Free The House by the Lake by Ella Carey

family—not after her mother died when she was twelve, not after her father left, not unless she counted Max—it made his walking away from his past even harder to understand. But now he had made it clear that he had lost many things that mattered too.
    She stopped at the edge of the square, just before she turned in the direction of the railway station. The rattle of her suitcase came to an abrupt stop, like the rattle of a train on a line that was at its end point. The sun shone over the old buildings, highlighting their signs of decay, their age, their beauty.
    Someone had to revive them.

    Several hours later, Anna walked out of her hotel in Berlin, which was located a few streets into the old East Berlin, directly behind the Brandenburg Gate. Elegant shops and restaurants lined the street outside the hotel. Their glass fronts and attractive window displays spoke of prosperity and success, and the freshly paved sidewalks were busy with shoppers, office workers, and tourists wielding cameras.
    The old East Berlin had been obliterated, that was certain, but Anna could still sense its presence beneath the gleaming surface. Somehow, the past crept into her bones here just as it had done in Siegel. She walked farther into the old East and turned up a narrow street, passing two empty spaces that must have held buildings, once.
    The lawyer’s firm was on a wider street nearby that was filled with handsomely renovated and gleaming new buildings. Anna stopped outside an ultramodern glass and stainless steel office.
    The glass doors slid open for her and she stepped into a tall atrium. Immediately, she felt a sense of calm. The place radiated luxury and success.
    She had rehearsed several possible opening lines in her head until she finally settled on one. It was anybody’s guess how the lawyer was going to react.
    As Anna stepped out of the elevator onto the fourteenth floor, she was awed by the sparkling office foyer, a vast space with gleaming marble floors and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city.
    She took a deep breath and headed toward the well-groomed woman who sat at the sprawling reception desk. Once the receptionist had tapped Anna’s name into her computer, she nodded and asked Anna to sit in the waiting area.
    “Would you like a coffee?” Another woman appeared at Anna’s shoulder.
    “Oh, thank you,” Anna said. She hated to think how much this little visit was going to cost.
    Ten minutes later, Anna was attempting to make sense of a German financial magazine when a male voice called her name. She looked up and put her magazine aside.
    “Anna Young.” The man standing in front of her said her name pleasantly enough. “I’m Wil Jager.” He walked toward her and held out a hand, which Anna shook. The first thing that struck her was that his eyes were sea green. With his skin tone, she would have thought he would have brown eyes, so the green was both unexpected and very charming. Anna checked her thoughts. What on earth was she doing? She was not here to analyze German men, let alone one whom she needed to ask a singular question—one that he would no doubt find nonsensical.
    Anna looked away. Had he known what she was thinking? He indicated for her to follow him. She was glad he knew how to speak English.
    “You’ve come over from the US?” he asked.
    “I just arrived in Germany yesterday and came from Siegel this morning.”
    Wil Jager stopped at the entrance to one of the corridors behind the reception desk. He had his back to her, and he ran a hand over his jaw before turning. “Siegel?”
    “Yes.”
    “Oh.”
    “Yes,” Anna said. “That’s what I came to talk to you about.” She had thought about how to approach this all morning. Seemed best to come straight out with it.
    Wil started walking again. He went to the end of the airy hallway and held the last door on the right open for Anna. Anna was tempted to stop and admire the view from the large windows at the end of the corridor,