Read Online The Copernicus Legacy: The Forbidden Stone by Tony Abbott - Free Book Online

grief no matter where she looked . . .
    A man appeared at the edge of the wooded path to their left. He walked slowly toward the mourners, then stopped midway, his eyes moving over her and the Kaplans.
    Becca turned to see Lily still filming. “That guy over there stopped coming when he saw your camera.”
    Darrell stepped back to them. “You saw that, too? Here come his friends.”
    Two other men joined the first. One was a heavyset man with a chiseled face, wearing a slick black suit. The other was pale, smaller, and hunched over like a bent wire. The pale man spoke to the other two, who both stepped behind a tomb at the same time, as if they were connected.
    Becca watched the pale man pick his way carefully over the wet grass to the gravesite and stand close-by. His hands were folded, his head down. During a pause in the priest’s words, the man raised his eyes to Becca, then to Roald and Wade, then lowered his face. She felt a weird tingle crawl up her back, as if in that instant he had looked directly through her. His glasses were thick and his posture twisted, although he was not an old man. His left temple bore a nasty V-shaped bruise, stippled with dots. It looked recent.
    “Amen . . .”
    The priest dribbled holy water on the casket from a small silver vessel, murmured a final blessing, and it was over. The sky seemed to darken at the same moment. The chill rain came down harder.
    The crowd dispersed quickly, some to cars, others on foot on the paths and sidewalks toward the exits. Several people hailed taxis on the street. Soon the cemetery was empty except for them, the workers, and the three men by the weeping angel, still eyeing them.
    She stepped toward Wade and his father. “Uncle Roald, those guys are watching us.” By the time Roald lifted his head, slid his glasses back on, and turned to look, the men had gone.

Chapter Thirteen
    T o get out of the rain, Darrell squirrelled himself under the broad lintel of a haunted mausoleum next to the others who, he guessed, were silent because they were wondering what to do next. He was pretty sure what they should do next.
    “Ever since we had that bizarro conversation with Uncle Henry’s housekeeper on the phone, I keep thinking she’s got to know something.”
    “We’ll go to the apartment,” Dr. Kaplan said. “But we’re checking into a hotel first. We rushed to get here on time, but we can slow down now. We’ll clean up, then head over to his place.”
    “Which brings me to my next point. There’s got to be a restaurant in this city, right?” Darrell added. “Germans make good food. Maybe they don’t. It doesn’t matter. I’ll eat whatever. Did anyone like the food on the airplane? Let me rephrase that. Did anyone eat the food on the airplane—”
    “Darrell, you’re doing it again,” said Lily.
    He stopped talking, but his brain kept going. I ate it, but it wasn’t good and it wasn’t enough. No one else is hungry? I’m hungry. . . .
    “Why wasn’t Frau Munch here, Dad?” Wade asked. “It’s strange, isn’t it? She answered his phone. Maybe she even lives there, or at least in his building.”
    “Everything’s strange,” Darrell said. “It’s Europe.”
    Roald turned to face the exit, looking as if he were holding his breath to keep himself together. “I’m sure she’ll tell us something that will just put an end to the mystery. First, a hotel. Let’s go.”
    Darrell partly agreed with his stepfather—she’ll tell us something—but he wasn’t sure that the mystery would end soon. It probably wouldn’t. A coded email from a friend who was suddenly dead had to mean something in the spy capital of the world. Of course it did.
    Thanks to Lily’s online searching, they found an inexpensive hotel and checked into two rooms, one for Lily and Becca, one for the boys and their father. Darrell wanted to drop his junk off and get right back out on the street— Strasse , Becca told him—but sitting on the bed was a