I lift my feet, showing off my black sandals. “She was quite proud of me for being able to read without my Story Girl socks.”
“You’re a marvel.”
“Or my cape.”
“A true achievement,” he quips. “But I’m not joking about your being a marvel. Thank you for bringing Ella and for taking great care of her along the way.”
“It was a selfish move on my part.” I roll the stem of the glass between my fingers. “I was worried about coming on my own.”
“I’m glad you came,” he says. “And not just because you brought Ella.”
Heat flushes up my neck, and I turn back toward the lake, glad for the dim lights. “Thank you.”
He nods toward the castle across the lake. “We can rent a boat tomorrow so you can see it up close.”
“I’m going to spend most of the day in Vienna.” I have a list of churches and synagogues on my iPad, and I’ll visit as many as I can to inquire about Luzia’s birth or baptismal certificate.
“Are you spending the night there?” he asks.
“No. There’s a train coming back late tomorrow.”
“Perhaps I can take you to the station in the morning after I show you the castle.”
“I’d like that.” My face flushes again, and I wish someone would challenge me to dunk my head in a bucket of ice right here. “If only we could go onto the estate...”
“There’s a big sign on the dock threatening prosecution for anyone caught trespassing.”
“You let a sign stop you?”
“My team was diving here with special permits from the Austrian government. If I was caught trespassing, it would jeopardize everything we’ve worked for.”
“And now?” I press.
“We could knock on the front door together and see if anyone is home.”
I can’t imagine stepping onto someone’s property without an invitation, but if it brings me closer to Luzia... “How long have you been trying to find Annika?”
“I started more than ten years ago, but then—” he rips open the paper bag and serves soft white cheese and rye crackers on it like it’s a platter—“I had to take a break.”
Because of his wife, I assume, but it’s not my business to ask. Our friendship is safe as long as we keep it focused on what we’re both searching for, not what’s happened to either of us in the past.
“When I was in graduate school, I found records confirming what Uncle Leo had said about the Nazis dumping ownerless treasure in these lakes. I also discovered a memo from a Nazi official who had been searching Schloss Schwansee for items formerly owned by the Jewish people in this area.
“If the Nazis ever found these items, no one recorded it—not that they would have. Treasure seemed to stick to Nazi fingers, especially those of officers who were supposed to hand over everything they stole to the Reich. Even American soldiers sent some of the valuable things they found home, calling them the spoils of war.”
“Were the Nazis searching the estate or the water in front of it?”
He gives me a curious look. “The memo says the property, but what has been found in this area was located in the caves or lake.”
“I wish you could search inside Schloss Schwansee.”
He glances down at his phone. “Herr Stadler still hasn’t responded to any of my inquiries.”
I take another sip of the wine and wonder about the Stadlers. Did Hermann take over the house from the Dornbachs because he was a Nazi? Or because he married Annika?
Josh leans back in his chair, dangling his flip-flops over the edge of the railing. “What else did Liberty say?”
My gaze travels back to a light flickering across the water. A window from the castle or perhaps a boat. “Max Dornbach loved this house and lake when he was a child, but he never told her what happened here during or after the war. Perhaps it was too painful to remember.”
