by Susan Finlay
Ingrid said, “Do you know of any place around here where he might have gone to hide? I will not tell the Feldgendarms. I could go there and check for you. Peter would go with me, I am sure.”
Peter nodded and leaned forward. “We hope your father is not guilty. It is best that we find him, though, to clear his name.”
Erma gave him a brief smile.
Peter added, “We do not know, but your father could also be in danger. It is possible he saw the killer and ran to evade the killer or maybe he was kidnapped to keep him from talking.”
“Oh. I had not thought of that.”
“Is there some place where you go when there is a terrible storm? A shelter, perhaps,” Ingrid said.
“Not really. Oh, wait. I do remember Papa telling us a story about wars and how soldiers sometimes hid underground.”
“Here, in this area?” Peter asked.
Erma nodded and said, “I believe there are several places around here.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
SOFIE MOVED CLOSER to Vikktor, close enough to see his face. “I need you to be honest with me. No games, no lies. I’m terrified for my son and my husband. If you are involved in their disappearances or if you know where they are, please tell me.”
“I did not take them or have them taken and I don’t know anything for sure. What I do know is that Werner sent someone here to kill Johan because Johan was working with me. For a long time it has been Werner and Karl against me and Johan. That was how the business had gone. It is complicated.”
“Tell me.”
“Mathias, who started the business, was Karl’s father. But Karl was not here and Mathias did not want to bring him into the past—at least not at such a young age. However, Werner was here and he owed Mathias for helping him get away from the war. Mathias took Werner under his wing and taught him, as I told you earlier. Then, when Werner had a family, he no longer wanted to work for Mathias. That is when I came into the picture.” He paused, fidgeted under his coat, making Sofie want to bolt, then took out a pipe, stuffed a pinch of tobacco in it, tamped down, and lit it.
“Everything was good,” he said. “I had a room in Mathias’s house—the house that you inherited when I—well, you know—died. When Mathias died, he left me the house. It was only on his deathbed, whispering to me, that he disclosed that Werner was also here, that my brother had time traveled, too. That shocked me. My own brother was living here and Mathias had waited ‘til he was on his deathbed to tell me. It made no sense.”
“Did you go right away to see your brother?”
“I couldn’t. Mathias breathed his last breath before he told me where to find Werner. It took me four years of searching to find him. The man had hidden himself away in the Schwabien forest.” He shook his head.
Sofie recalled the conversation she’d had a couple of days ago with Werner. When asked if Vikktor knew about him being in the past, he’d said, “Not for a long time. Mathias kept that secret. But Vikktor heard about me from someone. I don’t recall who it was. He searched for me for many years. You see, I had found a lovely place in the Schwabien Forest and built a stone cottage with my family, and it took him that long to find me.”
All right, that part of his story matched up. “What happened when you found him?” she asked, leaning forward.
“We talked for hours and shared stories. It was a dream come true. Then we eventually talked about Hitler and the war and we immediately got into an argument.” Shaking his head, he said, “Very bad. I was shocked. Werner had betrayed our country.” He removed his pipe and spat on the ground. “I loved my brother but couldn’t stand what he had done.”
“You took me away from him. Why?”
“It is not so simple. He threatened me, said he would destroy me and my business by blowing up the portals so that no one would ever use them again. You must understand, I was very angry and told him that if he did that, he would never see you again. That is when I grabbed you and took you through one of the portals.”
“Obviously he didn’t follow through.”
“I didn’t know for a long time that he didn’t destroy the portals. Not until I tried to come back and found them still working.”
Sofie felt violated by both men, unloved, just a pawn in their feud. “But I wasn’t really his grandchild and he didn’t really care if he never saw me again. So why didn’t he follow through on his threat? He could have ended the time travel.”
“Ah, but when I returned, I heard from other people that Werner himself was back in the transport business. He’d moved his family into my house, too.”
“He stole your house?”
“When I finally got to talk to him, he said he deserved the house because he was Mathias’s first partner. Plus, we were brothers, he was eldest, and the house was sitting empty. I didn’t argue with him.” He shook his head. “That was a mistake.”
“Why do you say that?”
“For many years we worked in the same business as rivals, and since I was going back and forth between the centuries but living in the future, it was not a big problem that we competed with each other.” He paused and stuffed more tobacco into his pipe. “Every thing was manageable until Karl showed up. That’s when the war started. Twenty years this war has been going on.”
“The war?”
“Ja. Werner met Karl in Riesen when Birgitta came to visit her sister, Gretchen, and brought Karl, her new husband, with her. Werner got him involved with the business. Over the years he convinced Karl that as Mathias’s son, he, Karl, was the rightful heir to Mathias’s business. They decided to work together and push me completely out. They tried to sabotage my transporting. They threatened to turn me over to the Feldgendarms. Now they have killed Johan.”
Sofie’s head was spinning. Werner and Karl working against Vikktor? Was it true or was Vikktor playing the sympathy card? And, what, Gretchen and Birgitta were sisters?
“I have so many questions, I don’t know where to begin.”
Vikktor nodded.
“Understand. I don’t condone the work you—any of you—are doing, but regardless of that, why can’t there be two businesses doing the same thing? You are all from the future. You know about completion in business. Why do they need to put you out of business?”
Vikktor sighed. “Mine has been around for more than sixty-five years. It has a reputation among the people who are in need of those kinds of services. Werner and Karl don’t have as many people in their network. It’s all about money and power.”
“You mean greed. It makes the world go round,” Sofie said, sighing and getting a headache. “I still don’t see why you couldn’t all work together.”
He shrugged.
Sofie’s head was swimming and she took a few moments to organize her thoughts, then said, “Karl told us months ago that he worked with you sometimes. That he helped you.”
“Of course he said that. He knew you were looking for me and that you did not know about Werner.”
She considered his words. “All right, back to Johan. You said Johan worked with you. He lived in the same house as Helmut. Does that mean Helmut is also involved?”
He shook his head hard. “Nein. Helmut knew nothing about any of this until now. Well, I take that back. He knew about the portals, obviously, and he knew that Werner was also here. There are family ties between Karl, Birgitta’s family, and Johan’s family, too. But he knew nothing about the business and Johan’s involvement. Johan made me promise to keep Helmut out of it.”
“Werner and Karl went along with that—keeping Helmut out of it?”
“Ja. I don’t know, perhaps they figured if he got involved, he would work with Johan and me and they didn’t need more competition.”
“You told me that it was Werner who said you couldn’t send Lotte back to her own time, that he threatened me and my family, but you didn’t answer my question about how he knew what she had said.”
He took a deep breath and let it out loudly. “Werner and Karl ha
ve spies. They watch everything we do.”
Sofie narrowed her eyes and twisted her mouth. “You are hiding something.”
He puffed on his pipe, then looked her in the eye. “All right, all right. I messed up. I’m eighty years old and my memory is . . . well, let us say it is a problem. I forgot that the doorknob on the inside of that portal was gone. Lotte could not get back inside the house. The portal eventually sent her back to this time. I didn’t see Lotte after that. I couldn’t face her and tell her that I am turning into a . . . a feeble old man.” He cast his head down. “An old man with a feeble brain.”
Was it an act? This was so frustrating, not knowing what to believe, navigating this mental minefield. He could be playing on her sympathies. “Tell me, why didn’t you find her afterwards and take her to a different portal? It would have been easy enough.”
He looked up, his eyes glistening with tears. “The rest I told you is true. By the time she arrived back here, Werner and Karl had threatened me—threatening you. They did have spies watching and they did know I had tried to send her home. They were angry as hell.”
“Why don’t they kill you? Wouldn’t that solve all their problems?”
“They would have to catch me, first,” he smirked. “I am old, ja, but I am used to hiding and evading people.”
“Let’s assume for a moment that I believe you. What does this have to do with my son and my husband? Do you know where they are, or not?”
“I may know where they are. One of my followers contacted me yesterday. Told me they are at Raimund’s farm. Karl is there, too. It could be a false lead, but it is all I have. I say we check it out.”
“Wait, who is Raimund?”
“Birgitta’s son. Johan’s brother’s son.” Seeing the confused look on Sofie’s face, he quickly added, “Johan’s brother was Birgitta’s first husband.”
Sofie almost fell into a drooling stupor at that twisted bit of news.
“Johan’s brother died many years ago, shortly before Karl came back to the past. Johan was angry when he found out Karl had married Birgitta. He figured Karl did it to spite him—Johan.”
Well, that, she could believe. She and Max had never fully trusted Karl. Karl could have easily taken Tobias. And thinking fast, if Max had a lead that Tobias was with Karl, he might have gone to the farm to check on it.
“How do we go to Raimund’s farm without Werner knowing? He’s here, staying in Helmut’s house, and supposedly helping us search for Tobias and Max.”
“Ja, I know. I have seen him around town. This is why I have said you are in danger. We must leave now, while he sleeps. I have horses.”
“My stepson, Ryan, has to go with us. He’s nearby.” She turned and motioned for Ryan to come out of hiding.
Vikktor didn’t look all that surprised. He nodded, smiled, and said, “All right, he goes with. Come with me to my cottage. It is outside of town, but not far. We walk there and get fresh horses.”
As they walked in the moonlight, Sofie filled Ryan in on what was happening and what Vikktor had told her.
“You believe him?” Ryan asked.
“I don’t know, but I don’t necessarily believe Werner either. I think we should check out the farm. We did hear that Karl went there with Anneliese, and if Max thought Tobias was there, too, he would have gone, I’m sure.”
“Makes sense. I guess we should at least find my dad there.”
At Vikktor’s cottage, Sofie marveled at the beauty of the setting—the house, similar to the one she and Max were trying to build, but considerably smaller, was set amongst dozens of trees which almost hid the house. Stars overhead peppered the sky, providing a dazzling canopy. Moonlight cast a silvery reflection on a pond in front of the house and illuminated water lilies in one pocket.
“Do you live here alone?” Sofie asked, impressed.
“No, I live with my wife.”
Sofie gasped. “Your wife? Are you teasing?”
“I am married, truly,” he said, smiling. “You thought no one would want to marry an old man like me.”
“No, it’s not that. You’ve been single ever since I was born. It’s hard for me to imagine you married. How long have you been married?”
“Ten years. I met her on one of my trips from the future, back while you were away at college. She’s part of the reason I decided to fake my death and live here in the past. You were all grown and didn’t need me anymore.”
Wow. Sofie had never thought of Vikktor in that way before, as a romantic who would give up twenty-first-century luxuries for the love of a woman.
“Do we get to meet her?”
Vikktor opened the door, turned to face Sofie, and smiled. “Of course. I need to tell her where we are going.”
Sofie chuckled. It was a long-standing rule from her childhood that if either of them—Sofie or her grandfather—was going out for more than an hour, they had to let the other one know where they were going and when they would be back.
Inside the house, a cozy fire was burning in the fireplace and a lantern was glowing on a table. Nearby, a white-haired woman sat in a rocking chair, knitting. She looked up at them, surprised, then smiled and set down her knitting. “I take it your meeting went well,” she said. “Is this your Sofie?”
“She is. And she brought her stepson, Ryan.” He strode over to the woman and draped his arm around her shoulder. “This is my wife, Helga. She has been looking forward to meeting you.”
Helga smiled up at him, then stood up and barreled toward Sofie, engulfing her in a big bear hug. “You are exactly as he described. He is so proud of his great-niece.”
Sofie smiled and nodded, her arms automatically going around the friendly woman. Then she pulled back and frowned. “Great-niece?”
Vikktor said, “Oh, uh, that too is a long story. I will tell you later. Right now we need to get to the farm and search for your son and husband.” He turned to his wife and said, “I should be back in a day or two. If I am not, go to Hans and tell him to send someone to look for me.” He kissed her and then said, “We go now.”
Good grief. What kind of stories had he told his wife? Did she know about the time portals, about his transporting business, about his life in the twenty-first century? Did he not tell her that he’d stolen Sofie and raised her as his granddaughter?
Sofie and Ryan glanced at each other, before following Vikktor out the door and to the barn. While Vikktor prepared three horses, Sofie whispered to Ryan, “Did you understand any of that back at the house?”
“Yeah. The wife seems nice enough, but now I trust him even less.”
“Exactly. I would question him right now if it weren’t so important to go on this trip. He will have a lot of explaining to do, that’s all I can say.”
Ryan said, “I sure hope he isn’t kidnapping us or leading us into a trap, you know.”
Sofie had thought the same thing more than once. The only thing she knew for sure was that she had to take a chance and trust someone.
“We ride as fast as we can,” Vikktor said. “Get there before Werner wakes up and finds you two gone.”
“How long will it take us to get there?” Sofie asked.
“Three hours if we ride really hard. Are you up to it?”
She nodded, hoping her morning sickness wouldn’t kick in again, as it had last night.
INGRID POUTED BEHIND a tree where Peter had instructed her to wait. He’d told her to stay out of sight in case the kidnappers were in the building. She’d argued that he might need back-up. He’d replied, “I would be too worried about you getting stabbed. That makes you a hindrance, not a help.” She’d promptly crossed her arms and pouted, but did as she was told. Stubborn boy. He wouldn’t budge from his decision. He’ll make a good businessman, she’d thought. She watched him trying to push open the door. It finally moved and . . . she waited, holding her breath as he disappeared inside. No sound. No one around from what she could see. After a few moments, he came out and shook his head. Same as the fi
rst place they’d checked.
Striding over to her, he said, “Only one more place to look, unless Erma missed something when she gave us her list. Are you ready to go to move on to the next one, Oma?”
Ingrid smiled briefly. “Third one is the charm, as they say.”
“Huh?”
“Oh, sorry. I am sure the next place will give us answers.”
They started walking, Peter leading the way. “I sure hope it will. It is the root cellar of an old abandoned house. Erma said people believed it was haunted and that is why no one has lived there for fifty years.”
“That would make a good place for illegal business activity, would it not?”
“It certainly would.”
“She told me that the family who lived in the house helped soldiers hide and when the enemy found out, they slaughtered the whole family.”
Ingrid gasped. She’d known about atrocities like that during the two world wars, but didn’t know things like that had happened in the eighteenth century, too. “That is horrible. It likely is not haunted, though. It would suit Vikktor or Karl to spread rumors to keep people away. That would allow them to use the house and root cellar for whatever he needed.”
“Oh, ja, I did not think of that.”
It was completely dark now, with only light from the moon and stars by which to travel. Ingrid stumbled over a root that was sticking up, starting to take a tumble, but Peter grabbed her arm to steady her. Thank you Peter.
“Here, hold onto me,” he said. “I do not want you to fall and hurt yourself, Oma.” I have such a thoughtful grandson. “Do you know how to find the house?”
“Ja. Erma gave me good directions.”
They walked through a meadow and then on into a wooded area. The trees, hiding most of the dim moonlight, made everything seem darker, more ominous. The further she walked, it seemed, the darker it became. Chills ran up Ingrid’s spine as she listened to every sound, imagining the worst. A scraping noise, which turned out to be just a squirrel running up a tree trunk, made her jump. Chirping crickets seemed less friendly, threatening dangers. Branches rustling in a breeze caused her to imagine animals or bandits prowling near, ready to pounce on her. Peter’s mention, earlier, of ghosts didn’t help her nerves, either. Nein, not one bit.
