My sister called me at midnight and whispered, “Turn off all the lights. Go up to the attic. Don’t tell your husband.” I thought she was losing her mind—until I looked through the floorboards.…
My sister called me at 12:08 a.m. I almost ignored the call. My husband, Lukas Weber, was asleep next to me in our house on the outskirts of Potsdam. Rain drummed steadily against the bedroom windows, and the baby monitor on my nightstand glowed green from our son’s empty nursery. Finn was spending the weekend with Lukas’s parents, which was the only reason I’d managed to get any sleep at all.
When I saw my sister’s name, I sat up. Maren. Maren worked for the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA). She never called this late unless someone had died or something terrible was about to happen. I answered in a whisper. “Maren?”
Her voice was strained. “Listen to me carefully. Turn everything off. Your phone, the lights, everything. Go up to the attic, lock the door, and don’t tell Lukas.” A shiver ran down my spine. “What?” “Right now, Elena.”
I looked at my husband. He was lying with his back to me, his breathing slow and even. “You’re scaring me,” I whispered. Maren’s voice broke into a scream. “Just do it!”
I moved before I could even think about it. I slid out of bed, grabbed my phone charger without thinking, and crept into the hallway. Lukas stirred behind me. “Elena?” he murmured. I froze. “I’m just getting some water,” I said. He didn’t answer.
I switched off the hallway light, then the kitchen light, then the living room lamp that Lukas always left on. My hands were shaking so badly I almost dropped my phone. Maren stayed on the line, silent except for her breathing. At the top of the stairs to the attic, she whispered, “Don’t hang up.”
I climbed slowly, each wooden step creaking under my bare feet. The attic smelled of dust, insulation, and old Christmas boxes. I pulled the door shut behind me and slid the small bolt into place. “Lock it,” Maren said. “I did.” “Stay away from the window.”
Then the line went dead. For a long, agonizing minute, nothing happened. Then I heard Lukas’s voice from downstairs. No longer sleepy. Calm. “The lights are out,” he said. Another man answered from inside my house. “Then she knows.”
My hand flew to my mouth. Through a narrow crack in the attic floorboards, I could see part of the hallway below. Lukas was standing there in sweatpants, my laptop tucked under one arm. Next to him stood a stranger in a black raincoat. The stranger handed Lukas a small case. Lukas opened it and revealed three passports. One had my husband’s photo. One my son’s. The third had mine. But none of them bore our names…
Part 2:
