Page 24

A burst of noise wakes me. I sit bolt upright, gasping and shaking as a discordant roaring assaults my ears.

It’s midnight. The clocks have gone off again, only this time instead of going off one at a time, they’ve all gone off at one. The sound is deafening. I clamp my hands over my ears and scream, but I can’t hear my own voice.

This is far more intense than it’s ever been, but thankfully it ends after only a few seconds. I sit on my bed, my eyes as wide as dinner plates, my heart thumping in my chest.

I’d forgotten that conversation with my mother. I remember that when she fell asleep, I took a walk outside and convinced myself that she was lying. There was no way Annie would have left without telling me. She hated our mother, but not me. She would never have done that to me.

Except that she did. It occurs to me now that Annie probably did write Mother. I could have looked for Annie years ago. I could have…

I take a deep breath and get out of bed. I can’t stay here right now. That nightmare was one of the most intense I’ve ever had, and I’m already on the edge of emotional collapse. I’ll make myself some tea and walk around the museum for a while until I calm down. Then maybe I’ll try to get some more sleep. I doubt I’ll succeed, but I suppose I’ll try.

I pull on a dress and some slippers, then head out of the room. I half-expect Elena and Sophie to be up, but the lights are still off. How can they have slept through that noise? Well, I suppose they’ve had more time to get used to it than I have.

I flip the light on in the kitchen and reach for the coffee when I hear a thump from downstairs. I pause and listen closely. Maybe I just thought I heard it.

No! There it is again. A thump and what sounds like a scraping noise.

I leave the coffee and head to the stairwell instead. My heart is pounding again. I stop at the door to the stairwell, and it occurs to me that I should bring my phone. If someone is down there, I can call the police and Claudia and have them come arrest their perpetrators.

I retrieve my phone and head back for the stairwell just in time to hear another thump. I consider waking Elena, but I don’t want to risk Sophie coming downstairs looking for her grandmother and getting caught in the way in case there are criminals down there.

As I descend to the first floor, I hear a much louder thump, then a voice. “Damn it, be careful! You’ll wake them!”

The voice that responds is, unfortunately, one familiar to me.

“If they didn’t wake up to the sound of every damned clock in the building going off at once, they won’t wake up to this.”

My face falls. So Lukas is one of the criminals after all. I should have known. A part of me did know, I suppose, but… I so hoped that Luc wouldn’t get caught in the middle of this.

The other voice speaks again, and I realize I know that voice too. Margot Keller.

“Use the tools I gave you. Stop trying to brute force your way into all of the clocks. I don’t mean to be the one to tell you this, but you’re not the most macho of men.”

“Oh wow,” Lukas replies drily. “That’s so hurtful. I guess it’s a good thing I’m not with the most attractive of women.”

“Go to hell. Just look for the damned letters.”

“Or what? It’s not going to hurt my family.”

“Really? When I tell everyone what we’ve been doing and send the police the texts we’ve exchanged? Or maybe I’ll send them to Interpol.”

“Don’t threaten me,” Lukas replies darkly.

“Or what? You’ll endanger your son? Stop being an idiot. You need this money, and I need those photographs and those letters. Let’s help each other, and then when this is over, we can feel free to never see each other again.”

I look through the window in the door and see the two of them. They’re dressed rather comically in black bodysuits with balaclavas. Margot is holding a flashlight while Lukas opens the compartments of the automata clock that Sophie is so fond of.

He forces one open with a small crowbar, grunting with the effort. “You’re sure it’s in here?”

“That’s what your son said, right?”

I gasp. Margot flinches. “What was that?”

She turns toward the door, and I duck and clamp my hand over my mouth. For several seconds, the only sound I hear is my thumping heart. Then Lukas says, “That was nothing. Probably air moving through the elevator shafts.”

They resume working, and I try to process what I've just heard. Luc has been spying on the museum too? Oh no. Oh, poor Sophie. Poor Luc. Clearly his father is using him.

“You think he might have lied to us?” Margot asks, “to protect Sophie?”

“I doubt it,” Lukas replies, jimmying open another compartment. “He doesn’t like that we’re stealing from Elena, but he doesn’t think we’re going to hurt anyone.”

“What if we have to hurt someone, Lukas?”

“We don’t have to hurt anyone.”

“But what if we do ?”

He sighs and looks at her. “We don’t. Will you relax? No one’s going to catch us. We planned this well.”

“They could come down at any minute.”

“But they haven’t.”

She scoffs and rolls her eyes. “Whatever. Just hurry up.”

I turn my phone to silent and begin recording the two of them. I dare not call right now, or they’ll hear me, but I can send this evidence to the police later.

“Lukas, no one can find out about this,” Margot says.

“Why do you keep bringing this up?” he asks, irritably slamming another cabinet closed.

“Be quiet . Because if someone catches up, we need to make sure they can’t tell anyone else. That means making it so they can’t talk to anyone.”

Lukas stops and stares up at her. “If you’re going to talk crazy, go home. What we’re doing now is bad enough. Do you want to be a murderer too?”

“What we’re doing now is making things right,” Margot protests. “I gave Elena a chance to do the right thing, but she refused. And she threatened me. I can’t have this out. Not with the Galilee merger happening next month.”

“Well, let’s get this done then, and you won’t have to worry about it. But stop talking about silencing people. It’s very ghoulish.”

She sighs. “I don’t want to. I’m just…”

"You're worried. That's understandable. But you need to keep a cool head. Otherwise, you'll make mistakes, and making mistakes is how people get in trouble."

“Words of wisdom,” Margot says drily.

Lukas digs through the last cabinet, then sighs. “Well. It’s not here.”

“It has to be there.”

He lifts his hands. “It isn’t.”

Margot curses and lifts her hands to the top of her head. The flashlight beam arcs and shines through the window, blinding me. I wince and turn my head away.

“Your son is lying.”

“He’s not lying. He’s ten.”

“Ten-year-olds know how to lie.”

“They also make mistakes.”

“And that leaves us in trouble .”

“Look, there are other clocks here. He mentioned the twin grandfather clocks. We’ll check those.”

Lukas gets to his feet, but Margot stops him. “Wait. Let me see the crowbar.”

“After talking about murdering people, you want me to hand you a crowbar? I don’t think so.”

“Give me the goddamned crowbar.”

“Hell no.”

“Oh, mein Gott! Fine! You do it, then. Right here.”

She points at the face of the clock. Lukas rolls his eyes, but then he cocks his head. “Huh. Well, well. I think you might have found it.”

“Are you enjoying the sights or something? Open the damned face.”

He lifts a hand for patience, then slides the crowbar into a small gap between the face and the cabinet. With an effort, he jerks it open. The face pops out—dial, hands and mechanism—and a half-dozen photographs and letters fall out, along with a silver cigar case. The case is tarnished, but in relatively good shape.

Margot cries out and grabs the letters and photographs. Lukas grabs the cigar case. He turns it over and examines it closely while Margot scans the photographs and letters. After a few seconds, Luks pumps his fist. “Yes! This will fetch thousands! Perhaps tens of thousands if we find the right buyer.”

“I still think you should sell the clocks. They’re worth a lot more.”

“I can’t sell those this soon after stealing them. They’re hot right now. Once they cool off, I’ll make enough money to live like a king for the rest of my life, but this will allow me to pay the bills for the next few months. That’s good enough for now.”

“And this is the last of the evidence linking my family to the German gold,” Margot adds.

I gasp, and my hand flies to my mouth. So that's why Mossad is so interested. These aren't just letters between Nazi spies and their informants. There is evidence here that will prove that the Keller's have profited from Nazi connections, profit they continue to benefit from to this day.

“Okay,” Margot says. “We’ve done it. Let’s get out of here.”

They start to leave, and I stop the recording on my phone and dial Claudia’s number. If she hurries, she can catch them before they have a chance to hide the evidence.

I press the call button, and a loud dial tone erupts from my speaker.

“What’s that?” Margot cries. “What is that?”

The color drains from my face. I turned the volume off, but it still makes noise when it calls. My foolish oversight could cost me this case.

Or worse.

The door opens, and a strong hand grabs the back of my neck and yanks me through the door. My phone flies from my hand, and Lukas—the owner of the hand—cries out and slams the crowbar down onto it. The screen shatters, and the phone pops, then goes dead.

I look into the shocked, terrified eyes of the thieves and pray that the call got through to Claudia. Otherwise, I’ll have to hope that Lukas’s willpower remains strong and he protects me from Margot.

Judging by the look on his face, that isn’t very likely.