He’d returned home from the hospital at the end of February. His mobility had been limited, the stroke having severely damaged control of the right side of his body. Still, at some point, he must’ve retrieved the letters from a hiding place and put them in the safe.

Did he want her to find them, or had he planned to destroy them? There were only a few times Kira had left him alone during the three weeks he was home from the hospital. None of those times had she been gone long.

Last week, she’d returned home early from Morgan’s baby shower and found her father on the floor in this room. He’d fallen from his wheelchair and gotten stuck.

She’d berated herself for leaving him alone so she could enjoy a night with friends—only to suffer a flash of unexpected heartbreak—and then discovered he’d needed her.

He’d shushed her and said he was testing his mobility when she wasn’t there to coddle him.

She took a deep breath, thinking of that moment. At the time, unlike now, the room had the smoky scent of a fire in the hearth, and she’d startled at seeing the small blaze when she returned from Morgan’s.

No way had there been a fire when she left—she’d never leave him alone with an unattended fire in his condition—and he admitted he’d built it as soon as she was gone. It hadn’t been a large one, just a few sticks slightly larger than kindling engulfed in orange flame. He expressed pride that he’d been able to build a fire by himself on a chilly evening.

Now she realized he’d been near the credenza that held the fireproof document safe when she found him on the floor. Had he been burning papers, but then deposited these letters in the safe when she’d returned sooner than expected? Had he planned to burn them? 

And what had he burned before she got there?

Her birth certificate?

She hadn’t left him alone in the house in the week following that incident. There had been more fires in the hearth in the study—it was his favorite room, and he’d enjoyed watching TV in the new, accessible recliner she’d purchased for his return home. But he couldn’t transfer from wheelchair to recliner without help, so she was certain he’d never had a chance to venture to the fire safe again. 

Now he was gone, the recliner he’d died in destined for donation to someone who needed it.

She opened the most recent letter. Her father’s correspondent wrote in German, but she didn’t think it was the writer’s original language. There were phrases that didn’t seem quite right, but the person was clearly fluent—likely more fluent than she was—so she could be wrong. She wasn’t sure what their primary language would be, but assumed it was one she wasn’t fluent in or she might recognize why the word usage and order felt off.

Her first guess was Russian. Her father had always relied on her mother for Russian translation. But these letters were for him and him alone.

She read it quickly, translating what she could in her head. Later, she’d go back and do a careful translation to look at nuance.

My dear friend,

Our decades-long shared project at last comes to conclusion. My influence wanes, as does yours. But it doesn’t end with failure. That which you have sought from the beginning is within reach. Other works too. Yours and other families will see the return of their legacies and this sad chapter shall finally close for the Stoltz family, at least.

Kira paused on the name. Her father had told her his stepfather, who died when Kira was five, was a West German man with the last name Stoltz.

One last visit. We will drink a toast to success and grieve for those who are not present to celebrate with us. Your parents. My wife and daughter. And the countless people we tried to help but were unable.

It is within our grasp, Conrad. See you on 3 July.

The letter wasn’t signed.

Her father hadn’t been to Malta to receive this letter, so it must’ve been forwarded to him by someone at the Birgu address. Had the same person or family lived there for the last thirty-five years?

Over the next weeks, Kira tried to find the resident of the address, but had no luck identifying them and her registered mail letter went unclaimed.

Her search for the Stoltz family hadn’t gone much better. In need of a starting point, she’d combed through her father’s call history for German or Maltese phone numbers and come up empty.

Her luck changed when a letter arrived from her step-cousin, Andre Stoltz, who’d been unable to find a phone number for Kira, so he’d resorted to snail mail to send his condolences on her father’s passing.

Kira immediately called the number provided in the letter and connected with the last living member of the Stoltz family. It was a wonder to speak with a family member. It didn’t matter that they weren’t blood relatives; she felt kinship. This man knew her father. He knew about the parts of his life that had been hidden from her, all those visits to Europe. But most important, Andre knew what her father’s mysterious letters might be about.

According to her step-cousin, her father had spent the last four decades on a quest for Andre’s grandfather—Conrad’s stepfather—to find the Stoltz family’s stolen art.

It was in her conversations with Andre that the idea of visiting Malta—if she could get a passport—took root.

Chapter Twelve

Valletta, Malta

Present

Kira was nearing the walled city of Valletta as she read her cousin’s text.

Andre

I hope you have arrived safely. I look forward to meeting you tomorrow evening at the gallery reception.

She was eager to attend the private reception at an art gallery her father had frequented—she’d found credit card statements with the name and had called and learned her father was a favored patron and consultant. The gallery manager was devastated to learn of his passing and invited her to this reception, which was one of the reasons she’d been so eager to catch a flight sooner rather than later.

If she’d caught her Tuesday flight, she’d be plenty fresh for the reception, but with all the delays, she only had twenty-one hours to get acclimated.

She replied to Andre in the affirmative, then tucked away her phone. She didn’t want to miss her first sight of Valletta because she was texting.

The old walls that surrounded the city were stunning to her historian heart. Her PhD might be in art history, but it was still history, and every work of art told a story about the time it was created in addition to the time period it invoked.

Michelangelo’s David was as much about a biblical figure from an ancient text as it was about the Renaissance period in which it had been sculpted.

The walled city was lit with modern lights, but that didn’t take away from the historic nature of the structures. These walls had been erected in response to surviving the Great Siege. They didn’t exist during the siege, but they told a story of survival and a community that came together after living through the impossible and building a fortress to prevent the next siege from being successful.

They were fortress walls made by master builders and artists. And four hundred and fifty-plus years later, they were both a military statement and a thing of utter beauty. Add that to the rest of the architecture, all made from the same limestone, and Valletta was breathtaking.

The taxi wound through the streets that edged the city—never venturing into the upper section that crisscrossed the old town—and a few times, she wondered if the driver was lost as they went down narrow alleyways that couldn’t possibly be roads.

But they were roads, and all at once, the taxi stopped in front of a corner building with the hotel name at the top.

She tipped the driver in cash and entered the hotel. It was well after ten p.m., and the lobby was quiet. She was starving, but would have to make do with the snacks in her bag this late. At least the hotel had a small bar. She bought a beer to enjoy in her room.

Then she took the tiny lift to her top-floor room with a view of the harbor. Her heart squeezed as she took in the lights and sharp stone walls of the fort and city across the water. The main window faced the harbor, and two smaller windows faced restaurants, roads, and the wharf that edged the walled city.

She sat in a chair and sipped her beer, looking across the water at Fort St. Angelo glowing in the night lights. She was really here. Doing this.

Her phone vibrated. She glanced at the screen to see the incoming text message.

Unknown Sender

You shouldn’t have come.