“Youreallysaw her?” Iva asked, her blue eyes perfectly round and her cheeks flushing in excitement. Her disappointment seemed to have ebbed. “What did she do? What did she look like?What happened?”
“She scared the bejesus out of Bradley Forth,” Gideon replied with great relish. “She was kind of greenish-yellow, and she had a hell of a gust of wind behind her. It felt like a damned tornado in here. She broke a lot of lamps—a lot of things. I don’t know if it was the wind or just her…moving things.” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t experienced it for myself…but I did.” He looked into Fiona’s eyes with an uncertain gaze—as though he were afraid she’d laugh at him.
Before she could respond, Joe Longbow called out from across the room. “Fiona, did you see this mess over here?”
She and Gideon pulled to their feet when they saw where he and Helga were standing—next to the big old desk where Gretchen’s Lamp had stood.
The old white lamp was no longer in its spot on the desk—now it lay smashed on the floor.
“Right over here was the last crash I heard,” Gideon told Fiona as they stooped to look at what remained of the lamp. “Gretchen must have destroyed it as her last act.”
“What’s this?” Fiona reached for a wad of papers—a small notebook that had been folded in half and lay among the shards of milk glass. “It must have been inside the lamp.”
As soon as she pulled it out, the glass tinkling to the floor under it, she knew what it was. “Valente’s journal,” she and Iva said at the same time. They both squealed with giddy delight, though with Fiona’s head aching so, hers wasn’t quite as high-pitched as Iva’s.
They all looked at each other, Helga making furious notes on a neat steno pad and Joe Longbow scratching his head. “Journal?”
“That’s what Bradley Forth was looking for,” she told them. “And some bank books too.”
Iva took the journal and flipped through it, then dug for reading glasses. As she leaned over her shoulder, Fiona squinted, but couldn’t make out the brown spidery writing that had faded over time.
“I’m sure it must tell the whole story in here,” Iva said, shoving her readers in place. “It’ll say that he was Josef Kremer, one of Hitler’s elite, and that he came here to start a new life after the war.”
“And that his first love—Gretchen—found him, and when she came to visit him, he killed her for fear she’d divulge his identity. He actually killed the woman he loved—or at least had loved once upon a time.”
Gideon looked at Fiona, warmth shining in his eyes as he clasped her hand. “I just want you to know, my love, that no matter how long we’re married, and how angry you might make me…I’ll never bash your head in and leave you in a closet under the stairs.” He grinned a crooked, gentle grin.
Fiona felt a wave of love and tenderness as she fell into his gaze. She smiled, reaching to touch his warm, dear face. “Another joke from you, Gideon? Two in one day? Are you really the man I love, or are you an imposter?”
She leaned forward to press a kiss to his mouth, and felt like she’d come home. This was where she’d be, this was where she’d stay. Her home, her life, her commitment…her responsibility.
“I love you Gideon. And if that’s a proposal, I’ll accept it…but you’re really going to have to stop making so many jokes.”
THE END
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