But deep down, she was curious. GG wanted her to reveal the truth, and as she told Mr. Klein, she wasn’t a quitter.
Glancing at her bag, she spied a corner of the envelope peeking out at her. She reached out with tentative fingers and grabbed it before she could stop herself. With a flick of her wrist, she tore it open, inhaled a steadying breath, and read.
Dear Abigail,
By now, you should’ve read the journal. Looking back, when I first found evidence of what I suspected to be true, I think I was blinded by my own denial of the things I had learned. With every piece of the puzzle, I didn’t want to believe it myself until I had concrete proof, allowing me to see clearly. Even now, I sit here, hoping I am wrong. It may be that way for you, as well. In case it is, let me explain by starting at the beginning—the time before I knew our family had anything to hide.
A little over ten years ago, I decided to do a family tree on your grandfather’s side, sort of a surprise gift for him. Admittedly, I had also hoped to trace his roots back to a surviving ancestor of the Holocaust. I wanted to do something for him because he had endured so much. I wanted to show him I cared, even if he never did open up to me about his experiences during the war.
I knew the names of his parents and sisters, of course, but little more, and so I went to Mr. Alvarez at the Holocaust Museum. He was a friend of mine from my time spent volunteering there. He had access to partial records of the Jews retained and killed at Auschwitz as recorded by the numbers tattooed on their arms. I thought, perhaps, I might be able to track down surviving relatives through their records. To my surprise, I found someone who I was certain was his cousin.
To make a long story short, she refused to meet with me. She insisted your grandfather couldn’t possibly be “her Yoel”, and after our conversation, I didn’t push the issue. I, above all people, know how touchy your grandfather is about his time spent in the camps.
It broke my heart not to expand my efforts to reunite the two, but I let go, with the intention of revisiting the idea later. My failed effort, however, didn’t stop me. It only motivated me to find another Gutman from the family. And so, I hired a private investigator. It was this choice that ultimately led me to the secret. He found out things about our family, our past. And when I told him I was out, that I was done looking, he never stopped. He contacted me weeks later with newfound information. By that point, I had a change of heart and told him I no longer wanted to move forward. I’m afraid whatever he found was lost.
Abigail, when the time comes, and you know the truth, you will need to decide what course to take. You will have the burden of proof, as I once did. The journal is a part of that, but there’s more. Go to my house and find the key to my safety deposit box at the bank. I kept everything hidden there. Inside is an envelope. Open it. Find the courage to do what I couldn’t. I never looked inside because I was afraid.
The key to the safety deposit box is in a small metal tin, buried in the backyard under my daisies. Find it and get the information you need to prove what I couldn’t.
Love always,
GG
Abby lowered the letter and swallowed. She was no closer to knowing the truth than she was before reading the letter, but something unsettling sunk in her stomach like a rock. She had no idea what might be in GG’s safety deposit box. She only knew she needed to find it.
AS ABBY EXITED THE highway, her thoughts continued to drift to her grandmother. Suddenly, the task of solving the puzzle she left for her seemed monumental. Why would she leave her these letters? Why not come out and just tell her what she thought she had found? GG said she didn’t have sufficient proof, but if she came right out and told Abby what it was she was looking for, it would make this a whole lot easier. And what if GG was wrong? What if, this whole time, Abby searched for a secret that wasn’t even real?
This could either be a monumental waste of time or hugely rewarding.
Maybe she was being overdramatic, but at this point, she’d rather skip college or have giant tuition bills than go through the painstaking and exhausting effort of researching the unknown. Who needed an education?
Psh. Not her. Okay, maybe she wanted to get her degree. But still. She could handle student loans like everyone else. Although, the sound of having her own apartment did have a nice ring to it. Hmm...maybe there was something to this trust fund thing.
If she was all in though, she needed to figure out which step to take next. Read the rest of the journal or get the safety deposit box key. She had no idea which she should do first, but considering GG assumed she had read most of the journal already, she probably needed to read more first. Whatever was in the safety deposit box may need context from the journal entries. Plus, the journal was her first clue, even if she couldn’t imagine how it was relevant.
Abby pressed her foot against the accelerator, remembering a key part of her grandmother’s letter. It seemed to Abby that whatever the investigator uncovered was the real clue. Maybe she should be searching for him instead. But who was he? It seemed weird she didn’t provide his name.
Maybe she needed to figure out who GG hired, then go straight to the source.
Decision made, she came to a stoplight and reached over, grabbing her phone off the passenger seat. She definitely needed to finish the journal, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t do a little research of her own.
She opened the web browser on her phone, glancing up at the stoplight, then back again. She typed into the search bar as the light turned green. Keeping an eye on the road, she accelerated and turned onto her street. Glancing from road to phone, she worked, scrolling through listings of possible private investigators in the Fairfax area when an object in her peripheral vision caught her eye.
Instinct kicked in. She jerked the wheel—a sharp right.
She should’ve gone left.
Slamming on her breaks, a crunching sound and the scraping of metal pierced her ears; at the same moment, she felt the thump of something under her tire.
The brakes squealed, and the car halted, whipping her body forward with the movement. Abby put the car in park and reached a shaking hand around her body to unbuckle herself.
Her breathing grew shallow as she peeked over the hood of the car, half-squinting, afraid of what she might see. Please be a deer. Or a bear. Or a garbage can. Something other than a person.
Her gaze found the tire of a bicycle first, then zeroed in on top of a blond head.
Abby slapped a hand over her mouth, and her stomach dropped to her feet. With a moan, the person rolled over on the concrete.
CHAPTER SIX