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Abby placed the box on the pillow-soft comforter and tucked her legs underneath her, then opened it and spread everything out in front of her—the letters, the journal, the property documents, images she captured on her phone of the Nazi paraphernalia—and stared at it all. The items culminated to create one virtual question mark she was sure held a meaning she had yet to piece together.
Her grandfather owned property in Austria, purchased for him by a German soldier. He appeared to be the Yoel Gutman from the journal, but his cousin—at least it’s the woman believed to be his cousin—insisted they were not related. She also insisted he was not the Yoel who wrote it. And whatever secret GG and Lawson discovered, it was big enough to get him killed, and if Lawson was murdered in the name of her secret so was McBride to cover it up.
Then there was the storage unit and the chest. Was it blackmail material? Certainly, if Lawson discovered Grandpa had been blackmailing a war criminal all these years, which is how he acquired his money; that would be huge news. It would rock the foundation of their family. Grandma was not the type to keep quiet about such things. She was always one for justice. Could this have been the secret? And if so, was the chest the missing evidence GG had needed to link her grandfather to Irma Mentz?
The only way Abby would know if the blackmail theory was legit would be by finding Mentz. Could he be the man Abby saw at the coffee shop? Did he sneak into her room to see what evidence she had against him?
Abby shuddered. The idea of a German war criminal spying on her was beyond creepy.
If her grandfather were blackmailing him though, there should be more of a paper trail leading to him. Abby just needed to find it and pray it had not been destroyed in Klein’s office.
She shuffled the papers together and placed them back in the box, shut the lid, and locked it. Hopping out of bed, she made her way to her closet, but her reflection in the full-length mirror caught her eye.
A night of restless sleep hadn’t done her any favors. Her hair tangled and puffed at the top of her head in a wild mass, resembling a bird’s nest. A giant indentation from where the comforter had bunched underneath her ran from the side of her neck, down beneath the collar of her sleep shirt.
She ran a finger over the angry mark, and a familiarity bloomed in her chest. Needles prickled her spine at the flash of a scar in her head. One she knew well.
The image of the puckered line of flesh over her grandfather’s neck came to mind. She had been told it came from his time at Auschwitz, in the camps. A German officer had given it to him during a beating. But...
The hair rose on the back of her arms as her grandmother’s words ran through her head.
“...family can be the very devil in disguise. More powerful than any drug, more alluring than any sin. They can demand a loyalty that will rip your heart out and chew it up...”
She tried to swallow but couldn’t. Her tongue swelled in her mouth, a reaction to her venomous thoughts as dawning bloomed in both her head and heart like poison. The excerpt from the journal flashed in her head like a silent picture. The one where Yoel Gutman watched as the young Jew struck the German officer they called The Butcher of Auschwitz.
Abby shuffled back, unable to wrench her eyes away from the indentation in her skin that reminded her so much of her grandfather’s, unable to see herself but instead seeing her grandfather. His impenetrable eyes, the jagged pink flesh reaching from the top of his neck down to his clavicle. The one he always tried to hide.
She thought of the journal entry, recalling the words written there like they had imprinted themselves on her heart.
When the back of her thighs contacted her bed, she sank down onto the mattress on legs that felt more like putty then flesh and bone.
Unlocking the box for the second time that morning, she took the journal back out from its hiding place and opened it to one particular entry, hoping and praying she was wrong.
She flipped until she found it, her eyes scanning the words.
...Kuni, red-faced and hands fisting into balls of fury, runs full bore. Like a freight train, he crashes into The Butcher. Until the day I die, I will remember and appreciate the look of shock on his face as the boy lunged at him...
...Kuni somehow manages to grab a dagger off the officer’s belt. In one swift motion, so fast no one can react, much less The Butcher, he raises his hand, blade poised above him, and brings it down onto the officer, missing his head, but catching his neck just as the officer raises his pistol and fires, sending a bullet into the boy’s skull. Kuni slumps to the ground in death, his blade missing The Butcher’s throat by inches.
Numb to violence, the commotion didn’t horrify me. If anything, it impressed me that Kuni had somehow remained victorious, even in death. Because he had left his mark. The Butcher of Auschwitz deserved a scar as monstrous as his soul...
The journal shook in Abby’s hands.
“No. No. No.” She reached behind her as her vision blurred with tears. This can’t be. She refused to believe it.
A million thoughts fought for precedence, as she glanced up from the book and stared at her reflection in the mirror from across the room. Dull and lifeless blue eyes stared back at her, looking even more fatigued than moments ago. Her skin drained of color, and she dropped the journal to the ground.
Her eyes flicked from the mirror to the papers inside the box. Suddenly, it all made sense. The missing piece to the puzzle had been right there in front of her all along. Just like Kaden had said.
Reaching toward her phone, she grabbed it, clutching it in her hands until her knuckles turned white. She prayed for strength as she typed “The Butcher of Auschwitz” into the search bar and waited as the results loaded.
Her throat closed, her mouth turning to sawdust. There, staring back at her in bold print was the name Irma Mentz. The man from her grandfather’s documents. The German officer from the journal, the one with the scar. They were one and the same.
Her grandfather did obtain his scar during his time at Auschwitz, only not in the way he said he did.
Abby had been all wrong. He was not blackmailing Irma Mentz.
He was Irma Mentz, the Butcher of Auschwitz.
