The Curator's Daughter

by Melanie Dobson

“What are you searching for, Kolman?”

  He didn’t answer, but she saw the glimmer of metal under his sleeve, the gun that had been outlawed.

  How many of these officers were still hiding out in the wilderness? Flinging around bullets when the world had already crushed them with bombs?

  If only she’d brought one of the kitchen knives in her basket, instead of these dull scissors, to protect her from the predators.

  “Inside, please,” he said, motioning toward the door.

  When she hesitated, he picked up a rock and threw it into the window. Glass shattered on the ground.

  Schatzi hissed as Kolman picked up a second stone, but there was nothing a house cat could do in the face of a lion.

  Hanna stood tall, her shoulders square, as she unlocked the door. She couldn’t ignore what was happening this time. Not with Lilly inside.

  Kolman followed her into the great room, and they sat together as if they were about to conduct a meeting, except he placed his pistol on the desk, the barrel facing her.

  But he didn’t need a weapon. She would do anything to protect her daughter.

  “Where are they, Hanna?”

  “Where are what?” she asked, forcing herself not to look at the ceiling. The stairs. Lilly would surely hide if she heard Kolman’s voice.

  “My boxes of film.”

  “I didn’t take your film.”

  “All my reels are missing from the mine.”

  And if he knew they were being watched by the entire world, he would kill her now. “A lot has happened since you left, Kolman. Mainly you lost the war.”

  “Our war,” he said. “They haven’t taken this country yet.”

  Was he delusional or were he and the other missing officers really planning to continue their fight?

  She pressed her fingers together, trying to calm the tremor in her voice. “It’s too late.”

  “We’re not giving up, Hanna,” he said, shaking his head. “Not any of us.”

  “Himmler is dead. The papers say he killed himself.”

  His eye twitched. “We don’t need either him or Hitler to carry on this Reich.”

  She saw it now. The loss of these Nazi leaders wasn’t a defeat. It was an opportunity for Kolman and the other officers to step up in the ranks.

  He glanced to the side as if he was just now realizing that something was missing. “Where’s Lilly?”

  “Out playing with friends, but you don’t need to worry about her,” she replied. “I’m told you have three other children in Hanover that call you Vater.”

  “They are hiding now, and I can take Lilly away as well.” He snapped his fingers. “In an instant.”

  “You would kill your daughter?”

  “She’s not mine,” he said. “But I’d drive her to the eastern border and tell her to find her way back home.”

  How had Kolman, who’d once seemed kind, who had searched for artifacts alongside her, turned so cruel? The war had changed all of them, but it had hardened the very soul of this man. He’d used her and Lilly both.

  “You are a smart woman, Hanna. You will do what is right for the greater good.” He opened the filing cabinet and began rifling through the papers. Was he planning to show officials that Lilly’s adoption had been a farce?

  But he didn’t say anything more about Lilly. Instead he lifted out a manila folder and stuffed it under his shirt. “Burn that film, Hanna.”

  “I don’t know where it is.”

  He glanced up at the rafters, at the portraits of the Tillich family. “I think I will spend the night, since the Yanks are occupied at the moment.”

  Her stomach rolled again, like it had at the trial, but she couldn’t run away now. She had to protect Lilly from this man, hide her until Charlie returned.

  But in order to protect Lilly, she’d have to give up the Holy Grail.

  “The cave,” she said quietly.

  He leaned closer. “What is it, Hanna?”

  “In France. I found something buried in the Cathars’ grotto. The cup, I think.”

  “You think?”

  She swallowed. “I know. I was planning to return after the war so I could keep it for myself.”

  That, Kolman understood.

  His gaze darted between her and the filing cabinet. “Why would you tell me now?”

  “So you can whisk your Hanover family away with the money you earn from it and leave my family alone.”

  He reached back into the cabinet and took a second folder, combining the contents with the first. “We’ll have to steal a car.”

  “I’m sure you can manage.”

  “And we’d need to leave right away.”

  That was exactly what she wanted to hear.

  She packed quickly, tossing her trousers and an extra blouse and her hiking shoes in a canvas bag. Find Charlie, she wanted to scribble on a memo pad, but she had none in her bedroom.

  Instead she kissed her hand and lifted it toward the ceiling, praying that all would be well for Lilly.

  “Hanna,” Kolman said from the door, his gaze trailing up to where she’d raised her hand. “If you don’t find the Grail, I’m coming back for her.”

  She strung the bag over her shoulder and rushed out of the room.

  The Americans wouldn’t let them drive at night, out of the city. For that matter, she doubted they would get past the first checkpoint. Guards across Germany were looking for those who’d been employed by the SS, especially the officer beside her.

  But she shouldn’t have doubted.

  Twenty hours—that’s how long it took them to travel from Nuremberg. They stopped only for gasoline and food and the roadblocks, Kolman charming every gatekeeper along the way.

  “Jonny Tillich,” he said when they reached the French Zone, to the soldier asking for his papers. “This is my wife, Hanna. Our children lived with an aunt in France during the war, and we are anxious to reunite with them.”

  Kolman handed over Hanna’s identification card with her maiden name and then the paperwork for her brother.

  A man who’d never been a member of the Nazi Party.

  A man who would be free to go almost anywhere he liked.

  Because Jonny Tillich hadn’t done anything wrong.

  52

  EMBER

  A train trestle stretched across the canyon below, bridging two of Virginia’s spruce-clad mountains. They sat together, Ember and Hope, on a bench under the pine trees, the faint smell of diesel in the air.

  Her daughter was a senior in college just three hours west of Georgetown. And Hope had wanted to meet with her on campus. Alone.

  Both of them, it seemed, were equally bewildered at this twist in their stories, but as surprised as Ember felt, the sweet joy of it all was . . . there were no words to describe the depth of gratefulness for this truth. Another gift from God.

  Dakota was waiting at the student center nearby, and she suspected that Aimee and Timothy were also close. But for now it was just her and Hope, beginning where they’d left off except there was no crib or lake or threat of fire.

  She wanted to embrace this beautiful young woman, hold her tight, but she was afraid to scare her away. So she shook her hand, introduced herself like they were meeting for the first time.

  Hope pressed the toes of her sandals together, her skin tan from Puerto Rico. “I’m not sure what to say.”

  “Me either,” Ember replied, lifting a small gift bag off the ground. “I brought you this.”

  She handed Hope her present. The perfect gift that she’d found in Pennsylvania while she worked and waited for Rebekah and the police to find Titus Kiehl. They had a lead, Rebekah said, but the police hadn’t been able to locate him yet. Whether it was Titus or someone else who’d been harassing her, the letters had stopped while Ember was away from the museum.

  Hope peeled back the silver paper and lifted out a white polished stone, like the one Mrs. Kiehl wore around her neck. Like the one Ember had purchased for herself.
/>   Ember tucked the stone she owned under her blouse even as Hope held up her gift. “It’s pretty.”

  “There’s a story behind it,” she said. “I’ll tell you one day if you’d like.”

  “What should I call you?” Hope asked, lowering the chain. It dangled over the rips in her jeans.

  Perhaps it was too late for Mother or even Mom, but maybe friend. “Ember is fine.”

  “I like your name.”

  “Thank you.” She gently drummed the sides of her legs, the roll of each finger calming her mind. “I’ve been looking at some of your pictures online.” The ones of her daughter digging in the Puerto Rican soil to help locals plant a garden, dancing with a whole troupe of children. “I’m immensely proud of the confident, loving woman that you’ve become.”

  Hope smiled.

  “You have a million stories, I know. And I want to hear every one.”

  “I’m a music major,” Hope told her. “And I teach ballet at a nearby studio.”

  “I’d love to see you dance.”

  Hope lifted the chain and clipped the stone around her neck. “I didn’t know anything about this, about you, until last week.”

  Several students waved as they hiked by, greeting Hope by name. Ember waited until they were on the other side. “I thought you died more than twenty years ago.”

  “Tell me what it was like,” Hope said. “Caring for me on that compound.”

  Ember stopped tapping her legs this time, wanting to remember the good and bad. “It was a dark place, but you brought hope in the midst of it. When I held you at night, I knew that I—that we—would somehow make it through.”

  “I was supposed to be a Nazi—that’s what my mom said. The people in this cult were trying to have lots of white babies.”

  Ember’s phone chimed, and she quickly muted it. “You are uniquely you, Hope. What runs through your heart is most important, not your blood type.”

  “I used to have these dreams.” Hope looked down at a train as it crossed the bridge. “I was twirling on a dock someplace and fell into this terribly cold water. Even though I tried to swim, I could never get out on my own, until—”

  Ember leaned closer, encouraging her.

  “A presence, that’s the only way that I can describe it. A light swept under me like a net and lifted me out of the darkness.”

  She’d had the same dream as her daughter. “You almost drowned when you were a baby; did Aimee tell you that?”

  “A few days ago, and then my dream began to make sense.”

  “Aimee was your angel,” Ember said. “God sent her, I think, to rescue you.”

  Hope lifted her face to the sky, like the turtle on Eagle Lake who’d come out to sun. “They’ve been good parents to me. I never would have known I wasn’t their biological child until . . .”

  “I didn’t know if I should search for you. If you were still alive, I didn’t know if you’d want to be found.”

  Two more students passed, nodding toward them.

  “I’m glad to know the truth,” Hope said.

  “You are Timothy and Aimee’s daughter.” Ember swallowed the bitter sweetness of those words. “I’m not here to break your relationship apart, but someday, perhaps, you’ll be a little of mine too.”

  The sound of feet pounding, running up the hill. She thought another student was hiking along this path, but when she looked up again, it was a full-grown man. And in his eyes—

  Titus Kiehl was in these woods, wearing an overcoat on this warm day, his head shaved clean. But it wasn’t his face that she recognized first. It was the evil that poured from him, the familiar hatred in his gaze. She’d seen it over the years among the council members, but until she’d stood on the sidewalk during the march, it had never before been directed at her.

  Titus clearly hated her.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, trying to calm her voice.

  “You left Washington.”

  “I had to leave,” Ember said.

  Titus stepped closer. “So I followed you here.”

  One hand was in his pocket and on the other she saw a flash of steel, the Death’s Head forged for members of the SS.

  “Where did you get Lukas’s ring?” she asked, reaching for Hope’s shaky hand.

  “He let me borrow it.”

  With Lukas in the penitentiary, this man, Dakota’s father, seemed to be bearing the torch for the Aryan Council. Another disciple, like the ones her own father had made, who would do anything to usher in an Aryan nation.

  And he knew her name, past and present.

  “Did you send letters?” she asked. “To the Holocaust museum?”

  “I was trying to help you, Sarah. Bring you back for your family’s sake, but you chose to ignore the warnings.” He fiddled with the pocket. Was it a gun inside or a knife?

  Ember squeezed Hope’s hand and then stood up so she’d be looking straight into the man’s eyes. “Go home to your family, Titus. If you do something stupid here, you’ll lose everything.”

  “It’s Lukas who needs my help.”

  “Lukas can have me.” Ember moved away from the bench, hoping he would follow. “I’ll visit him in prison. Ask what he needs.”

  “Lukas doesn’t want you anymore,” Titus said, his eyes on the bench. “He wants his daughter.”

  Ember’s stomach churned. That’s what Lukas had been searching for all along, through Titus. And Ember had led these men right to her.

  But this time she wouldn’t be getting on the boat.

  This time she stepped right in front of her daughter.

  “Neither you nor Lukas can have her.”

  “It’s not up to you.”

  The knife plunged toward her heart, but it barely nicked her shoulder. Dakota might not play football anymore, but he remembered how to tackle. And he took out his father in seconds, the knife clattering to the ground.

  Then Hope was by her side, kneeling on the sidewalk. “Are you okay, Mom?”

  Those words, the best of music to her ears.

  She was much more than okay.

  Her heart felt whole again.

  53

  HANNA

  MONTSÉGUR, FRANCE

  Hanna’s rucksack was still resting against the wall, in the narrow tunnel off the cathedral room. She didn’t lead Kolman back to the cupboard chamber, to the blood-tipped arrow that she’d discovered five years ago. Instead she knelt by her abandoned things, searching for her trowel.

  “The Grail was here,” she said, pointing at the ground. “I reburied it where I left my pack.”

  Kolman would never take her back home, even if she led him straight to the treasure. Her job now was to protect Lilly, extend the hours so Charlie could find her. Give him time to steal Lilly away before Kolman returned.

  She’d kept her daughter’s secret from everyone. The girl, a child of God, was more precious than a grail. Only Kolman knew about her past, and she prayed that he’d never find Lilly now.

  Hanna held out the trowel, but he didn’t touch the tool. “You dig it up,” he said.

  She moved slowly, deliberately, taking care not to harm any artifact under the soil. When she found nothing, she began digging nearby.

  An hour passed. Maybe two. Locked up in this cage with a lion. She had no reason to hurry, but her body was failing, her eyes drooping in the darkness no matter how hard she worked to keep them open.

  But in her weariness, in the depths of exhaustion and despair, God stepped into her sorrow. No matter what happened tonight, she was in His care.

  “You lied,” Kolman said, his eyes as fierce as the monster in her dreams, glowing yellow in the lantern light.

  “It’s here someplace,” she insisted.

  “Then I’ll have to search alone.”

  “No—” Had enough time passed? More than a day since they’d left Nuremberg. Kolman would need to sleep, a few hours at least, and another full day to return if he could charm his way through the checkpoints. Wo
uld Charlie whisk Lilly away in three days or would he linger at the lodge, waiting for Hanna to come home?

  But Charlie had seen Kolman’s film. He knew what the man was capable of. Surely he would remember his promise to keep Lilly safe.

  Kolman swung his gun in Hanna’s face, and she pressed her trowel back into the soil, digging faster as if she might find the Grail here. Every moment that he believed her ploy, every minute she could continue deceiving him as he had done to her, she was buying time for Charlie Ward.

  The gun exploded in the cavern, burning her ears.

  “I have more ammunition,” Kolman said, the sound echoing around them, her ears pounding with her heart.

  As she looked up at him, an unexpected peace settled in the cool air like snowflakes on her meadow back home.

  “That’s a good way to start a cave-in.” She sifted another layer of dirt off the ground, her gaze focused on the sweat that poured down Kolman’s face, the wildness in his eyes. “You’ll bury us both here.”

  He swore. “Show me where you found the Grail.”

  But it was a secret that she planned to keep. Like the Cathars.

  “Show me, Hanna.”

  Her time was short. She whispered a prayer again for Lilly and Charlie. That God would care well for both of them. Her fear was secondary now to a greater hope. If Charlie didn’t come to the lodge, she prayed that God would still rescue her daughter.

  “I’m leaving.” She picked up the rucksack that she’d left behind long ago, the journal with all her notes, and began walking toward the entrance. Not for a moment did she believe Kolman would let her live, but she wasn’t going to wait here any longer, pretending to lead him to the treasure. If she could rappel down the cliff, send a telegram to Charlie, he could tell Lilly what happened. That she would see her daughter again soon.

  Hanna rushed through the cathedral room, light filtering in from the entrance, the threads of sunset weaving together a carpet rolled out just for her.

  She’d almost made it to the ropes when Kolman grabbed her arm, whirling her around. Hate raged again in his eyes, vile words spewing from his lips, but she was no longer afraid. Nor did she hear his rant. The words, they seemed to dissipate into the colors.