Richter nervously glanced around as he parked. Tall streetlamps lit the asphalt lot and danced in the dark waters of Hallstattersee. But no one else was around. Richter hopped out and walked around to open her door. Cool night air hit Darby’s face as she left the warmth of the car. Richter handed her the keys.
“Open the trunk,” he ordered.
From within the trunk, Richter grabbed a flashlight and gave Darby a small toolbox and hand shovel. She evaluated the narrow street, knowing she could run to the Gerringers’ home in minutes. But would she make it two steps away from Richter?
“Remember what I have,” he said, knowing her thoughts.
She nodded and felt the cold fingers of fear reach further inside her. Richter slid his arm around her waist, trying to hide the small shovel between them.
Their footsteps echoed along the dark concrete as they started up the steep road. “Talk to me.”
“What do you want me to say, Richter?”
“I don’t know.” He stopped and turned her toward him. “I guess, I don’t know.”
From the road, they turned up a stairway onto a steep upward trail. Darby imagined Gunther’s annual pilgrimage at this time of night. Over sixty years for nothing.
“This wasn’t how I wanted it,” Richter said quietly, pausing to look at her. “Don’t think I’m enjoying this. I’ve traveled the world, gambled and played with the wealthiest men, but here I am creeping up a dark mountain, sneaking, forced to drastic means. It’s not what I want.”
“You chose this, Richter.”
“I can’t live a life in poverty, can’t leave everything I know behind. I’ve worked hard taking care of my grandmother. My father and uncle used her money.”
Darby remembered how Bruno Weiler had changed from a youth seeking grandeur into an SS killer—all with the best of intentions. Selfish ambition, denial, conceit, and greed led downward until evil was justified as good. Bruno only saw himself by a jolt of humanity in the face of Tatianna. Was there a way to open Richter’s eyes?
“I’ve made mistakes, and it only takes a few to mess yourself up,” Richter continued.
“Why should I pay for your sins?”
He turned toward her and thought for a moment. “It’s hard, I know. But doesn’t someone always pay for another person’s sins?”
Darby opened her mouth to speak when she heard a car approaching.
“Wait.” He pulled her into a dark alcove. On the road far below them, a police car drove by. Richter cursed. “Why is he here?” They waited as the car continued down the street and out of view. “We’re moving too slow. Come on, but be quiet.”
They switched back and forth up mountain stairways and passages until the red lit candles behind a wooden gate bid them entrance.
Richter pushed the gate open. “Which one?” His voice was hushed and anxious as his flashlight bounced from one headstone to another.
They walked the gravel rows, though she knew the general location. On the top, near the bone house. Every moment prolonged was a moment more.
The headstones in daylight with tall, narrow roofs were symbols of lives once lived. In the cold night, the roofs were arrowhead fingers pointing from grave to sky. The flowers planted in rich soil in spring were bright and hopeful in daylight with dim, red candles flickering undying love. Night and winter brought the flowers into a matted mass, like spirits caught and tangled, unable to find escape from the ground. The red candles were one-eyed creatures, staring and promising that soon she’d join them.
“We’re wasting time.” Richter squeezed her arm till it hurt. “At the top, in the Protestant section.”
They walked carefully between eyes and spirits to the upper graves. Even the few stars that broke in from the clouds peered at her coldly with no twinkle or hint of peace. The shadows no longer hovered and jeered, but waited to consume and make them her own. She saw where houses, not too far away, were swallowed in shadows. Houses that offered safety and life.
Richter dragged her along awkwardly with the shovel in one hand. The gravel ground beneath their feet; she hoped loudly enough to awaken someone. Winter snow was still piled behind the bone house and on several graves. Darby followed Gunther’s instructions to the middle grave close to the upper railing. She moved from grave to grave until she stood in front of a wood and wrought-iron headstone. The wooden post had a pruned rosebush twisted around the base and up a wooden cross. Like some of the other headstones, a black plate covered the nameplate. This had to be it.
“Are you sure?” Richter whispered.
Darby knelt on the edge of a short, concrete border and opened the metal door. Inside it read Celia Rachel Müller.
“This is it.” Richter’s voice had changed, and she wished to read his expression. He handed her the shovel and flipped off the flashlight. “Dig.”
Darby gathered her hair into a ball and stuck it into the back of her jacket, then she began to push the hand shovel into the cold dirt. She uprooted several bunches of flowering plants and rested them on the ground, leaving the rosebush at the top of the grave alone. With every reach of the shovel, she pushed herself closer to the end of her chances. Her hope was dwindling.
Richter had moved away. He was listening, watching, seeing if they were followed. He was nervous. She could imagine his thoughts. What am I going to do with her? Brant will be looking now. Gunther will tell him we’ve come to Hallstatt. They could come at any moment. Can I let her live? How can I?
Darby shivered as her hands pushed the shovel into the grave. What would it be like to die, and to die tonight? She pictured her mother far away at home . . . probably having breakfast or taking a stroll with her friends. Gunther would be sleeping safely in his bed. Brant? Where was Brant right now? She wished for tomorrow and a thousand tomorrows to be with him.
Darby brushed her hands off on her pants and continued to dig. This grave devoid of a body—would it take her life? She looked down into the cold, frozen ground her hands reached into. It was the only grave here without a body.
She stopped. A quiet, comforting Voice spoke in her thoughts and she realized, There’s something here that you want me to find. There’s something in the dirt of this empty grave that’s for me. I’m in the valley of the shadow of death, and you are showing me something. What? That I am to meet you tonight? That the cold ground will not be my home? What?
Suddenly her fingers touched something. Using the shovel in her right hand, Darby hit a hard object.
“Did you find it?” Richter said from over her shoulder.
“I think maybe.”
She could see only his profile as he looked one way, then the other. When he faced her straight on, she saw only a black shadow.
“Hurry up!” Richter loomed over her. “Get it out.”
He flipped on the light and kept it shining into the hole. Darby continued to dig and move the dirt away with the shovel and her hands. A rectangular shape was uncovered several feet down. Darby pulled and dug until the earth released it. She set the object on the concrete border.
It was a metal box wrapped in heavy plastic. Richter took out a pocketknife and cut the waterproofing. Then from somewhere surrounding them, Darby heard something. She couldn’t get a direction but thought she heard footsteps. Then Richter heard it too. He flipped off the flashlight, grabbed her close to him, and crouched by the grave. His eyes pierced the darkness like a hunter seeking its prey. The noise stopped.
“Come on,” Richter insisted. They crept in the night, beside bushes and around to the tall, white, cylindrical building of the Bein Haus.
“Stay there.” Richter pushed her against the side of the entrance wall. The stone chilled her back. Richter sat a few steps away, listening. She noticed the gun in his hand. And even then she could hardly believe it was real. Richter holding an antique gun in his hand, her on
the ground of a bone house. The surreal moment should feel anything but that. It was more real than any moment of her life, for it could be the last.
Richter tried to pull open the heavy doors, then noticed the lock. Her eyes caught the image of a skull on the door as he swung the flashlight around. Above the door, Darby remembered the symbols of Alpha and Omega—the beginning and the end.
Richter found something in the toolbox as he returned the gun to his coat. He bent in front of the door. Darby was on the ground beside him, her eyes closed. She heard the sound of rapid sawing and then Richter removed the lock. The heavy door opened and a stark, musty smell billowed like ghosts loosed from their chains. Richter pulled her up and pushed her inside. She stumbled in and leaned against the corner. Darby knew a thousand empty eyes stared. Open jaws cried eternal screams. Richter again paused and listened. Then he closed the tomb door behind them.
“I need to see what we have here,” he said, flipping the flashlight on. “Then we’ll go.”
Darby crouched in the darkness as he opened the metal box. “At last. I almost didn’t believe it, but here they are.” Richter held up the three coins, one at a time. He flipped them over and examined them in the light. “Amazing.”
Shaking against the cold cement wall, she felt fear again. Thousands of bones circled the room and waited, waited. She wanted to be strong and have faith. God, I’m so afraid. Why are you letting this happen?
And then she thought of Tatianna. A woman who gave her life that others could live. Grandma had said once that death was a stepping-stone, like childhood into adulthood. But to Darby, that step terrified her.
She remembered Grandma saying, “Eternity is closer than we realize, Darby. Like a child cannot perceive the workings and thoughts of his parents, so are we children unable to see eternity all around us. For like the apostle Paul said, ‘To live is Christ, but to die is gain.’ ”
But I want to live.
And then she saw it—in a flash of understanding. Brant had said not to forget to live. To live is Christ. To live something meant more than just believing in it. Tatianna knew it. Grandma Celia knew it. No greater love than to give up your life for a friend. And to truly live was to live for what you believed until the gain of eternity. This was what she could only find in the shadow of death. This she found in a grave empty of a body, in a house of bones without souls. Perhaps, at the last moment of her life, she was finally discovering what it was to live.
Richter snapped the lid closed on the metal box. “It’s not here. Where is the brooch?”
“Gunther said he never had it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me!”
“The coins themselves are priceless,” she stammered. “They’ll be enough. Celia’s father gave the coins to Gunther, but not the brooch. He knows nothing.”
“Fine,” Richter said, his voice calming. “The coins will have to do.”
“What happens now, Richter?”
He stared at her a long time, and she could almost hear his thoughts, searching for what to do. It all seemed to lead back to the easiest escape for him. “My options are limited.” He shone the flashlight on his watch. “How did it get so late? I’ve got to get out of here.”
He swept the flashlight around the room, revealing a mass of skulls with dark eye sockets. He ran his hand over his chin, then glanced down to where she sat against the wall. His jaw tensed as he bent and gathered the coins back into the box, then stood with the box under one arm. His eyes on the door, Richter pulled the gun from his pocket.
A sharp knock suddenly sounded.
“Quiet!” Richter hissed and flipped off the flashlight. He crouched, grabbing her tightly against him.
Darby heard shuffling footsteps outside, then another quick knock on the door. She wanted to call for help, but the gun was pushed against her ribs.
Hands clenched to the wheel, Brant tackled the miles in what seemed to be slow motion. His car couldn’t go faster, but it wouldn’t be fast enough. He’d called the police in Salzburg and Hallstatt. But no one helped. They’d keep an eye out, but there was no evidence of a kidnapping. Brant knew he looked like a jilted lover. He dialed numbers on the car phone. It rang and rang. He was about to hang up when she answered.
“Ingrid, have you talked to Richter?”
“I haven’t seen him. Why?”
“Ingrid, listen to me. I don’t know everything, but I know enough. If Richter has been there with a woman, there is serious danger—I must know the truth.”
Ingrid paused long enough for Brant to know she knew something.
“Did he call you? Has he been there? Tell me!”
“I do not know what you mean—”
“Listen to me, Ingrid. Gunther and I know about Celia, that you lied to her and to him. We know all of that. Now if something happens to Darby, I also know that she was last seen with Richter. You have to tell me!”
The line was silent.
“Are they in Hallstatt?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Now I know for sure. I just passed Bad Goisern and will be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Brant,” Ingrid said, “you’ll never make it in time.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
“Don’t say a word.” Richter held the gun aimed at Darby as he let her go and crept toward the door. He was thinking, trying to decide what to do. “It’s probably a priest, but maybe . . . if you call out, I’ll have to kill him, and you.”
Darby wrapped her arms around her chest. “I won’t say a word.”
“I’ll be back.” Richter took off his jacket, put the metal box of coins under his arm, and tucked the gun into his waistband. He shone the flashlight in her face and opened the creaking door. He stepped out and ran as the door closed her in, dooming her to complete darkness. Her heart pounded, and her eyes strained to find even a shred of light. There was none. She put her ear to the door and heard Richter’s footsteps but no voices. Her eyes jumped around to see anything, but could only feel the hundreds of eyes looking her way. There was no sound beyond, no sound within. And no escape anywhere.
Sudden noises outside made Darby scurry backward. She hit the stacks of bones hard. Skulls fell from the shelving, rolling onto the floor. She screamed as one landed in her lap.
Then the door opened, and she saw a lighter darkness from the crack. Her hand found the shovel nearby. She waited in the corner, heart convulsing, eyes frozen on the doorway, waiting. No one entered.
On hands and knees, still clutching the hand shovel, she moved toward the side of the door. Any second she expected Richter to jump inside. She heard more noises—muffled voices that seemed to disappear among the headstones outside. Minutes later, car doors slammed—perhaps a trunk, too. Then tires screeched away.
It crossed her mind that perhaps someone had gotten Richter. The police? Brant? But why hadn’t they called out to her? Seconds were hours. At last she pulled the door inward and carefully peered outside. If she could make it to the hillside behind the white tower, she could hide there. She took a few breaths, said a quick prayer, and dashed from the building. No one stopped her. She ran in blindness, red candle eyes staring as her legs scraped against concrete graves. The dark shadows against the mountain would give her safe harbor. Almost there. Then her feet hit something and she sprawled forward. Gravel cut into her hands and chin. She’d tripped over the metal box and scattered the coins. Her hands wildly gathered the coins, picked up the box, and she moved on. She jumped over a stone fence and up the steep incline of forest above. Her feet stumbled. Silent noises and spirits were behind each step. Not until she had buried herself deep into branches and forest did she pause. No one had followed. No one was there.
Through the trees and down below, she saw lights and heard noises. Then footsteps moved toward her. Darby was near the wooden stairway that went u
p the mountain, and the footsteps were coming up. She crouched against a tree trunk, feeling as if her body must be illuminated in the darkness. Her legs felt too long, her breath too visible, and she wondered which way to bend her head. The footsteps stopped nearby. Darby held her breath. God, help me. If you don’t want me to die, help me live—truly live!
Voices shouted below and lights danced around the cemetery. The footsteps sounded again, moving up and past her. Wooden stairs creaked as the figure climbed higher; then the weight transferred to the earthen pathway and disappeared.
“Darby!”
She froze in place in shock, wishing to close the gap between herself and the voice calling her name.
“Darby! Darby! Where are you?”
“Brant,” she whispered. “Brant.” Her voice wouldn’t reach him. “Brant!”
A light sifted the mountainside. She got up and began to push toward its source. The light swiveled toward her.
“Darby!” He jumped the small fence and ran through brush and branches. “Thank you, God!” He drew her into a swift and gentle embrace. The flashlight fell and rolled down the hill as he held her in his arms.
As Brant picked her up, her head fell against his chest. His heartbeat became her lullaby. She was safe.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Darby didn’t need an English translation to know that Brant was growing angry with the Austrian officers. She didn’t have any more answers. Richter was not to be found, though the police were sure he wasn’t the man Darby had heard run up the mountain. They’d traced Richter’s footprints back down the mountain. Even more amazing, he’d left the coins behind.
Darby told the police about the sound of a car and voices. Yet Richter’s car was still in the parking lot, and Ingrid had been found still in Gosau—alone. It almost seemed like someone had taken Richter and left the coins behind for Darby—but who, and especially, why?
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