by Susan Finlay
They soon reached a clearing and Ingrid let out the breath that she hadn’t known she was holding, then spotted a dilapidated house. Mein Gott, it looks like something out of a fairytale, and the not the happily ever after kind. More like Hansel and Gretel.
“I think that is it,” Peter said, stopping for a moment and putting his hand over Ingrid’s which was resting on his upper arm. “I will go inside. You wait outside, as before.”
“You should let me go in with you this time. I would never forgive myself if something bad happened to you.”
“Nein. You stay. Sorry to say, but it would be safer for both of us if you stay out.”
She nodded and reluctantly let go of his arm. “Okay, but be careful.”
A rumbling sound made them both look to the side of the house. Horse hooves. Two riders were approaching in the distance at a fast speed.
“Mein Gott!” she whispered. “One of the men is Karl. What is he doing here? The Feldgendarms told us he was with a search party.”
“Maybe he is checking out the house, too, like we are?”
Yes, possibly that was true, but some inner sense told her to hang back and wait. She grasped Peter’s arm and gestured for them to move behind a thicket of tall bushes. Ingrid edged up to better see what the two were up to. Peter held the horses off to one side as they waited in silence, both watching Karl and the other man ride up and get off their horses. Karl pulled something off the saddle—a small bag, it looked like, but Ingrid couldn’t be sure. Both men, went around to the back of the house.
“Should we follow them?” Peter asked.
“I guess, but we need to stay quiet and hidden, I think, until we see what they are doing.”
KARL REMOVED THE padlock from the cellar door on the side of the house, pulled open one of the doors, and leaned over the cellar stairs. It was pitch black down there and, without knowing where it would land, he threw in the bag of food he’d gotten from the kitchen at Raimund’s house. He’d considered not feeding them at all. Why should he, after all? They would be dead within the hour. But the boy had already gone without food for a couple of days. He would be famished.
“Why not kill them now?” Raimund said, as Karl closed the cellar door and put the padlock back on, clicked it shut, and tested it to make sure it was secure. “Why wait?”
Karl turned to his partner and calmly replied, “That is my grandson and his stepson down there. I cannot let them suffer. For the sake of the business I will stick with the plan and kill them, but that does not mean I have no sympathy for them. It is a small token to give them a last meal. Even in prison, the prisoners usually get a final meal.”
“My Anneliese did not get that.”
“She did. It is not my fault she refused to eat. Her mental condition was too far gone.”
Raimund glared at Karl. “You should not have told her about the portals and what happened to her grandmother. Anneliese did not need to die.”
“Oh, ja, she did. It was for the greater good. You want to keep feeding the rest of your family, do you not?”
Raimund rubbed his hands over his face, then looked downcast and said, “I knew when you showed up at the farm that trouble was coming. Now we have Feldgendarms everywhere. How am I supposed to go home? What will I tell everyone?”
“You will come back with me, Raimund, as we discussed. It is all part of the plan. I will tell them I found you wandering in the woods, in shock from witnessing your daughter’s murder. You will tell them you saw Lotte Furst kill her, because Anneliese was threatening to turn her in to the Feldgendarms. You followed Lotte and captured her, intending to bring her back to the farm and turn her over to the Feldgendarms. You tied her hands, but before you could tie her feet together and lift her onto your horse, she managed to break free. She got up, ran, and tripped over a rock in the dark, falling and killing herself.”
“Ja that will work.” He paused, and Karl wondered what was bothering him now. “I still do not like all the killing. What will Werner say when he finds out what is happening?”
“He already knows about the boy. I sent word to him earlier today. He will know the rest shortly, if not already.”
“Do you think he will come here?”
“I am positive.”
A noise, sounding like a sneeze, made Karl turn and survey the area. No one was supposed to be out here. He waited and then heard a rustling sound in a stand of bushes. “Someone is here,” he croaked, then walked slowly off to the side in order to come from behind and ambush whoever was hiding there.
What are you doing here?” he yelled, coming up behind Lotte and grabbing hold of her arm. “How did you find me?”
Lotte turned and said, “Oh . . . hello, Karl. You startled me. I came here looking for Tobias and Max. Are you looking for them, too?”
He eyed her. “You were eavesdropping. You heard everything.”
“Let her go!” someone shouted.
Karl turned and stared at a scrawny teenager lunging at him. Not taking any chances, he tightened his grip on Lotte’s arm and began pulling her toward the house. Karl yelled out to Raimund, “There’s another one; get him!”
“Nein! Leave the boy alone,” Lotte shouted, twisting and turning to get free of Karl’s grip, to no avail. “He’s done nothing to you, to either of you.”
Arriving, Raimund grabbed for the boy, but the boy was fast on his feet, dodged backward, and then took a swing at Raimund, missing.
“Peter, don’t fight him. Run and get help!” Lotte yelled.
CHAPTER T HIRTY-ONE
SOFIE WAITED WHILE Vikktor spoke with the Feldgendarms. What were they doing here? Did they find Tobias and Max? She’d practically jumped off her horse the moment they’d arrived at the farm, but Vikktor had snapped at her, saying “You and Ryan wait here. I will check.”
After several moments during which Sofie had chewed her fingernails down to the point her fingertips hurt, Vikktor padded back over to the horses, held onto the reins and stroked the muzzle of Sofie’s horse, avoiding Sofie’s eyes.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “Tell me.”
He looked up and said, “It is bad news. Someone killed Birgitta’s granddaughter, Anneliese. Men are out searching for the killer.”
“Oh my God. That’s horrible.” She covered her mouth, unable to ask what she needed to ask.
Vikktor said, “Other men are searching for your Max and Tobias and Raimund.”
Sofie stared in disbelief. “Raimund? He’s missing, too? Isn’t he involved with Karl and Werner?”
“He is. Maybe he is guarding your family members to keep them from escaping. Wait here a few more minutes. I will talk to Raimund’s family, if I can. They may know something.”
Vikktor turned to walk away, but hesitated when Sofie said, “Wait. If Anneliese was murdered, were Max and Tobias—” She couldn’t finish the sentence. They couldn’t have been murdered. She would not accept that.
Vikktor held up his hand for her to stop. “We do not know anything yet. The Feldgendarms did not mention any other murders. Let me talk to the family before you get yourself all upset.”
Too late for that, she thought, but said nothing.
Ryan leaned in, looking at Sofie, and asked what was going on. She started to fill him in and he suddenly let out a loud cry. She’d forgotten he had been involved with Anneliese for a while.
“Oh, Ryan, I am sorry for your loss.” She reached over and hugged him.
A short time later, Vikktor came back outside and walked up to them. “No one would talk to me. I guess we will have to search on our own.”
He barely got the words out when horse hooves pounding the ground alerted them that someone was quickly approaching. In seconds the rider pulled to a stop in front of them.
“Helmut!” Sofie yelled. “How did you know we were here?”
“I did not know. I came with Werner. What is going on?”
“Werner is here?” she asked.
“Somewhere aroun
d here. We came together, but as soon as we got near the farm he took off and left me on my own.” He slid down from his horse and said, “Why did you come here? What is going on? I woke up and found you gone and Werner rushing out the door.” His eyes scanned the area, then returned to Sofie and her companions, stopping at Vikktor, standing behind Sofie’s horse. “Vikktor?” Helmut’s face turned bright red and his hands reached upward, clinched into fists.
Sofie said, “Helmut, stop. Feldgendarms are watching. We need to go somewhere else and talk. Vikktor is not our enemy. I will explain. He is trying to help us. It’s Werner and Karl that we need to be wary of.”
Helmut took a step forward, obviously preparing to jump down and punch Vikktor, but then he glanced toward the Feldgendarms and let his hands fall to his side as he sighed. “All right. We can go to the barn and feed my horse while you explain this,” he said, waving his arms at Vikktor, “to me.”
After much discussion between Sofie, Helmut, and Vikktor, Helmut admitted that he’d had some qualms about Werner, too, having caught him in a couple of lies. He also said he had difficulty keeping up with the older man on the trip to the farm. “He was trying to lose me, I am sure of it. I believe he wanted to leave me back in Dinkelsbühl, and he probably would have if I had not awakened and saw him preparing for his trip.”
Vikktor said, “Then you understand that it was probably Werner and Karl who kidnapped Sofie’s son and husband?”
Helmut nodded, his expression grim.
“Help! Someone help us, please!”
Sofie and the others exchanged glances and rushed outside to see who was yelling.
A running man collapsed outside the barn door. Sofie rushed over and reached down to help him up. As soon as she saw his face, she gasped. “Peter!” Looking over her shoulder, she exclaimed, “Helmut, it is Peter.” Turning back, she asked, “Peter, what happened?”
Peter was on his knees now, his head bent down, still gasping to catch his breath, with Helmut now bent over the two of them. “Two men . . . they . . . they are going to kill her. They are going to kill all of them. Oma. Tobias. Max.”
“Oh my God!” Sofie sucked in her breath.
“Who, where? Take us to them right away,” Vikktor said.
Helmut said, “Give him a few moments to recover. He is exhausted.”
Vikktor nodded, then rushed over to the Feldgendarms.
Minutes later, but what seemed to Sofie like hours, silently praying they wouldn’t be too late, three Feldgendarms, Sofie, Ryan, Vikktor, Helmut, and Peter all rode to the ghost house.
“There it is, that’s the house,” Peter said after five minutes of hard riding. “The horses are still here. That is a good sign, is it not?”
After whispered argument and significant grumbling, the men went in on foot, leaving Sofie and Peter holding the horses. Sofie put her arm around Peter, as the two of them waited together. No one would allow either to participate in the rescue. Ryan was allowed because he was strong and not worn out from running the way Peter was.
INGRID STRUGGLED TO get free from Karl, but for an eighty year old man he was quite strong, at least pitted against her seventy-six-year-old bones. She already had bruises forming and probably quite a few cuts and scratches, too. She wasn’t sure where they were now. He’d dragged her struggling, kicking, and screaming toward the old house. Peter had run, like she’d instructed. Raimund had run after him for a short time, but stopped because he was having chest pains. Looking disgusted, Karl instructed Raimund to go stand guard at the cellar. Ingrid’s arms were tied in front of her, the way Karl had described earlier when talking to Raimund about his plan. She was lying flat on her back. Karl had hold of her feet and was dragging her across the grass and gravel, her skirt bunching up and exposing old varicose legs. The grass tickled but she wasn’t laughing. The air seemed clogged with dust. A pine cone was wedged under her back and was scratching her shoulder. Tears filled her eyes and it was all she could do not to fall apart. Only she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“Let her go!” someone yelled.
She craned her neck up and to the side, trying to see who had yelled, but she couldn’t see. It didn’t sound like Peter. She hoped he hadn’t been foolish and come back to take the men on.
“Let her go, Karl. She’s my sister. We have better options of disposing of her.”
Werner! Mein Gott.
“Nein. She will ruin us.”
“We can drug her and then when she wakes up, it will be her word against ours. We can tell the Feldgendarms who she really is and they will arrest her.”
Karl yelled, “No. It has to be done. I must kill her.”
“Why?” Werner said. “Haven’t we done enough killing? Lotte is my sister and she hasn’t done anything to deserve this. I don’t want her killed—at least not by our hands. Let it be up to the Feldgendarms to decide her fate.”
“Do you not see? If she rattles on long enough about the portals, and if Sofie and her group back her up, then the Feldgendarms might believe her and our lives will be ruined.”
“There’s a chance of that whether she dies or not. We cannot kill them all. Too many know. Sofie, Max, Tobias, Helmut, Peter, Johanna, Ryan. And others who are working with Sofie and Max. If we kill Lotte, they will be all that more bent on revenge.”
Karl started pulling her toward the house again. “It is too late. She must die.”
Werner yelled, “Wait! We can send her back to the future and make sure the portal in my house—your future house—is permanently disabled. No one knows where the other portals are. She won’t be able to prove anything.”
“I can’t do that,” Karl whined. “She needs to die.”
Lotte yelled, “How will that help you, Karl, you stubborn old esel? You are mad. Mad as your granddaughter.”
“You killed my wife, my Birgitta! You killed my Anneliese, too.”
“I didn’t. That was you. You killed both of them. Have you forgotten? Have you twisted things around in that crazy mind of yours?”
Karl screamed like a banshee and pulled harder on her feet, dragging her over a bed of sharp rock.
Lotte wished she’d kept her stupid mouth shut. She was about to be killed by a crazy man and there was nothing she could do. My poor babies. Peter, Johanna, Tobias, Sofie, Helmut. She would never see them again and she couldn’t protect any of them. Oh, my poor Tobias! She’d come here willing to die so he could live, but she’d failed to rescue him. He would die anyway. Tears rolled down her cheeks and she cried out loud.
Karl yelled, “Shut up, you old hag!” Then he yanked on her feet so hard she thought he was going to break her ankles.
Mein Gott, was Karl getting ready to throw her down a hill, into a well, or down into the cellar of the old house with Max and Tobias? She closed her eyes from the pain and said a prayer to her maker.
The yanking suddenly ceased. Karl’s grip on her feet vanished, letting her legs plop down on the ground. She felt confused. Was it some kind of trick? Was she free or was he merely picking up a rock to hit her over the head with? And what happened to Werner? Did he leave? Her ears picked up a strange noise behind her head, a scuffling sound followed by a grunt. Something was happening.
She struggled to sit up and look around, but her head was spinning and her eyes were gritty with dust. When the spinning finally stopped, she blinked several times to clear away the dust and stared at a bloody pile nearby. Mein Gott! Karl’s body was limp and Werner was standing over him, a bloodied knife in his clenched hand.
She gasped and scooted backwards, struggling unsuccessfully to get up on her feet.
“I’m not going to kill you, Lotte.”
“But you are going to make me look guilty.” She pushed her skirt down over her legs.
“Nein, he is going to prison,” someone else said.
Ingrid and Werner both turned their heads and stared at the stranger in uniform. Two more Feldgendarms stood right behind him.
Two of the Feldge
ndarms rushed over to Werner and grabbed his arm. Werner didn’t try to run and he didn’t struggle, which surprised Ingrid. Karl would have run if he’d been the one facing arrest, she told herself, she was sure of it.
“Werner saved my life. He killed Karl to protect me,” she said, pointing to the body lying on the ground.
The Feldgendarms didn’t respond. Ingrid hoped they would take Werner’s somewhat heroic act into account when they were ready to prosecute him.
“Check the old man,” the first Feldgendarm instructed one of the two officers.
The Feldgendarm squatted down over Karl’s limp body, and Ingrid shuddered as the reality of all that had happened here sunk in.
“He is dead,” the Feldgendarm announced.
The first Feldgendarm, obviously in charge, directed his attention to Werner. “Do you know where the boy and his father are being held?”
Werner’s face looked so tired, Ingrid almost felt sorry for him. He was her big brother, the brother she had adored when she was a little girl, the brother who would lift her in the air and give her rides on his broad shoulders. She wished she could make herself believe he wasn’t involved in the kidnapping, but that’s not what Karl had said. After a few moments, Werner said, “They are being held in a root cellar behind the house. I do not know if they are still alive.”
Ingrid said, “Karl told Raimund to stand guard there, by the entrance to the cellar. I heard it myself. Karl was planning to kill them after he killed me.”
Returning from the cellar door, one of the Feldgendarms whispered to the one in charge. “Who has the key to the lock on the root cellar?” the officer in charge asked, looking from Ingrid to Werner.