Page 104 of Take the Sub and Run

After reading the customs report that Andrei had made sure was the first thing she saw, she combed through the rest of the information he provided until she ran across a property deed. From there, she checked the family tree that had also been included. From what she could tell, the owner of the property—her father's sister and the sister's husband, were both still alive, though in their nineties. She didn't imagine they were living here, unless they had help coming in every day.

Sofie hung back, watching from within a clump of thick bushes. Hours passed, but no one showed up.

Finally, she decided to be bold and approached the front door. Though it looked well maintained from a distance, up close, there were spiderwebs in the corners of the windows, dust thick on the panes, and the plants in the pot by the front door were dead.

Still, Sofie knocked and wiped her sweaty palms on her pants. She might be about to meet her aunt and uncle. Pathetic though it may be to think about them that way, given that her father had never truly been a father, some part of her couldn't shake this primal urge to find and hold onto a family.

She knocked again after a few minutes, and when there was still no answer, she decided to peer in the windows.

Most of the windows were newer double glazing, expertly fitted into the old stone frames. That meant that their locks were also the more modern kind. Until Sofie reached the back of the house. There was one small single pane window with the simple lock that Colette had showed her how to pick one wine-soaked night.

Sofie wriggled in delight as she dug into the satchel slung across her body for a set of jewelers' tools, many of which could double as lock pics as she’d discovered.

It took her far too long, and she left one small scrape on the stone sill when her hand slipped, but it would disappear with the next rain.

Sofie tossed her satchel in first, then wriggled in the narrow window, grunting and groaning as she negotiated getting in without also falling on her head.

The landing wasn’t graceful, but at least it didn't result in a concussion.

She climbed to her feet in a small, poorly renovated bathroom and carefully closed the window. Wait, what had Colette said about an exit plan? Maybe she should leave the window open in case she had to make a quick getaway. Then again, given how hard it had been to get in the window, it probably wouldn't be any easier to exit through it.

She waffled for several moments but ended up closing and relocking the window.

Now that she was inside, the excitement had turned to anxiety. This had been fun when she'd been doing it with Colette at a fancy party with champagne everywhere. Her nerves were already on edge after taking her first train trip, then her first time hailing a taxi, all just to get here.

Sofie lingered in the bathroom, taking deep breaths, until she felt both calm enough, and brave enough, to exit.

The house felt still and quiet as she tiptoed from room to room. The bathroom seemed to have been the very last room that hadn't been updated and remodeled. Every other room in the house was beautiful in a timeless way that meant it could have been done twenty years ago or two. The size of the kitchen and the fact that it had an island meant they'd probably had to merge a few rooms to get the square footage for that.

A dining room, office, and library followed the kitchen. There were no photos or mementos to give her an idea of who lived here. Not until she came to the room at the very end of the house.

She wasn't sure what this room would be called. It was almost a conservatory, given that there were large windows on three walls that let in a massive amount of natural light. Two long tables down the middle of the room gave it an almost library-like quality, though if it were up to Sofie, she would much rather sit on the built-in padded bench under one of the large windows.

The ceiling was double height, the thick beams seeming small they were so high above her.

As lovely as this room was, it felt oddly unfinished, as if it hadn't yet found its purpose. Sofie turned to leave and that's when she saw them.

The one interior wall of the room was covered in canvases. From floor to ceiling, arrayed in neat rows and columns.

And she had painted every single one of them.

Sofie pressed her hands to her mouth. She'd expected to find her paintings locked up in crates and boxes somewhere, if she found them at all. Instead, they were on display in this massive room that now felt like a gallery. She walked up to the closest piece, and it felt like she was greeting an old friend.

“They're beautiful.”

Sofie screamed, jumping back from the scene of Hades watching Persephone she’d painted with heavy chiaroscuro like Caravaggio favored.

Sofie whipped around to see her father standing in the doorway.

Noah Visser walked to stand beside her. For many years, he’d seemed ageless, but now…this was an old man. His hair was as white as his collar, and his cassock hung loose on his now-hunched shoulders.

He still used the heavy cane he’d carried for years, but now he seemed to actually need it. The handle was a large marble ball carefully carved with the continents as shown on the Behaim globe. It had made her giggle that the Americas were entirely missing when he first showed it to her.

“Father,” she said, as much in greeting as in acknowledgment that it hadn’t been all bad. There were times he had been a father to her.

Hadn’t he?

She desperately wished she brought some of those articles Agent Baas had given her, because with her father standing beside her, smiling softly as he looked at her paintings, what had seemed so clear before no longer was.

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