Brett chuckles and squeezes my hand.
“Don’t get any ideas,” I tell him. “I don’t speak mushy love.”
He nods to the small video screens embedded in the seats in front of us. “Want to watch a movie?”
“Actually, I’d like to see what you found out about Stefan.”
Brett had a private investigator look into his whereabouts. He was just emailed this morning, and he hasn’t had time to go over it with me yet.
“There is a possibility we may not find him. None of the leads Ethan gave me could be him.”
“We know.”
He taps on his phone. “He’s narrowed it down to four men, all similar in age and who have grown up in or around Munich. He said if he’d had more time, he could have gotten pictures and more detailed information.”
“That’s fine. Four men shouldn’t be too hard to track down.”
He looks at Evelyn, making sure she’s not listening. “Emma, one of the four died five years ago in an industrial accident.”
Would her father being dead be easier than him being alive and rejecting her? Then again maybe I’ve been wrong all along. Maybe after all this time, he’ll be mature enough to want a relationship with his daughter.
“We should go to that one first,” I say. “To rule him out. Was he married? Does he have relatives?”
He scrolls through the email. “Not married, but it lists his next of kin as a sister. I have an address. It shouldn’t be too hard to find her. Some of the profiles have phone numbers, if you wanted to try and call.”
“I don’t want to call. I think it’s best to confront him in person.”
Brett brushes a stray hair out of my eyes.
“What?” I ask.
“I’m glad I’m here. I hate to think of you and Evie going to the houses of strange men without protection.”
I glance at Evelyn. “We’re glad you’re here, too.”
“We?” he asks, rubbing his thumb across the back my hand. “You need me, Emma. You need me for more than just getting you back into school, going up in elevators, and riding on planes. When are you going to admit it?”
I pull my hand away. “We should get some sleep. I have a feeling we’re going to have a long day tomorrow.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
Brett
Evie gets in the backseat of the rental car. She leans over the headrest. “Isn’t the steering wheel supposed to be on the right?”
“That’s in Britain, sweetie,” Emma says.
I pull out onto the street and head towards the hotel.
“Aren’t you driving on the wrong side of the road?” Evie asks.
“That’s in Britain, too,” I say. “Driving here is like driving back home.”
She pouts and leans back in her seat. “What’s the fun in that?”
“You want fun?” I ask. “Wait until we get on the autobahn. There’s no speed limit on parts of it.”
Emma hits me on the arm. “I didn’t come all the way here to get in a car accident.”
“Well, from what I’ve read, you’re more likely to get in an accident if you drive too slowly.”
“From what you’ve read?”
“I may have done some research.”
“What kind of research?” Emma asks.
I shrug. “I thought if we had time, we might check out some sights.”
“We’re only here for five days,” she says. “There may not be time.”
“I like to be optimistic,” I tell her. “And prepared.”
“What kind of sights?” Evie asks from the back.
“Well, there’s Neuschwanstein Castle. It’s the one Disney modeled Cinderella’s castle after.”
“I’ve never been to Disney World,” Evie says.
“But your mom says you love roller coasters.”
“Yeah, but she doesn’t fly, remember? And it’s a really long drive from New York to Florida.”
“Well, she flies now,” I say.
I see Evie’s face light up in the rearview mirror. “Mom, will you take me to Disney World?”
Emma laughs. “One thing at a time, Evelyn. Let’s get through this first, okay?”
“Have you taken Leo there?” Evie asks.
“I have. It was our first guys-only trip. We went in the spring.”
“Did he love it?”
“He may have been just a bit too young to get the most out of it, but I think he enjoyed it. I, on the other hand, got really tired of going on that Dumbo ride that just goes around in circles. I think once he’s three, he’ll really get into it.”
“We should all plan a trip together,” Evie says. “Next summer when Leo is three.”
“Evelyn, that’s enough,” Emma scolds her.
“Fine,” Evie pouts. “So, what other sights do you think we should see?”
I look apprehensively at Emma. “Well, I’d love to go to the top of Zugspitze.”
“Zugspitze—what’s that?” Evie asks.
“It’s the tallest mountain in Germany. But I’m not sure your mom would be up for it.”
“Why wouldn’t I be up for it?” Emma asks.
“Because you have to go up by cable car, the last hundred yards anyway. You can take a train up most of the way.”
“What’s a cable car?” Evie asks.
“It’s kind of like a really big elevator.”
“Okaaaaaay,” Emma says. “Let’s move on.”
Evie and I laugh.
I nod to my phone in the cup holder. “Emma, can you check Google maps on my phone and see how far we are from the hotel?”
“The hotel?” Evie asks. “Can’t we try to find him first?”
“Sweetie,” Emma says. “You barely slept on the plane. We have days to find him.”
“Mo-om,” she whines. “It’s why we’re here. Why do we have to wait? What good is lying around the hotel going to do us? They say you should stay awake so you can acclimate to the time change easier. Plus, the sooner we find him, the more other stuff we can do. Right, Brett?”
“She has a point,” I say.
“Fine,” Emma says. “But we’re going to the hotel first. We can drop off our luggage and freshen up. I haven’t peed in anything but a teeny-tiny bathroom since yesterday, and I’d really like a quick shower and some real food.”
“Your mom’s right,” I say. “Let’s check in, change our clothes, and get a quick bite. Then we can go find your dad.”
“My father,” she mumbles from the back seat.
“What was that?” I ask.
“I said he’s my father, not my dad. There’s a difference.”
I lock eyes with Evie in the rearview mirror. I can’t put my finger on it, but I could swear her motives for being here are not exactly the motives Emma believes to be true. Maybe Evie wants to find out where she came from. Maybe meet her grandparents. Emma thinks Evie has delusions of grandeur. She thinks Evie has a fantasy about Stefan seeing her and them becoming one big happy family. I think Emma is wrong. In fact, I’d bet on it.
We pull into the hotel parking lot.
“The Hilton?” Evie says. “Seriously, guys, are we going to do anything here that doesn’t reek of America?”
I drop the girls and luggage off and find a place to park. When I return, Emma’s at the front desk, checking in. I’m helped by another woman behind the counter. I’m amazed by how many people speak English here. The airport workers, the guy at the rental car place, everyone at the hotel.
“What floor are we on, Mom?” Evie asks when we reach the elevator.
“Fourteen.”
Evie turns to me. “What floor are you on?”
“Same.”
Emma gives me a look. “Is that so?”
I shrug.
Emma spends the ride up eyeing me suspiciously. It keeps her mind off where she is.
We get off the elevator and I follow them to their room. “Where’s yours?” Emma asks.
“Oh, look.” I gesture to t
he door adjacent to theirs. “I’m right next door.”
“How convenient,” she says dryly.
I disappear into my room. Ten seconds later, I knock on the connecting door. Emma opens the door a little too abruptly. “Connecting rooms, Brett? Really?”
“I thought you’d be happy about it. Remember how you went on and on about two girls being here alone and needing protection?”
She shakes her head, clearly unable to rebuff my comment.
“Be careful what you wish for, Emma,” I say and close the door.
~ ~ ~
We pull up to an old house in a village outside Munich.
Emma takes off her seatbelt and looks into the back seat. “Evelyn, this house belongs to a woman who is the sister of one of the Stefan Schmidts we found.” Emma looks at me warily. “She’s his next of kin. Do you know what that means?”
Evie looks down. “It means he’s dead.” She glances at the house. “It’s not going to be him, I know it.”
Emma lets out a deep sigh. “Please don’t get your hopes up.”
“I’m not,” she says. “I just know it’s not him.”
We walk up the cobblestone sidewalk. Emma goes to knock on the door, but Evie pulls her hand away. “I want to do it.”
Emma steps aside and Evie knocks. Then she knocks again. She is disappointed someone doesn’t answer the door.
“We can always come back tomorrow,” Emma says.
“One more time,” Evie says, knocking louder this time.
The door opens, and a woman about our age talks to us in German.
“Do you speak English?” Evie asks.
“Why yes I do,” she says, smiling at Evie. “How can I help you?”
Evie pulls the strip of pictures of Emma and Stefan out of her pocket. She holds it out to the woman. “The man in this picture is my father. His name is Stefan Schmidt. I’m trying to find him.”
The woman shakes her head without bothering to look at the photos. “My brother passed away several years ago.”
“We know,” Emma says. “Please accept our condolences.”
“It could be him, though,” Evie says. “Can you take a look?”
She gives us a skeptical look before gazing at the pictures. “That man is not my brother.”
“Are you sure, ma’am?” I ask. “Maybe you should take another look.”
“Wait here,” she says, leaving the door open as she retrieves a framed photo off the wall. She hands it to Evie. “This is Stefan. He doesn’t look anything like the photos you have.”
Evie compares the two and nods. “You’re right. It’s not him.”
“We’re very sorry to have bothered you,” I say.
“It’s not a problem. I hope you find him, young lady.”
“Thank you,” Evie says over her shoulder as we return to the car. There is a big smile on her face. “I told you guys it wasn’t him.”
“I’m glad it wasn’t,” Emma says. “But that doesn’t mean he’ll be one of the other three.”
“He will,” Evie says.
“Evelyn,” her mom warns.
“What? Aren’t you always telling me to be optimistic and have faith?”
I raise my eyebrows at Emma. “You tell her that?”
“You don’t think I can be optimistic?” she asks.
I laugh. “You’re not serious, are you?”
“I’m optimistic,” she pouts.
“Name one thing you’re optimistic about, Emma.”
She stares at me as she tries to think of one. “I … well …”
“When you guys are done bickering, do you mind if we go find the next one?” Evie says.
Emma gets out the notes she made from the email I got from Ethan Stone. “There’s only one more we can try today. The others are too far away.” She holds up a piece of paper. “If this Stefan isn’t the one, we’ll try this guy in Nuremberg tomorrow and then the one from Stuttgart.”
“We can’t go to both tomorrow?” Evie asks.
Emma shakes her head. “Nuremberg is almost two hours away and Stuttgart is the other direction. We’ll only be able to do one each day.”
“Maybe we won’t have to,” I say. “Maybe the other Stefan in Munich is the one.”
Evie smiles in the rearview mirror. “See, Mom. Brett can be optimistic, too. How far away is he?”
Emma programs the address into Google maps. “Not that far. Go back to that main road, and we should be there in twenty minutes.”
In the rearview mirror, I catch a glimpse of Evie jotting in a notebook.
“Writing your memoirs?” I ask.
“Kind of. Every year when we go back to school, our teachers make us write a stupid essay on what we did over the summer. I’m getting a jump on it.”
“Essays aren’t stupid,” Emma says.
“Are you looking forward to going back to school?” I ask.
I’m asking Evie, but I’m watching Emma out of the corner of my eye to see if there’s any reaction. Nope. She seems relaxed, considering we’re on the hunt for her ex.
“I’m going into middle school, which means I’ll be ignored, teased, pushed around, and basically miserable for a year.”
“Is someone bullying you?” I ask.
She laughs. “No. It’s pretty much a rite of passage for all sixth-graders. Don’t worry, things like that don’t bother me.”
I shake my head. “Sometimes I forget how young you are, Evie. Especially when you say things like ‘rite of passage.’” I turn to Emma. “Did you know about this?”
“Who do you think told her? Wasn’t it like that for you when you went to middle school?”
“It wasn’t. You know, considering what had just happened.”
Emma covers her mouth. “I’m so sorry. I forgot you were almost exactly Evelyn’s age when …” She glances at Evie.
“I know all about Brett’s mom. He told me.”
“You told her?” Emma asks, surprised.
“We talked a lot over milk and cookies.”
“You know,” Evie says. “You guys have a lot in common. Way more than just living on the same street. Coincidence? I don’t think so.”
“Look,” Emma says, pointing to a street sign. “Here we are.”
I wink at Evie in the mirror. I know what she’s doing. And I can’t say I don’t appreciate it.
We pull up in front of a mailbox with large block letters on it: SCHMIDT
The car in the driveway has the same ridiculous window clings as in America. But I don’t point it out. Because these particular clings indicate the person who drives the car has two children. I can’t imagine what Evie would feel, knowing her father went on to have other kids while he ignored her very existence.
“Here we go again,” I say, getting out of the car.
Evie knocks on the door, like last time. It opens almost immediately, and we look down at a boy of five or six.
“Is your father here?” Emma asks.
He runs away, and a woman comes in his place. “Ja?”
“Do you speak English?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
I get out my phone and type into Google translate while Evie blurts out something in German. “Ich suche meinen leiblichen vater.”
Emma’s eyes widen, as I’m sure mine do. “You learned German?” she asks Evie.
“Just that one sentence.”
“What did you say?”
“I said ‘I’m looking for my birth father’.”
The woman narrows her eyes at Evie and then studies the three of us, rambling on in words none of us can decipher.
I quickly type into Google translate: This girl is looking for her birth father. We have a picture. Do you know the man in the photos? His name is Stefan Schmidt.
While the woman is reading the translation, a man appears behind her. “Wer ist das, Maus?“
She shows him what I typed. After he reads it, he says with a heavy accent, “I’m Stefan. Vat is this about?”
Evie shows him the photo strip. “I’m looking for my father.”
Emma puts a hand on her arm. “It’s not him, honey.”
“Are you sure?” Evie asks, disappointed.
Emma nods and turns to the couple. “I’m sorry we bothered you. We’ll be on our way.”
As we walk back down the driveway, the woman yells at the man in German. I hope we didn’t start something. I never thought about the fact that we’re showing up and accusing someone of having an illegitimate child.
“Maybe he just looks different,” Evie says when we reach the car.
“It’s only been twelve years, Evelyn. He wouldn’t look that different. This man has different colored hair, is shorter than I remember, and he doesn’t have a birthmark on his cheek.”
Evie studies the photos. “That’s a birthmark? I always thought it was a piece of dirt or something on the camera lens.”
“Nope,” Emma says. “Birthmark.”
Evie’s head falls against the headrest. “Darn it.”
“I’m sorry, honey. We have two more chances. But we’re tired and jet lagged. Let’s return to the hotel, eat, and turn in early. We have a bit of a drive tomorrow.”
Evie puts in her earbuds.
I lean across the console and whisper to Emma, “Turn in early?”
She pushes me away. “Don’t even think about it, Lieutenant.”
I laugh. When she calls me that, she most definitely does not want to turn in early.
~ ~ ~
I open my part of the connecting door and listen to see if I hear voices. I do, but it could just be the television. Damn doors are thick. Evie looked tired earlier. Surely she’s in bed by now. Then again, maybe Emma is too. She could have fallen asleep with the TV on.
I knock quietly and wait.
I knock again. A little louder this time.
The door opens a crack, enough so I can see that Emma is in her pajamas.
“Is she asleep?” I ask.
Emma looks over her shoulder. “She crashed an hour ago. I’m surprised she made it that long. Why?”
I raise my eyebrows.
She whispers, “I told you no funny stuff.”
“Just come in for a minute.”
“Brett.” She gives me a scolding look.
“Emma,” I say in return, staring her down. Staring her all the way up and down.
The Men On Fire: A Complete Romance Series (3-Book Box Set) Page 78