The Indigo Brothers Trilogy Boxed Set

by Vickie McKeehan

  He’d seen the joy on her face when he’d made love to her. It had given him his own sense of well-being to know he’d been responsible for putting it there.

  Dealing with Marla’s disapproval had to sting. For the past three hours, he’d watched Raine morph back to the irritable, grumpy manager of a taco stand with too many demanding customers to deal with and a fast-paced environment that provided little downtime. Not to mention an angry, alcoholic mother stewing about their relationship.

  He’d be damned if he let Marla win the day with that one.

  As the clock ticked toward two in the afternoon and their meeting with the professor, Mitch pulled Charlotte aside. “Take over for Raine, will you?”

  “Sure. The crowd’s dying down anyway.”

  He found Raine in the kitchen, dishing up rice and beans. “It’s time to go, baby.”

  “I’m ready, just let me finish this order.”

  Twenty minutes later, Mitch opened the door at his parents’ house to a welcoming committee of sorts. His mother greeted Raine by throwing her arms around her shoulders in a big hug.

  “Get in here, baby girl. Thank goodness you’re back home safe and sound.” She held the younger woman’s chin, giving her a serious motherly once-over. “Did they hurt you?”

  “Just scared me half to death is all.”

  “Aww, honey, I’m so sorry you had to go through something like that. Jackson said it was Sinclair who did it. The bastard got caught on tape.”

  “Yes, but he isn’t in jail yet. I won’t rest until I see him locked up.”

  “Give Sebastian time and he’ll get the state police down here. We’re just grateful you’re okay. Come on in here and get settled. I’m sending Mitch off to make hors d’oeuvres.”

  Mitch looked baffled “Me? Why me?”

  “Because you’ve logged some valuable time in the restaurant business lately. That should come in handy for some tasty appetizers.” His mother gave him a firm poke in the ribs. “Now show me what you’ve got.”

  Raine watched the grown man slink off to the kitchen, grumbling. “I guess you already know your son made a deal to save me. I owe him big time.”

  “He gave us a heads up once the whole thing was over and he was headed back home with you on board. But we started walking the floor with worry as soon as Tessa said you didn’t show up at work. From that point on, my boys kept us in the loop.”

  Raine laughed and hugged her one more time, deciding this woman was so unlike her own mother. “Lenore, there ought to be more moms like you.”

  Mitch came in carrying a tray loaded down with cheese and crackers.

  Lenore put her hands on her hips and eyed her son. “Really? That’s the best you could come up with? I thought we discussed earlier about serving those little parmesan cheese straws with my marinara sauce.”

  He grinned, leaned over to plant a kiss on his mother’s cheek. “The sauce out of a jar I could handle. But I’m no good at making pastry and you know it.”

  He angled his head toward Raine, pressing his lips to hers. “Everyone’s waiting for the professor. He called Anniston to say he’s running late. So have a cracker.”

  Raine patted his cheek. “I could work on rolling out that dough for you.”

  “Now see what you did?” Mitch charged, sending a playful look toward his mother. “Now she wants to help make cheese straws after getting kidnapped and standing on her feet all morning dishing out tamales.”

  Lenore shook her head, clucked her tongue. She turned Raine around by her shoulders toward the sofa. “Absolutely none of that for you. Get off your feet, settle in on the couch. We’re all so anxious for that professor to get started on the diary we’re running around here on pins and needles.” The last was said as she took off for the kitchen.

  “Your mother’s a true wonder,” Raine stated.

  “She’s a bit of a perfectionist, goes well with her bookkeeper mentality, I think. You watch, she’ll go in there and whip up some tasty snacks in fifteen minutes or less and serve them up with a southern drawl, probably charming our guest into working round the clock to get his job done.”

  Their guest turned out to be a squat fellow dressed in a cream-colored golf shirt and navy pants with glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose.

  “Hollings Bishop,” he announced, hurrying into the living room carrying a leather messenger bag. The man set it down and took off his rounded, John Lennon wire-rims to wipe his face with his handkerchief. “I apologize for my tardiness. I took the wrong turn off the Overseas Highway, went right instead of left. And the AC in my Volvo decided to quit working about halfway here. Humid as all get out the rest of the way here.”

  “It’s a long way from Tallahassee. I’ll get you something cold to drink,” Lenore offered. “What would you like?”

  “I’d love a Diet Coke if you have it, been craving one since West Palm Beach but I was too stubborn to pull over and take the time.”

  “No problem. Make yourself at home. Tanner will see to it you get settled.” Lenore disappeared into the kitchen.

  “Have a seat,” Tanner said. “We’ll crank up the air conditioning and get you cooled off. We thought you’d be a lot older since Anniston mentioned you were retired from teaching history.”

  “German history,” Hollings corrected. “And I’m just shy of fifty-two. I gave up my job as professor at Florida State to go on sabbatical. I wanted to do some traveling to South America for research. I’ve been itching to write a book about what happened to so many former Nazis immediately after the war, after they took up residence in Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil, and how they fit into the culture there.”

  From across the room, Mitch and Jackson traded glances. It was Jackson who took a seat on the sofa and turned to the man they hoped could translate the papers. “In that case, this little junket to the Key might be right up your alley. There’s just one thing you need to know, though.”

  Still wandering around the room, Mitch jangled the change in his pocket and picked up the thread. “You understand discretion is vital in this particular situation. We’re paying for your time, putting you up at the hotel, which we don’t mind doing. But part of the agreement is that you can’t tell anyone why you’re in town or what you’re working on. No one. Not even if they come calling wearing a police uniform and stick out a badge.”

  Hollings paled. “Really? Well, okay. The woman I spoke with on the phone already faxed me a confidentiality agreement and had me sign it. I faxed it back to her a few days ago.”

  “That was me,” Anniston chimed in, stepping into the room. “When you hear the backstory and get a look at what we have, you’ll understand why we’re taking so many precautions.”

  Lenore brought back a tray filled with food, a glass of ice, and a can of Diet Coke. “Here you go. In case you’re hungry, I also brought you a batch of cheese straws still hot out of the oven and a warm red sauce for dipping, along with a piece of my homemade apple pie.”

  Hollings’s eyes bugged out at the amount of food. “Much appreciated. I could eat.”

  “In this house, going hungry isn’t an option,” Tanner boasted.

  “Where should I put my stuff?” Hollings asked, clutching the backpack he’d brought.

  Tanner led him into the other room. “We’ll get you settled around the dining table. Think of it as our command center.”

  Hollings popped the top and poured the liquid over the ice. He chugged half the contents down before setting the glass aside on the buffet. “I promise to treat this whole thing like a top-secret project. But if this diary contains even half of its potential value to history, I’ll be able to tell right up front and not waste your time with worthless entries. If it does have value, I’m certainly on board with whatever steps you have in mind to keep the information secure. From this point going forward, my lips are sealed.”

  “We’re counting on your discretion and reputation,” Garret stated. “There’s always the possibility we’re making
a fuss over a simple journal from a silly girl and we’ve been totally misled about the contents.”

  “Yes, well, we’ve found some other items that might be of interest…to history,” Raine explained from the hallway. “We need someone like you to tell us different, someone who comes highly recommended, someone who knows his stuff.”

  “I know my stuff,” Hollings assured her as his lips curved up. He detailed his background with pride. “I’m fluent in German, read it, as well as write it. You should probably know that my mother escaped Poland in 1939 as a baby. My grandparents went to great lengths to get out of the country by going through Switzerland. They could certainly tell you a thing or two about living under Hitler’s rule and the horrors of what he could do. Through unbelievable adversity, my grandparents eventually reached the United States. By that time, the war was almost at an end. But my grandmother never seemed to be able to put the experience behind her. I won’t go into the starvation and the cruelty she witnessed firsthand because I’m sure you’re already aware of the hardships of that time period. Some of my grandmother’s family were lost forever after being sent to death camps. She never saw them again. So I’m well versed in the history and I bring an understanding of the time period that’s needed to get this job done.”

  “Good to know. Because after hearing me out, hearing all of us out, you’re about to relive a few of those ugly reminders along the way.” Mitch went into a rundown of the past few weeks, their own loss, the murders, and the dangerous situation they were still dealing with. “Having the facts at hand, if you’re still interested in tackling the job, then I suggest you get comfortable before we overwhelm you with documents.”

  Eager to get on with it, the professor sat down at the table and dropped his backpack on the floor. “If you don’t mind my saying, what you’ve described sounds like you’re dealing with a bunch of egotistical bullies.”

  “I don’t mind you saying. That pretty much sums up these people. They consider themselves bigwigs, rules don’t apply to them, and they’re very much used to getting their way.” Mitch handed him the well-worn leather attaché case. “This bag contains the papers we’re interested in learning more about, we’ve figured out some of it, but not nearly enough to do any good.”

  Hollings stared at the bag, itching to see what was inside.

  “And this is the diary,” Mitch went on. “We think, we hope, it holds a lot of the answers as to why all this happened in the first place.”

  Hollings turned his attention to the book, larger than a paperback, bound in frayed black leather and looking very similar to an old Bible. The professor’s eyes widened at the significance of Mitch’s last statement. He put his hand on the journal, left it there. “You think what’s in here is the reason your sister’s family was murdered?”

  “We do.”

  To everyone’s surprise, Hollings removed a pair of thin latex gloves from his satchel and slapped them on. He went after the briefcase first, gently examining the aged leather. He scrutinized it from every angle, sometimes pushing his glasses up on top of his head to get a closer look at a scratch or a dark worm spot.

  He didn’t even notice when Lenore refilled his Diet Coke or pushed the appetizers and pie closer at hand within his reach.

  Hollings stared at the engraved flap and its faded gold lettering. The look on his face was that of pure joy, like an excited six-year-old boy opening the largest gift under the tree on Christmas morning.

  He slowly, and with great care, laid the flap back on the table. Suddenly he started digging around in the knapsack he’d left on the floor. After a few seconds, he pulled out a magnifying glass that looked like it came straight out of a Sir Arthur Conan Doyle novel.

  For several long minutes Hollings studied the engraving before taking a yellow pad out of his backpack and started jotting down notes. As he took out each item from the attaché case, he carefully assessed the document before making a comment on his legal pad. He did that with each item until he had emptied everything out of the case.

  Once the contents were spread out on the table, he turned the bag upside down and gave it a little shake. When nothing dropped out, he gently ran his hand around the inside.

  When he realized all eyes were on him, he stopped to explain. “I’m looking for a little secret compartment. These old cases all had them.”

  “But we’ve already dumped the contents out before you got here, quite a number of times. We didn’t find anything other than the papers,” Jackson informed him.

  “We’ll see,” was all Hollings said as he moved his fingers back and forth several times along the lining. He put the case down and poked around in his bag again, pulling out a small, metal LED penlight. Hollings aimed the beam on the odd lump his fingers had found. It was then he showed them the small bulge in the lining. “What do we have here?”

  Ever so carefully he worked the object, moving it toward the opening until a key popped out and clinked onto the table.

  Hollings proclaimed his victory by holding up the key. “I knew I’d find something. The SS loved keeping their secrets hidden from view. All these cases have little pockets filled with surprises.”

  Garret took the key from the professor’s hand and turned it over several times. “Too new to come out of the World War II era. More like 1990 to 2005, a key issued by a bank, and likely opens a safe deposit box…somewhere. See the markings along the top here. With any luck I should be able to trace it back to the bank it’s associated with.”

  Mitch didn’t see it that way. “Come on, that’s gotta be to a box right here in town. Why not start down the street with Nathan’s own First National Bank?”

  “What am I thinking?” Raine said as she dug into her handbag and brought out her own keychain. “I have a safe deposit box at the bank. I mean, who doesn’t, right?” Holding up her key, she compared it to the one in Garret’s hand. “It’s a match to First National.”

  Lenore ran to her own purse on the counter, pulled out a key that looked similar to the other two. “Here’s ours. I’d say there’s a good chance that key either belonged to Livvy and Walker or—”

  “Our good buddy Nathan,” Jackson tossed out.

  “Could it be this simple?” Garret noted as he leaned over and kissed his mother’s cheek. “We’ll need to come up with a plan to get into the right box.” He came up short as he looked over at Hollings. Somehow he didn’t think the professor would appreciate the value of breaching security within a bank vault. “Later.”

  For now, Garret dropped the key into his pocket while Hollings went back to work.

  It didn’t take long before the professor leaned back in his chair. “I’m fascinated by the dog tags, the pay books, the passports, all belonging to a man named Walter Mühlhauser. But what really impresses me the most is that someone kept all this knowing it proved the existence of an SS officer who actively worked at the extermination site in Belzec, Poland. Most officers distanced themselves from having anything to do with the death camps.”

  Mitch thought back to Dietrich, remembering how proud the man was of his cherished knife. “Likely a narcissist, proud of his ties to Hitler. Too arrogant to ever destroy something that reminded him of his place in history.”

  Hollings glanced up at Mitch. “My take exactly. These are historic, a telling piece of the puzzle to a horrific time in Germany. Thank you for letting me be part of it.”

  “So they are the real deal,” Raine decided. “Because they looked genuine to us, but then…we aren’t experts.”

  “Oh, they’re the real deal all right,” Hollings replied, flipping through each document as if he held precious cargo. “The name on the leather case is Klaus Mühlhauser, however, the information on Walter is abundant in these papers. What I’d like to do is research the Mühlhauser family history, dig deeper into their past.” He finally looked around the room. “I know you want answers quickly. But surely you realize this is going to take some time. I could give you broad summations, but to do t
his right, I need time to read line by line without missing anything.”

  “We were afraid of that,” Mitch grumbled. “But we want it done right. We want the information correct, not hurried. A lot depends on the stuff you find within these documents and that diary.”

  Hollings picked up the worn leather-bound book, thumbed through its pages. “This little journal could very well be an extraordinary addendum to history. It could even hold the answers to several farfetched theories and unanswered mysteries, like did Hitler really make it to South America or did he die in that bunker in 1945 like the history books tell us? From what I’m able to tell at first glance, much of what it contains is in coded messages.”

  “Tough to break?” Mitch asked.

  Hollings gave him a wry smile. “Not necessarily. This is what I suggest. I’ve written several software programs with algorithms that have been extremely successful in the past at breaking anything written by the German cryptographers. They arrogantly felt their codes couldn’t be broken.”

  Mitch’s skeptical nature wanted to raise its ugly head. “Please tell me you have it covered, is that what I’m hearing?”

  “My programs have been successful in the past. But in order to use them to their fullest, you’ll have to trust me because I have to use my computer.”

  As a researcher Jackson knew full well where this conversation was headed. He cut his eyes around the room at the others. “What the professor is saying is that he wants us to allow him to scan the documents into his software program on his laptop, keep them filed there when he leaves this house. In order for success, the program needs to be able to search for key words, key phrases, and pick up repetitive patterns.”

  “Uh, that won’t work,” Mitch declared. “I’m sorry. We’re normally very trusting people, but that’ll be a problem, maybe even a deal breaker.”

  Disappointment spread across the professor’s face. “The top secret thing again? But the confidentiality agreement I signed prevents me from sharing the information with anyone.”