“Hermann will bring the things to you secretly. You will record them on this paper, using only the initials that he gives you, and then hide the paper away.”
“Hermann?” She sounded shocked.
“I’ll tell him tomorrow that you’ll be helping us.”
She scanned the grass between the trees. “Does Hermann know where you bury these things?”
“No—it’s safer for all of us if he doesn’t know.”
“Are you leaving?” In her voice was a sadness that he felt as well, not in leaving Vienna but this lake and his friends here.
“For only a short while.” He leaned toward her. “No one knows I’ve buried things here, Annika, except me and now you.”
“I’ll keep your secret,” she swore.
“I know,” he said solemnly. “That’s why—”
A rattling sound, the worn engine of a car, echoed through the forest.
Annika reached for his arm. “It’s Vati!”
“We’ll tell him that...” But he couldn’t think of a valid reason why he and Annika would be out in the woods together at night unless he was trying to proposition the man’s daughter. He glanced down at Annika’s hand, but it seemed she’d already slipped the list into her pocket. He hid the jewels back in his bag.
“Run to your house,” Annika urged. “I’ll tell him I was out walking.”
He was tired of feeling like a coward, even more so on his own property. Herr Knopf couldn’t suspect what he’d been doing, but if he left Annika here alone, he’d feel as if he were throwing her into the den of a lion, one hungry enough to eat her alive.
“I can’t leave you.”
“It will be worse if he sees us—”
A crash interrupted her words. Then a blaze of light.
“Annika?” Herr Knopf shouted.
Max felt her hand tremble before she ripped it away. “He can’t find us together.”
But it was too late. Herr Knopf came thundering through the forest like a bloodhound that smelled a doe.
Annika backed up against the branches of a fir tree as Max shaded his eyes, turning to confront the beam of the man’s flashlight. Herr Knopf glanced between him and Annika, gasping for breath before he spoke.
“What are you doing with my daughter?” His words sloshed together like lager against the sides of a Weizen glass.
“We were taking a walk,” Max said, praying that the man wouldn’t remember their confrontation come morning.
“Go home, Annika,” her father commanded.
She stepped up to him. “I’ll go home with you.”
“I must speak with Herr Dornbach alone.” His words dripped with sarcasm even as they slurred. The man had never liked Max; he clearly hated the thought of reporting to Wilhelm Dornbach’s son.
Max didn’t move. “What is it?”
“I have something to show you.”
“Tomorrow, Vati,” Annika insisted. “Right now we must rest.”
“No.” His voice steadied. “I have to show him now.”
