Page 73 of The Librarian Spy

What if a visa didn’t arrive in time and the PVDE came for them? What if a boat ticket couldn’t be obtained and they had to start the process over again? What if the money ran out? What if Germany attacked Portugal and they had nowhere to go?

The worst of it was that there were no answers for any of those questions. There doubtless wasn’t an answer for Ava either, but she wouldn’t give up without getting advice from the person most likely to know all the loopholes in the crazy, shifting visa system in Portugal.

Ethan tossed the towel he’d been wiping a table with over his shoulder. “Ava, how did you know to come?”

She chuckled, good-naturedly. “Because you always need extra hands.”

He shook his head without humor, and that was when she noticed his eyes were red rimmed.

“Ava...” Her name tore from him in a ragged, wounded way that sent a warning charging through her.

“What is it?”

He blinked and a tear dropped to his cheek. He swiped it away. “It’s Otto.”

“Otto?” Her blood went cold. “What’s happened?”

“Ava...he...”

She stared at Ethan, her heart gripped with fear. “He what?”

“He took his own life.”

Everything around her froze in that moment. She remained still, stunned, her mind grappling with the enormity of such news.

“Why?” she whispered as the questions rushed forward. “When? How?”

Ethan pinched his forefinger and thumb over his eyes and sniffed. “He was found this morning, an empty bottle of morphine tablets by his bed with a note.”

Morphine tablets. Sadly, it had become a common way for a life to be ended, a bitter swallow followed by a blanket of dreamless sleep from which one never woke.

Otto was a man who fought for his success, for a chance at life. What could possibly make a man so determined give up after all this time?

“Why?” she asked. “Did the note say why?”

“He was denied an American visa again,” Ethan said slowly. “He’d already tried twice before, waiting out the six months in between rejections to attempt it again. I think after the third time...”

“If he had told me, perhaps I could have—”

Ethan shook his head. “His parents were German. There was nothing you could have done.”

Pain crumpled in Ava’s chest with the truth of Ethan’s words. There was truly nothing she—or anyone else—could have done for him. He had been failed by a system that was inherently broken.

“He left something for you,” Ethan said gently. “A moment, please.” He disappeared into his office, leaving Ava standing where she stood, her body numb.

She gazed across the room, seeing nothing. How could she when her thoughts were overflowing? She had intended to see Otto once she’d spoken with Ethan, to bask in the familiar sweet scent of his pipe and tell him about the mother and child who would soon be arriving in Lisbon. To seek his counsel.

How had she not seen the depth of his misery? How had he hidden such desperation from her?

The room blurred.

“Ava.” Ethan put his warm hand on her shoulder.

She looked at him, her throat aching with an emotion that wouldn’t let her speak.

He extended a packet of papers toward her. Combat showed at the top. She shook her head vehemently. She would not have his last act be retrieving newspapers for her. He was so much greater than that.

“It is not only these.” Ethan sifted through the stack, finding first the well-worn letter from Petra, then a second envelope with Ava’s name written in short, neat print across the front.