Grace handed him the letter. “Jean found this inside the hen.”
“Not the surprise it originally came with,” Dmitry muttered as he studied the letter.
“Surprise?” asked Grace as she took her seat.
Apparently, I’d done more research than her. “Whatever would have originally been inside the hen.”
Jean leaned forward and picked up Grace’s golden hen. “In the first Fabergé egg, it was a tiny crown.”
“This confirms what the Dubois family told me.” Dmitry looked up from the letter. “Delphine is your grandmother?”
“No. Her name was Diana, and she was British.”
Dmitry leaned back, glancing at the letter again. “Did she have a twin? A sister?”
“She was an orphan. No siblings, no parents. At least, none we know of.”
“During the war, British intelligence sent agents into occupied France to work with Resistance cells.” Dmitry set the letter down. “They took cover identities including French names, French papers.”
Grace sagged forward an inch, and I fought the urge to reach for her hand. “You’re saying my grandmother was a spy?”
“Perhaps?” Dmitry shrugged. “If she was SOE—Special Operations Executive—she might have been inserted into Marseille with Delphine as her operational name.”
“She told us she spent the war in London.” Grace’s voice cracked, and her eyes found mine, as though I was some sort of rock holding her in place. “In the Tube stations during the Blitz. She said that was the worst of what she saw.”
“Undercover operatives would have been bound to secrecy,” Jean said gently. “I’ve heard of many who took stories like that to their graves.”
Grace let out a slow breath that sounded like, ‘Didi.’ Could it be true? Could the woman who’d shaped Grace so significantly have been someone else entirely?
The light in her eyes was dimming. The brightness she carried everywhere, the warmth that made people want to be near her—it was fading more and more with every passing second.
Something twisted in my gut.
Brain chemistry, Garrett.
I sank onto the arm of the sofa next to her, and let her take my hand again.
“Marcel’s son told me his father gave it to Delphine before she returned to England so it would be safe from the Germans. Marcel planned to go after her, but he was killed weeks before the liberation.”
“And no one else knew how to find her,” Grace said.
“No. The connection died with Marcel.”
Grace was quiet for a long moment.
“You said the family’s in Prague,” I said, giving her something else to focus on. If I propelled her forward, maybe she’d be able to cope.
“The family lives in Prague, yes. Marcel’s son, Henri, is the one who hired me.” Dmitry’s gaze flicked between Grace and me, as though searching for how to approach either of us with a proposition. “I am certain he would love to meet you and see his father’s egg.”
And there it was. The private investigator was little more than a bounty hunter. He was brokering a meeting and, no doubt, his finder’s fee. Eight years of legwork might be worth a small fortune.
“If Didi was given the egg to keep it safe,” Grace said slowly, “then it was never really hers.”
“It belongs to you now,” I said.
“No.” She shook her head. “It belongs to Marcel’s family. They should have it back.”
Dmitry smiled, and I refrained from glowering at Jean for putting us in touch with the snake. “I can arrange a meeting with Henri. He would be honored to speak with you and share what he knows about your grandmother. He’s currently in Zurich on business.”
