Blind Instinct by Fiona Brand Read Free Book Online Page A

been shocking to the nine-year-old girl she had been, and so had the circumstances surrounding his death. The entire family had been proud of the medals and honors Todd had won. Her father had steadfastly maintained that foul play must have been involved, that it hadn’t been a case of desertion, but when the scandal had leaked into the papers, the gossip had spread like wildfire. Sara could remember the whispered comments at school, the pointing fingers in the street, and her father refusing to let anyone answer the phone but him because of the crank calls.
    With hands that weren’t quite steady, she unwrapped the package, which was only loosely bound, as if her father had inspected the item then wrapped it again before stowing it in the cavity. It was a camera. Any lingering doubt thatthe things stowed in the wall had belonged to Todd dissolved. Underwater photography had been his hobby; she could remember Steve endlessly vying to use this same camera on dive trips. The camera itself was empty of film, but the side pocket of the soft camera case held a film carton with three letters scribbled on the side: ACE. She opened the carton, although she already knew it was empty. The film had been removed from the camera for processing.
    She began extracting objects from the pack. The first was a flashlight still containing batteries that were corroded with age. The heavy shape of the second item was instantly familiar. Guns of all shapes and sizes had been a matter-of-fact part of the Fischer family, and her life, for as long as she could remember. Her father had taught her to shoot at the same time Steve had been taught. As academically inclined as she had always been, she was nevertheless a natural marksman and had given Steve a run for his money during target practice.
    The glow of the bulb illuminated the maker of the handgun, Pietro Beretta. She placed the gun on top of the tea chest. The knapsack also contained a magazine and a box of ammunition.When she pulled the box out she could feel loose rounds rolling around, which meant the box wasn’t full. The magazine was empty, which indicated that the missing rounds had been used. That fact more than any other hammered home the intimacy of the items she was handling. They weren’t just objects, they had been the personal possessions of Todd Fischer.
    The final item was a battered hardbound book. Her heart automatically beat faster as she picked it up. The camera had been an emotional journey, the gun a window into the past, but to Sara, books always carried an extra zing. Whether they contained reference information or a fictional story, she loved the mystery inherent in page layered upon page, all closed between two covers.
    But she was reluctant to open this book.
    It didn’t have a title or anything on the spine to indicate the publisher or the contents: it looked like a diary. If it was Todd’s journal, then it was private and most definitely needed to go to Steve.
    She opened to the first page. It was written in German.
    Frowning, she turned a page and skimmed the text. It took a few moments for her mind to click into the structure and format of the language,because her German, which she had studied along with French at college, was definitely rusty.
    Flipping back a page, she found a date— 1942—and directly below that the phrase Schutzstaffel Chiffrier-abteilung .
    Cold congealed in her stomach. Schutzstaffel was the full name of the Nazi SS. Chiffrier-abteilung meant cipher department.
    Not long after her father had come back from Costa Rica, she had overheard her parents talking. She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop. She had been in her room reading and they had been sitting out on the porch. In the stillness of the evening, the words had floated in her window. At first she had thought the discussion had been a general one about World War II and she hadn’t paid it much attention, but when her father had mentioned her uncle’s name,