“No.”
I shuffle backward. “No?!”
Thank God I didn’t share my crazy hypothesis with Theo!The last thing he needed now was another disappointment.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about Maman’s last letter to Papa,” he says. “How she was convinced the key was cursed, how she blamed it for Papa’s arrest.”
“Did you believe that, too?”
“No, but… the seed of doubt had been planted.” He rubs at his chin. “I knew I couldn’t take it home. I just couldn’t.”
“So, you put it back in the hole.”
“Not exactly.”
“What do you mean?”
“I did something smarter.” He cracks a mischievous smile. “For a treasure hunter like me, the value of that key lay in the door it would open, not in the key itself.”
“What are you saying, Grandpa?”
“I figured I didn’t need the whole key! All I needed was the pin and the bit.”
“Wait, so you—”
“I took it to a locksmith and had a copy made. Then I buried the cursed original back where I’d found it and took the copy home.”
Carefully, I ask, “Do you still have it?”
“Yes, it’s in my treasure box.”
I look him up and down. “And you didn’t think to mention this when I scanned the letters?”
“Is that what your friend Theodor was after?” he asks, looking genuinely surprised. “The key?”
“Yes, Grandpa.”
“I guess I was too rattled you’d discover all the raunchy, embarrassing stuff in those letters to remember about the key…”
If he’d told us about it, then Theo’s quest would’ve been lightning fast, a blitzkrieg of a quest. Darrel and Jordan would’ve lived. Theo and I would’ve never made love.
I brush those thoughts aside. “Do you mind if I show the copy of the key to Theodor?”
“You can give it to him if you want. Anyway, I have no clue what it opens.”
“Don’t move.”
I dash into his apartment and fetch the tin box. He picks out a key. I kiss him on both cheeks and rush down the stairs.
“This isn’t your key, strictly speaking,” I say to Theo as he surveys it, perplexed. “It’s a copy my grandfather had made a long time ago.”
I recount the story behind it.
Theo shifts his gaze from the key to me, then back to the key. “Elise… If it fits… You have no idea what you’ve just done for me, for my country!”
“Let’s hope it fits, then,” I say, smiling.
He slips the key into his pocket. “I’ll tell you tonight.”
