Circumstances dictated that beggars could not be choosers, so she pouted and took the keys to the small car. Even the pouty exit didn’t faze the man behind the counter.
She walked briskly down the sidewalk along the black iron fence. Across the street, a bookstore was closing down for the night. Next door to it, the manager of a hardware store was doing the same. Allyson hung a left into the cemetery and strolled down the path into the enormous collection of graves.
During the long train ride, she’d had time to research the city of Baden-Baden and learned that there were three main cemeteries. What she didn’t learn was the exact one that held the remains of Graupe. Potentially, Allyson would have to visit all three until she found the one with the grave of the late auctioneer. Luckily, she’d made a few calls and one worker for the board of tourism had narrowed down which cemetery she needed.
Her head was on a swivel as she scanned back and forth across the area. She checked for two things: Graupe’s name, and signs of trouble.
If Adriana kept the professor with her, and reason dictated she would, they would wait until morning to investigate the cemetery. Koenig would have knowledge of the exact location of Graupe’s grave, which would save them untold amounts of time. They could wake up and go straight there. Allyson didn’t have that luxury.
She kept her eyes peeled for any sign of the other thief, but as the orange-and-pink sky gave way to dim yellow and then darkness, she saw neither Adriana nor the grave. Allyson spent nearly an hour walking the rows, eyeing every tombstone until she had to turn on her phone’s flashlight to be able to complete the task. After the meticulous search, she started to think the person at the information center might have been mistaken about the grave’s location. It was entirely possible that Allyson was looking in the wrong place.
Tired and frustrated, she turned around and started back toward the entrance. As she walked by a small stone maintenance building, she noticed a few shapes in the darkness just beyond the far corner. She pointed her light in that direction and realized there was a collection of graves she’d not noticed near the boundary of a forest. Curious, Allyson changed course and walked hurriedly over to the half dozen graves huddled together in the shadows.
Her heart pounded as she reached the first tombstone. It was some name she didn’t recognize so she kept moving. The second and third were the same. When she reached the fourth, though, her breathing quickened with excitement. Allyson spun around, looking in all directions, shielding her flashlight with the other palm to keep from making a spectacle of herself.
She’d found the grave of Paul Graupe.
Satisfied no one was around, Allyson bent low and shielded the light from her phone so that it was directed only at the tombstone. The gray surface revealed the man’s name, birth date, and death date. She ignored the sentimental quote above his name and looked at the strange engraving at the base of the stone. Her frown returned. She had no idea what it meant. Allyson stared blankly at the odd words.
Inom Jannimt.
“What does that mean?” she whispered to herself in the dark. “Is that even a language?”
She switched off the flashlight and pulled up one of the apps on her phone. It only took fifteen seconds for her to enter the search term from the headstone, but the results were less than helpful. It returned a list of links to Danish websites she’d never heard of. While doubtful, it was entirely plausible that a wealthy Dane had purchased the painting. Allyson shook off the ridiculous notion. Why would a Danish collector have their name stricken from the records? Unless it was because they didn’t want the Nazis to find out who’d purchased it. Or worse for Graupe, who’d sold it to a foreigner.
Allyson rubbed her eyes and forced herself to use some logic. The results on the web search only mentioned Jannimt. There was nothing about a person named Inom, if that was a name at all. She entered a few other search terms but kept coming back with nothing that seemed to make any sense. So close, but without knowing what Inom Jannimt meant, she was completely lost.
Think, Allyson. She crouched in the darkness, staring at the bizarre words. Cool evening air washed over her, sending a tingle through her skin. She stood up and flipped her phone around so the camera lens was aimed at the headstone. The light on the front flashed brightly, sending an eerie, momentary aura across the surrounding area.
Secret codes and ciphers had never been her strong suit. Allyson was good at getting what she wanted, with whatever means necessary. If the words on the tombstone were some kind of cipher, that could make for a very long night. Of course, there was always her backup plan. She really hoped it didn’t come to that. Allyson slid the phone back into her pocket and trudged out of the cemetery. She’d noticed a hotel on the way into town that looked promising. All she needed was a place to work on the solution to Graupe’s riddle, and a bed.
Driving through the streets of the city revealed a relaxed nightlife. People laughed with each other at tables on street-side cafes, drinking giant mugs of beer and eating plates of heavy food. She passed a biergarten situated on the corner of a street, surrounded by a low brick wall, topped by wrought iron intertwined with ivy. White lights dangled on a trellis inside the walls, giving a festive feel to the patrons.
Something pulled at her heart for a second. Allyson winced and shook it off. She’d never had many friends. Mostly, that was by design. Friends could become liabilities, loose ends. Being a loner kept things simple. It also kept things lonely.
The occasional adventure with a random guy was fine from time to time, but that hardly helped salve the feeling of being alone, especially when they left in the middle of the night. Seeing all those people drinking together, laughing, enjoying a beautiful evening, it made her feel like something was missing in her life, if only for the briefest of moments.
By the time she rounded the corner and saw the hotel in sight, she’d already let go of the stupid sentimental emotions and refocused on the mission at hand. Allyson didn’t need friends. She needed money, investments, security. Perhaps someday, when she’d reached her financial goals, she would focus more on her social life. For now, however, it was all about her career as a thief. That last thought caused a laughing snort to escape from her nostrils. Some career.
Getting a room in the city was easy enough, moreso than she expected. The pleasant young woman behind the desk explained that there had been a few cancellations, which freed up some space. Someone else’s loss was Allyson’s gain. It never hurt to be lucky.
The room she rented for the night was in the corner of the building. Twice lucky, she thought. It featured a spectacular view of the rolling hills and mountains that rippled through the city’s old churches, rathaus, and dwellings. She plopped her bag down next to the television and pulled a black office chair out from beneath the work desk. Her mind and body cried out for rest, but right now Allyson was on a mission. She could spend the remainder of the night resting. She had to figure out what the words on Graupe’s grave meant.
For the next three hours, she wrestled with the troublesome riddle. She scoured the Internet for any information she could find that might give her answers, but there wasn’t even a sniff of anything useful. By midnight, her head was pounding from a stress-induced headache, sending painful pulses from the back of her head to the front. A pile of wadded-up papers overflowed from the trash bin near her feet, spilling over onto the floor. Her eyelids kept surrendering to gravity. They pulled down heavily like twin anchors on a cruise ship.