "Which is why your work at the Relief Fund is so valuable. Helping people navigate the bureaucracy, the paperwork. It requires attention to detail."
"And patience."
"Patience, yes. Though I imagine you're tired of being patient. Tired of waiting for the war to end so you can return home." Hastings paused, and when he spoke again his voice carried a different weight. "Or have you found that sometimes the waiting becomes the purpose? That you become so accustomed to the role you're playing that you forget there was ever anything else?"
Catherine's pulse quickened, but her expression remained serene. "I'm not sure I understand, Mr. Hastings."
"I'm speaking of displacement, Miss Chevalier. The refugee's burden. You're not quite French anymore, not quite American. Caught between identities." His smile was kind, understanding, and deeply unsettling. "It must be exhausting, maintaining that balance."
Before Catherine could respond, Mrs. Aldrich intervened with her usual oblivious cheerfulness. "Oh Robert, don't philosophize at the poor girl! Marie, come meet the Vanderbilts—they're very interested in the Relief Fund."
Catherine let herself be pulled away, but she felt Hastings's gaze following her across the room. Not lustful. Analytical. Like a chess player studying an opponent's opening move.
She circulated for another hour, performing Marie Chevalier with practiced ease. Sympathetic smiles, modest gratitude, carefully accented English. But part of her mind was still dissecting that conversation.
Route Nationale 20. The specific highway out of Paris. How many Americans would know that detail?
And his comment about roles, about forgetting who you were. Was that insight? Or a warning?
She excused herself and made her way to the ladies' room, where she could think without performance. The Metropolitan Club's facilities were ostentatiously luxurious—marble sinks, gilt mirrors, fresh flowers in crystal vases.
Catherine stared at her reflection. Marie Chevalier stared back—hair styled in the current fashion, dress expensive but not ostentatious, makeup subtle. She looked like she belonged here.
She caught herself adjusting a pin in her hair the way Marie would—fussy, self-conscious—and realized with a start that she hadn't been performing just then. The gesture had been automatic. Real.
When had that started?
In the mirror, she saw another woman enter—younger, prettier, wearing an emerald dress that probably cost more than Catherine's monthly rent. The woman checked her lipstick, then spoke without looking at Catherine.
"You're new to the Metropolitan."
"Is it that obvious?"
"Only to someone who's been coming here since she was sixteen." The woman turned, extending a hand. "Sarah Brennan. My father's the chairman of something tedious at Chase Bank."
"Marie Chevalier."
"The French refugee Patricia Aldrich has been showing off. Yes, I've heard about you." Sarah's smile was sharp. "Word of advice: Robert Hastings collects damaged women. His first wife wasn't enough, apparently. He likes fixing things. Or thinking he can."
Catherine kept her expression neutral. "That's very... direct."
"I don't believe in wasting time. The world's ending, haven't you heard? Bombs falling, boys dying. Might as well be honest while we can." Sarah pulled out a cigarette case, offered one to Catherine.
Catherine accepted—and then realized she'd taken it with her left hand. Marie was right-handed. Catherine had trained herself to be ambidextrous, but Marie wasn't supposed to be.
Sarah's eyes flickered to the hand, then back to Catherine's face. She'd noticed.
"You don't like Mr. Hastings," Catherine said, covering the slip by bringing the cigarette to her lips.
"I don't trust him. There's a difference." Sarah lit both their cigarettes. "He's too smooth. Too perfect. Men like that are hiding something."
"Everyone's hiding something."
"True. But most people's secrets are boring. Affairs, gambling debts, the usual. Hastings feels different. Bigger." Sarah studied Catherine with uncomfortably perceptive eyes. "You feel different too. Not just refugee-escaping-the-Nazis different. Something else."
Catherine's hand didn't quite reach for the small pistol in her purse, but she calculated the distance. "I'm not sure what you mean."
"Don't you?" Sarah's tone was almost gentle. "Here's what I think, Marie—if that's even your real name. I think you're very good at what you do. Very controlled. Very professional. But you're making a mistake."
"What mistake?"
"You think you're using them. Hastings, Patricia, this whole social circus. You think you're the one pulling strings." Sarah exhaled smoke slowly. "But they're using you too. And the really sad part? You're so focused on your mission—whatever it is—that you won't see it until it's too late."
Catherine felt something twist in her chest. Anger? Fear? "You have quite an imagination, Miss Brennan."
"I have eyes. And I've been watching men like Hastings my whole life. They don't make small talk about specific highways in France unless they're testing you. They don't philosophize about lost identities unless they already suspect yours isn't real." Sarah stubbed out her barely-smoked cigarette. "Whatever game you're playing, he's playing it too. And he's got twenty more years of practice."
"If you think I'm some kind of spy—"
"I think you're someone who believes she's in control. That's more dangerous than being a spy." Sarah moved toward the door, then paused. "One more thing. That pin in your hair? You adjusted it three times in the last ten minutes. Marie does that when she's nervous. But you're not nervous—you're thinking. Which means Marie's a character, and sometimes the character bleeds through when you're not paying attention."
She was gone before Catherine could respond.
Catherine stood alone in the too-luxurious bathroom, her reflection staring back at her with Marie's face and Catherine's eyes, and felt something she hadn't allowed herself to feel in months.
Doubt.
Later that night, in her small apartment in Greenwich Village, Catherine sat at her kitchen table but couldn't focus on the documents spread before her.
Sarah Brennan's words kept circling in her mind: You think you're using them. But they're using you too.
Was it true? Had she been so focused on gathering intelligence that she'd missed being maneuvered herself?
Hastings knew about Route Nationale 20. That was either impressive research or a test. Either way, it meant he'd looked into her background more carefully than a casual dinner invitation warranted.
And the comment about roles, about forgetting who you were—
Catherine caught herself reaching for a cigarette with her left hand again. Stopped. Forced herself to use her right. Marie's right hand.
But why did she have to force it now? Six months ago, the performance had been conscious, deliberate. Now the boundaries were blurring. Sometimes she caught herself thinking in Marie's voice, seeing the world through Marie's fears and hopes.
Sometimes the character bleeds through when you're not paying attention.
She pulled out her hidden files, tried to focus on the work. Adding Hastings's name to the web, cross-referencing his War Production Board position with the suspicious military contracts Rick had found in Detroit.
But her hands were shaking slightly.
Not from fear. From anger. At herself.
Sarah Brennan had seen through her in thirty seconds. A twenty-something socialite with sharp eyes had identified the performance, the slip-ups, the vulnerability Catherine thought she'd hidden.
If Sarah could see it, who else could?
A knock at the door made her sweep everything into the cabinet in one practiced motion. She checked the peephole.
Thomas Reed—actually Webb, but she had to remember his new name too—stood in the hallway, looking tired and wet from the rain that had started an hour ago.
She let him in, locked the door behind him. "You weren't supposed to come until Friday."
"Something came up." Webb took off his dripping coat, accepted the towel she handed him. "I found something. Or rather, something found me."
Catherine listened to his story about the bookkeeper, the freight company, the warehouse in Brooklyn. Professional. Focused. But part of her mind was still replaying Sarah's words.
You think you're in control.
"Catherine?" Webb was watching her. "You alright? You seem distracted."
"I'm fine." The lie came automatically. Then she stopped herself. "Actually, no. Something happened tonight. Someone... saw through me. Partially, at least."
She told him about Sarah Brennan, about the observations, about the uncomfortable accuracy of the assessment. Webb listened without interrupting, the way he always did.
"You think she's a threat?" he asked finally.
"I think she's perceptive. And I think—" Catherine hesitated, then forced herself to say it. "I think she might be right. About me losing perspective. Getting too comfortable in the role."
"We're all doing that," Webb said quietly. "I caught myself introducing myself as Thomas Reed to my landlady yesterday. Not as cover—I'd forgotten for a second that it wasn't my real name."
Catherine looked at him. Really looked. The tremor in his hands was worse than last week. The weight loss more pronounced. But there was something else too—a flatness in his eyes that hadn't been there before.
"How much are you drinking?" she asked.
Webb's jaw tightened. "Enough to sleep. Not enough to compromise the work."
"Thomas—"
"I know what you're going to say. That I need to take care of myself, see a doctor, talk to someone." His voice was hard. "But we don't have that luxury, do we? We're dead people playing dress-up, trying to take down a conspiracy that's bigger than all of us. There's no time for falling apart."
"There's no time for falling apart badly," Catherine corrected. "Controlled deterioration, I can work with. Complete collapse, I can't."
Webb almost smiled. "Is that what this is? Controlled deterioration?"
"I don't know." Catherine heard the exhaustion in her own voice. "Maybe Sarah Brennan's right. Maybe we're all so focused on the mission that we're not seeing how we're being used. How we're using ourselves up."
They sat in silence for a moment, the rain drumming against the windows.
"You want to know the worst part?" Webb said finally. "I'm not even sure I remember who I was before. Before the war, before this. Thomas Reed feels more real than whatever my name used to be."
Catherine understood. She'd had the same thought, lying awake at night. Marie Chevalier had a complete life—a history, habits, preferences, fears. Catherine Dupré felt increasingly like a ghost. A memory that was fading.
"We have to be careful," she said. "All of us. We can't let the covers consume us."
"Then what do we do?"
"We remember why we're doing this. We document everything, stay focused on the goal. And we—" Catherine paused, realizing something. "We need to meet more often. All four of us. Not just dead drops and encoded messages. We need to see each other's real faces, remember who we actually are."
Webb nodded slowly. "I'll reach out to Rick. See if we can arrange something for next month. Somewhere safe."
After he left, Catherine sat alone with her files, but instead of working she pulled out a small photograph she kept hidden in the false-backed cabinet. Her father, standing in front of their house in Montmartre, smiling. Before the war. Before the Nazis. Before everything.
She tried to remember what her own smile had looked like back then. Whether she'd laughed differently. Whether she'd moved through the world as Catherine or as someone else entirely.
The photograph didn't answer. Her father's face smiled back, frozen in a moment when identities were simple and the only role Catherine had to play was herself.
She tucked it away and returned to work, forcing herself to focus. But Sarah Brennan's voice stayed with her:
You think you're in control. That's more dangerous than being a spy.
Catherine added Hastings's name to her web, drew the connections, noted the questions. Meridian Holdings. War Production Board. Route Nationale 20.
And in the margin, in handwriting that was neither Catherine's nor Marie's but something in between, she wrote: Remember who you are. Before you forget completely.
Then she locked the files away and went to bed, where she dreamed of Paris and couldn't remember which version of herself had lived there.