“Of course. The funds in trust can’t be released to anyone but your daughter, but your time in helping us locate her would be valuable.” An envelope slid across the table, containing almost every shilling to Ian’s name. “Even the tiniest detail—one never knows what might be helpful. Is there anything you remember about where your daughter might have gone?”
Silence. Ian stood barely breathing, looking down at Frau Vogt’s braced shoulders. He realized Nina was standing beside him, not breathing either. Frau Vogt took a long swallow of brandied coffee, fingertips sitting beside the envelope, and without meaning to, Ian’s fingers linked through Nina’s and squeezed fiercely.
“I don’t know where Lorelei is,” the woman below said slowly. “But she has started to write letters.”
Nina squeezed back.
“Where do the letters come from?” Tony was all earnestness.
“And where are they now?” Nina muttered. “I find no letters here—”
“They’re all posted from America, over the last year or so.” Ian heard the distaste running through Frau Vogt’s voice. “Lorelei wanted to get far away from Germany, from Austria. The postmarks are all different, I don’t know the cities.” Tony patted her hand as she swallowed the last of her spiked coffee. “Lorelei’s last letter came just a month or so ago, from a place called Ames—she said she could bring me over. Not to Ames, to an antiques shop in Boston, wherever that is. McCall Antiques. Or maybe McBain Antiques. Mc-something. People like her and me can get papers there, identification, new names, and then they move on. But how do I move on? I’ve lived in Salzburg all my life; how am I supposed to go to America? All those Jews and Negroes—”
America. That kicked Ian in the stomach, a sickening blow. To feel he was getting close and find out there was still an ocean in the way . . . His hand clenched at his side, and he realized Nina had tugged free, fingers drumming against her leg.
“Boston!” Tony marveled, pouring more coffee, more brandy. “Where did your daughter go after Boston?”
“She said it would be better for me not to know.”
“Do you know what name Lorelei uses?”
“She said it would be better for me not to know that either.”
Grimly, Ian admired die J?gerin’s caution, even as he hated her for it. If all war criminals were so careful, the center would have collapsed in months.
“Even without knowing details, it must be a comfort to hear from her.” Tony slid the envelope of money forward. “A great comfort.”
“Not so much as you would think.” Frau Vogt’s voice was starting to blur around the edges. She clearly wasn’t used to brandy in the afternoon. “She never says much except that she’s safe, that she’s well, and that I should burn the letter when I’m done. A mother—a mother would like to know more. My only child, I miss my daughter—”
Ian felt a stab of pity for her, but let it die. I miss my brother too, but I don’t have the comfort of knowing he’s safe and well. He wondered if Frau Vogt had any idea at all what her daughter had done.
“Did you burn all the letters?” Tony asked softly.
“Lorelei told me to. The letters, her old things, all the photographs of her as a grown woman.”
“And did you?”
A pause. “My daughter is very sweet, Herr Krauss. But she can be very forceful. I don’t . . . like to cross her.” Another pause. “Yes, I burned everything.”
“Liar.”
Nina paused, looking at Ian. He hadn’t realized he’d muttered it aloud.
“She’s lying.” He leaned down to whisper into Nina’s ear, brushing her hair out of the way. “No parent would destroy every photograph of their only child.”
“Mine would,” Nina whispered back. “But he tried to drown me when I was sixteen, so . . .”
Ian barely heard her, pacing down the hall now despite himself. A photograph would be invaluable—they wouldn’t be able to use it in any legal capacity, not if it was acquired through means like today’s, but just for private identification so they weren’t relying solely on Nina’s memory of what their target looked like . . . “There has to be a photograph here somewhere.”
“Isn’t. I scoured.” Nina was pacing too; they brushed past each other shoulder to shoulder and when he saw her look up, he did too.
On the hallway ceiling was a hatch. Very likely to an attic.
“Come on, luchik,” Nina breathed. “Boost me—” But he had already seized his wife around the waist and lifted her toward the ceiling. He heard her fumbling a latch, heard the hatch lift, and then Nina was wriggling up through his arms like a serpent, hoisting herself into the ceiling. You cannot claim even a shred of moral high ground here, Ian thought, and at the moment didn’t greatly care. He was not leaving this house empty-handed.
A quick check at the window. Frau Vogt had tucked the envelope of money away. “I don’t have anything else to tell you—”
“Two minutes,” Ian called low-voiced into the hatch. Tony was rising from his chair, dripping reassurances. “Hear me, Nina?”
Her voice floated down along with the sound of rustling. “Da, tovarische.”
Frau Vogt appeared to be crying, overcome by brandy and memory. Tony was offering handkerchiefs . . .
Nina’s booted legs appeared suddenly from the hatch. “Catch me.”
Ian caught her sturdy little form as she wriggled down from the ceiling, held her up as she bolted the hatch behind her. His grip slipped and he nearly dropped her. “Clumsy,” she snorted, landing cat light.
“You’re not exactly a featherweight, comrade.” He could see something under Nina’s jacket, but there was no time to inquire what. Ian eased the window shut and they descended the stairs, freezing out of sight on the landing as Frau Vogt ushered Tony toward the front door.
“Kind of you to hear an old woman ramble, Herr Krauss,” the voice floated out, definitely tipsy. “I do get very lonely.” Ian and Nina crossed the back hall toward the window. Ian’s heart hadn’t pounded so hard since he’d parachuted out of that bomber in ’45. Standing over the void, waiting to jump . . .
The front door shut. Tony was out of the house; Frau Vogt might be walking back. Nina was wriggling through the open window. Ian hoisted himself after her, feeling his shoes touch grass. The back of his shirt hooked on the casement.
“Tvoyu mat, hurry up,” Nina hissed.
“Stop your goddamned swearing,” Ian said, and ripped loose. Nina eased the casement down. Ian yanked her around the side of the house, where they banged into Tony.
“What the hell, you two? Never mind, let’s get out—” They all set off at a clip considerably quicker than a meander.
“Nina,” Ian said when they reached the river again and collapsed gratefully against its railing, “tell me you found something.”
Nina’s eyes had a wicked gleam. “The Frau may have burned the letters and most pictures, but she kept one album.”
“Did you get—”
“Is not a recent picture, she throws those away. This is most recent one I see.” From inside her jacket Nina produced a photograph clearly pried off an album page: Frau Vogt and a cluster of friends or relatives before church steps, dressed in their best. “Far right.”
Ian’s breath caught. The young woman on the right wore a floral print dress, standing with gloved hands folded. Hardly more than a girl, childhood plumpness clinging to her face and figure, a self-conscious smile. Serious, young, on the verge of beauty and adulthood. But already watchful, her gaze meeting the camera steady and distant. “Die J?gerin?”
Nina made a small sound like a cat pouncing. There was something disturbingly sensual about it, Ian thought, like the cat wasn’t just relishing the pounce, but the rending and tearing that would follow. “Lorelei Vogt,” Nina said.
“At least fifteen years younger than she is now.” Tony frowned.
“Was thinner when I saw her than here,” Nina agreed, tapping the picture. “Darker hair too.”
“So how much help will this photograph be, identifying the real thing if we run across her? This girl could grow up to look like anyone.”
“I know her,” Nina stated. “I know that face till I die, however old it gets. Is the eyes.”
Ian stared at Lorelei Vogt’s eyes. Just eyes. It was pointless trying to find evil in a face. So often, evil sat invisible behind perfectly ordinary features. But still . . .
“Hunter eyes.” Nina summed it up, giving the sweet serious face of their target a tap. “Calm and cold.”
Chapter 15
Nina
October 1941
Moscow
The cold slapped Nina like an open hand. It was well below zero, the air so frozen in the dark night that it felt like winter lake water, but the women of Aviation Group 122 were bright-eyed with excitement as they made their way down the tracks. There might be panic all through Moscow that the Germans would be spilling into the city at any moment—but Nina and her sisters were on their way at last.
“Where are they sending us to train?” Yelena wondered, tripping over her oversize boots.
“Who knows?” Nina gave a hop, trying to see over the girls ahead. The railcars stood open; the first ranks were climbing in.