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“That about covers it.”
“Well, sister of mine—all of that tells me two things. One, these people are very good at what they do. And two, the thing you were trying to obtain is now in their hands. So you have no reason to stay in Europe. You did your best, but it’s time to come home. You took great risks, Eleanor. Now it’s time to make the right decision.”
I can’t help but chuckle. “Sounds like a speech you had prepared, Ty.”
“It doesn’t make me wrong. Let me just say one more thing.”
As I walk along a side street, passing a bustling café, Tyson giving me his non-lecture lecture, my internal radar forces my eyes to a woman standing at the corner, leaning against a lamppost, looking at her phone—but who was looking at me a moment earlier.
A young, pretty Asian woman in a leather jacket with cropped dark hair—
I stop in my tracks and focus.
Is that the same young, pretty Asian woman who bumped into me at Stephansdom as I was leaving the grand church? The woman with lime-green hair and facial piercings?
No lime-green hair now, no piercings, but…
I cross the street and beeline in her direction. Without looking up, the woman peels herself from the lamppost and disappears around the corner. I pick up my pace, rushing across the cobblestone street, but I’m surely no match for her in terms of speed. By the time I reach the corner and turn, she is gone.
“You sound like you’re running, Eleanor. And not listening to a word I say.”
“Right on both counts,” I admit after catching my breath. “I think someone is following me. Remember I told you, when I was walking out of the church, bumping into the Asian—”
“She’s following you? Are you sure it’s her?”
“I’m—yeah, I’m pretty sure.”
“Then I rest my case,” he says. “It’s time for you to come home. There’s nothing left for you to find.”
But if there is nothing left to find, why are they still following me?
“The sixth envelope,” I mumble.
“The what?”
“The man I spoke with—Stranger Danger? He said there were six envelopes in Hitler’s safe.”
“I remember,” says Ty.
“He said Bauer must have accidentally destroyed whatever was in the sixth envelope when he tried to ‘view’ it. He said Hitler was upset afterward that it was ‘unusable.’ What could that be, Ty? What do you ‘view’ that could be rendered ‘unusable’? That doesn’t sound like a document or a photograph.”
“I appreciate your curiosity, El, but didn’t Stranger Danger also tell you that it no longer exists?”
“Am I suddenly required to believe everything he told me?” I start walking back toward my hotel, ideas flashing in and out. “On the other hand, maybe he wasn’t lying, Ty. Maybe he was mistaken.”
“I’m… now I’m not following, Eleanor.”
I reach the entrance of my hotel and look around me. And once more I find the young Asian woman, this time wearing straight blond hair—she has many wigs, apparently—sitting at a table outside the Burger King across the street.
“Maybe I’ve been looking at this wrong,” I say. “Maybe I missed a critical fact. Something even Thomas Bauer didn’t know.”
“Oh, Eleanor.” This time, my brother heaves a sigh rivaling my mother at her most disappointed. “Based on rank speculation that there might be a sixth envelope from Hitler’s safe that might contain something incriminating and might still exist?”
“Between seeking the truth and letting it slip away forever? Absolutely. Love you, Ty.” I end the call on the burner phone before he can object.
I try to make eye contact with the Asian woman, but she won’t allow it. So I simply nod at her. She certainly knows where to find me.
And it won’t be on a plane to the States. I’m not done here yet.