A fishing boat creeps below the inn, trawling for the day’s catch, and the air—it smells like roasted coffee and sweet pine, rose petals and alpine snow, mountain wind and memories.
Most of the lake is hidden in these early morning hours before the fog slips back up the mountains, settling into crevices and caverns to hide for the day. I sip from one of the two coffee mugs that I retrieved down in the lobby, the caffeine slowly clearing the fog from my mind even as it lingers in the air around me.
No one seems to be awake in the room across the balcony, not that I’ve wandered over to knock. I returned so late last night from Vienna that I didn’t see either Josh or Ella. And I miss them.
My feet propped up on the chair across from me, I return an email from Brie. Eventually I’ll tell her what happened to Luzia, but not over the phone.
It won’t impact Brie like it has me. She’ll be sad about the truth, in her way, but then she’ll remind me that Charlotte has both of us, and the ties of family can go far beyond blood in one’s veins.
Perhaps I will tell Charlotte what happened to Luzia and what I suspect about Max. Perhaps she and Liberty Dornbach could even test to see if they have a DNA match. I want to protect Charlotte, and yet in some way, the information about Luzia might comfort her. At least she would know that her mother wasn’t able to return for her in France. And that she might have remaining family in Liberty and her brother.
The glass door slides open on the other side of the balcony, and Josh steps outside, swiping his hand through messy brown hair to push it back from his eyes.
“Good morning.” I slip my feet off the chair, and he pulls it out.
I feel self-conscious for a moment in my long-sleeve T-shirt and pajama bottoms, my hair tied back in a knot.
“Good morning to you,” he says. “I thought I smelled coffee.”
I push the second mug toward him. “I wasn’t sure what you wanted in it, so I gambled with cream and a packet of sugar.”
He takes a long sip. “Perfect.”
Pink light spreads slowly across the water until it illuminates the Alpine houses and stone church to our right, driving away the fog.
“Did you and Ella enjoy the ice caves?”
He nods. “She didn’t want to leave.”
“The girl embraces every moment,” I say, my fingers wrapped around the warm mug. “Like her dad.”
“Like I used to.”
“You don’t fool me, Dr. Nemeth.”
“I wasn’t trying to.”
“Right . . .”
He laughs before taking another sip of coffee. “I thought you were shy, back when I first met you in Columbus, but you aren’t shy at all.” When he stares at me, I pull my sleeves over my hands, trying to ward off the cold. “You are afraid of something, though.”
I roll my eyes. “Everyone is afraid of something.”
My attempt to deflect doesn’t deter him. “I think, Callie Randall, that you are afraid of yourself.”
I hate it when people analyze me. Hate it even more when they’re right. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Or perhaps it’s more like you’re afraid of letting others get to know who you are, beyond the stories that you like to tell.”
“There’s nothing wrong with stories—”
“Unless you use them as a shield,” he says, taking another sip. “We all process differently—I get that—but it’s one thing to reflect and mull things over internally, another to crawl into a shell of your own making and hide.”
“I’m not hiding.”
The sun edges over the mountain, chasing the remaining mist and lamplight away. He unzips his jacket as sunlight sweeps across our balcony. “It’s just a theory.”
“Why must doctors always theorize?”
He laughs. “Because until you recognize a problem, you can’t make a change.”
“I don’t have a problem— ”
“I’m certainly glad to hear that.”
My skin begins to warm as well, but not from the sun.
“Did Herr Stadler call you?” I ask, ready to conclude the analysis.
He pulls his phone out of his pocket and glances at it. “Nothing yet.”
Josh has questions for Annika about the treasure, but it doesn’t matter so much now, at least to me, whether she calls. Except perhaps she could tell me why Luzia was at the estate and if she remembers any stories about a baby who was taken to France. Then I would know . . .
“We missed you at dinner last night,” he says. “My date fell asleep over her food. I had to carry her back to the inn.”
“You’re an amazing dad, Josh.”
“Not particularly . . .”
“I’m a bit of an expert in this area.”
He eyes me. “You’ve studied good dads?”
“No . . .” In that moment, I decide to inch a bit further out of my shell. “Let’s just say my father wouldn’t have carried me home from a restaurant. For that matter, he would never have taken me to a restaurant that didn’t have a drive-through.”
“Ah . . .”
“It gives me a great appreciation for all the men in this world who are excellent dads.”
The Hallstatt ferry embarks from the dock on our left, cruising toward the train station on the other side of the lake.
“What did you find in Vienna?” he asks.
I sigh. “Sadness, I’m afraid.”
“It seems as if sadness is stamped all over this place.”
“So much beauty and yet so much sorrow.”
“It seems to linger here, doesn’t it?” Together we watch a swan circle the water below us. “The memories of the many who died seem to cling to these hills.”
I reach for my coffee mug again, and even though it’s cold now, I wrap my hands around it. “I’ve uncovered a story that goes beyond just these hills. It relates to Annika’s story, but it’s a personal journey for me as well.”
I wasn’t planning to tell him, but it pours out of me, this story about the woman who has journeyed with me for most of my life. I tell him that Charlotte knows me well and loves me for exactly who I am.
“Yesterday I found information about a woman who I think might have been Charlotte’s mother,” I say. “And then I discovered she was killed at Ravensbrück.”
“Does Charlotte know?” he asks.
I shake my head.
“What was her mother’s name?”
“Luzia Weiss.”
Josh nods slowly, as if he’s soaking in this information. Then his eyes grow wide.
“What is it?” I ask.
He turns toward me, but he’s looking over my shoulder, at a hill beyond the inn. “There’s something I need to show you.”