Leo snorted, but Marie said, “I’m sure. I’m so excited to see what you’ve been doing.”

Dani steeled herself, pasted on a smile, and went through the adjoining door. “I am, too.” It was true. She was proud of Max and couldn’t wait to see his project coming to life.

An hour later, clad in hard hats and steel-toed boots, they were listening to Max talk as he waved his arms around. “This will be a counter where people can get headphones for self-guided tours,” he explained. As he took them around what would become the aboveground part of the museum, he was animated in a way Dani hadn’t seen before. Previously, when they’d talked on the phone about this project, he’d used the phrase history come to life. She could see it, but she could also see Max come to life. This was exactly the kind of thing he would get excited about—historical and meaty. A great story that had meaning for how people lived today. The museum was going to be stylish and bold, but once you went underground, revelatory and maybe even transformative. Hmm. That sounded like someone she knew.

They took a work elevator down, and as Max narrated during the journey, explaining what the descent would be like, she could picture it perfectly.

Once down, he launched into a story about a local woman who organized meals for the men who shuttled weapons here. “We found all these plans she’d written down. She had a garden herself and had sources for some of the ingredients she lacked. A neighbor, for example, had a yard full of turnips. She would concoct meals from whatever people had.”

“But what is this?” Marie asked, veering over to a corner that looked like it was meant to display letters—she assumed including those from Karina Klein to Max’s grandmother. Marie was standing and reading, and she probably knew Max’s grandmother’s name, because it didn’t take her long to catch on.

“Oh my god! Max!”

He smiled and went to stand beside her but didn’t speak.

She kept reading. “Where did you find these?”

“Those are replicas, but the originals were under the floorboards in the attic at the cottage.”

She turned to him, her hands in front of her face with her fingers spread wide. “This was already amazing, but you know this is going to be a revolutionary piece of news, yes?”

“Indeed.”

“And your parents are going to act like they knew all along.”

“I can’t control what my parents do.”

“Marie is right,” Dani said to Max later when they’d broken off into pairs to explore the cavernous space. Leo and Marie were poking around at the far end, out of earshot. “This is amazing. And not just because of the family connection.”

“It’s mostly Seb,” Max said glibly.

Annoyance sparked in her chest. “Don’t do that.”