Only One Life: A Novel Part 29

Both of the family's cars were in the driveway when Louise arrived, but there still weren't any dogs barking as she walked up to the front door. The dogs' absence left her body with an empty feeling. The doorbell echoed through the house, and a second later the door opened.

Henrik Moller was pale and nodded briefly when she said h.e.l.lo. She reluctantly followed him into the house, and he continued down the hallway toward Dicta's room. There was an open mover's box in front of the door, and a few toys were spread out on the carpet.

Henrik stood there in the hallway and pushed open the door to the room. Big piles of little girls' toys filled the floor. The bed was unmade, but at the head end Louise spotted the dark hair.

42.

ANNE MoLLER DIDN'T EVEN LOOK UP WHEN LOUISE WALKED INTO the room. She was sitting like a statue, watching the little girl who was sleeping in her daughter's bed. Dicta's mother was holding a grayish-white teddy bear in her hands, one that looked like it had seen many years of affection and play.

Louise took a deep breath of relief and watched as Dicta's father nodded at his wife, turned on his heel, and returned to the kitchen without saying anything. Anne appeared to be unresponsive. She hadn't noticed that anyone had entered the room.

Louise walked back out to the hall and found Mik's cell phone number.

"I need two ambulances," she said. "I think Aida is alive, but Anne Moller is in shock or some sort of trance, or whatever the h.e.l.l you'd call it. I suggest that we call Jakobsen, the crisis psychologist at National Hospital who Unit A uses. I don't know of anyone else out here who can handle this kind of thing. If he can't come here, we'll have to bring her in to him, because she needs help ASAP, and her family-practice doctor doesn't seem to have seen fit to follow up on her condition."

Louise went back into the bedroom and said Anne's name. Silently and without startling Anne, she walked over and sat down next to her on the edge of the bed and tugged slightly on the comforter that was covering Aida's little body. The girl was breathing peacefully, and, as far as Louise could tell, there were no signs of violence or a.s.sault. She was sleeping with her hair spread out over the pillow.

Louise briefly considered whether she ought to pick up the girl and take her somewhere safe. But there was nothing in the room that gave her a reason to feel any danger.

On the other hand, she had no doubt that Anne Moller was beyond reach. Her grief had taken root in her and was firmly in control of her actions. But there was no sign of evil intent in her face. Anne had taken the child because she'd thought they'd taken hers.

The sirens sliced through the peaceful, upscale neighborhood. The two ambulances arrived at the same time, immediately followed by police cars. Henrik came in without saying anything, and Louise took Anne's hand and said that now Aida had to go home to her mother again.

"My little girl came back," Anne said, looking at Louise through unfocused eyes.

They heard footsteps in the hallway and an EMT stepped into the room, followed by a colleague. Suddenly the room seemed very small. Anne stood up and bent down over Aida, who had started to stir. The little girl sleepily rubbed her eyes and stretched her small body.

The next movement came as Louise was still sitting on the bed looking at the girl, relieved that she was in good condition. Anne's hands locked around the girl's throat in a chokehold that squeezed a deep gurgle out of her mouth and made her eyes shoot open in fear.

The two men were on Dicta's mother in a heartbeat, but she had a firm grip and put all her weight into her efforts. The girl twitched a couple of times, and a moment later she stopped moving.

At that instant, Louise swung Dicta's heavy photo alb.u.m against Anne's head with all her might. The blow flung the mother off the bed, and Louise scooped up the unconscious girl and was quickly out of the room with her in her arms. She laid Aida on the kitchen floor and stayed by her side while the EMTs started CPR. She kept calling the little girl's name until Aida finally opened her eyes in confusion and looked around. Her eyes were bloodshot and radiated terror, but her cries were soundless. The pain in her throat held them back.

Louise heard Camilla at the door and made room as Henrik led her in. Louise knew Camilla had been at the police station along with the rest of the journalists, waiting for Storm's press conference. Maybe Storm had thought she could help, because, with Camilla, the girl felt safe and protected through the shock of waking without her family.

Anne Moller was carried out. Henrik turned away when they walked by with his wife, but the pain in his eyes was so visible that it sliced through Louise.

"Don't you want to ride with her?" Louise asked, stepping over to him.

He shook his head imperceptibly, but walked slowly out to the ambulance anyway. Louise stood there in the doorway, watching as he climbed in to sit down next to the gurney.

Camilla was sitting with Aida in her lap. She was stroking the little girl's hair and kept saying that there was nothing else to be afraid of.

Louise walked over and tapped her shoulder.

"Let's go," she said, holding the front door open for them.

There were seven or eight cars outside. Several of them contained folks from the press, but Louise ignored them and left it to Camilla to decide how she wanted to tackle the intrusive photographers, one of them from her own paper. They'd figured out that there'd been a ma.s.sive police response in town and had followed the sirens to the Moller family's house.

Louise held open the door to the backseat of the police cruiser for Camilla, who was holding Aida in her arms. Once the door was slammed shut, Louise got behind the wheel and headed toward Dysseparken 16B.

The couple had seen them from the window, and Ibrahim and Sada were standing in the doorway when they came up the stairs. With tears in their eyes, they reached for their youngest daughter. In the living room, Hamid sat glued to the large TV screen, as if he still weren't ready to accept input from the world around him.

Aida clung to Camilla's neck before she let herself flop down into her mother's arms.

"We need to take her to the hospital," Louise said from where she was standing in the background.

"But we think she should have a few minutes with you before she undergoes the medical tests," Camilla added, smiling at Sada. Then she gave Aida a kiss on the forehead and started back down the stairs.

Louise followed her, but promised before she left that the family would receive a detailed description of what had happened. One of the ambulances had followed them back to Dysseparken and was now standing by to transport the family to Holbaek Hospital.

When Louise got back to the police station, she went straight into her office and shut the door firmly behind her. She needed to gather her thoughts and pack away all her personal and private feelings before questioning Michael Mogensen. It wouldn't do her any good to sit there face to face with the indicted man and his appointed defense lawyer with all her raw emotions tumbling around in her head.

In annoyance she removed the envelope that had been placed on top of the case file that had been sitting on her desk when she had hurried out the door following Henrik's call. Then she got curious, because it was anonymous, with no police logo on it, nor did it have any name on it. Mik was absorbed in something on his computer, taking notes from whatever he was reading.

Louise tore open the envelope and pulled out a photocopy of a map. Confused, she tried to find Cape Tuse or Honsehalsen on it. She was a.s.suming it was a map of the crime scenes that she was supposed to use during the questioning, but she couldn't make any sense of it.

"It's Vaxjo, in Sweden," Mik told her from the other side of the desk, tossing her another anonymous envelope. "Here's a little about the route we'll paddle."

She stared at him, unable to get her brain working and not wanting to be surprised with anything whatsoever.

"I'm not paddling any route," she finally said.

"Yes, you are. In eight days, you and I are going to Sweden to do a little paddling on a lovely system of lakes. It's right in the middle of mushroom-picking season, and we'll camp and cook our food over a campfire."

She stared at him with her mouth open and was about to protest vehemently, but he beat her to it.

"That's the kind of stuff people do with their good friends," he explained. "If you and I were dating, I'd have invited you to Paris, but we're not, are we?"

Her eyes fell and she closed her mouth as she considered this. She shook her head. No, they weren't. Then she pulled out the contents of the second envelope and started studying them.

"Well, then. I can't wait," she finally said with a smile, as she stood up with the case folder under her arm, ready to accompany him down to the interrogation room.

Acknowledgments.

Only One Life is fiction. All of it could have happened, some of it did, but most of it came from my imagination, and the characters in the novel bear no similarity to real people.

I chose to set the story in Holbaek, Denmark, because I've known the town since I was a kid and love it and the area around it. But I used authorial freedom to change some of the locations a bit, as with the police station-I moved the Criminal Investigation Division over into the large, red building even though they're actually on the other side of the street. The brewpub at the end of Ahlgade, Dysseparken, Hojmark School, Mik Rasmussen's farm, and Morgenavisen are not real. The Station Hotel, on the other hand, is, although I've also taken the liberty to permit myself a few changes.

In this book as in my previous books, it was crucial for me to do thorough research so I could create a realistic and credible picture. For this reason I would like to dedicate a heartfelt thank-you to all of you who met with me, spent your time answering all my questions, and offered me insight into your experiences, some of them painful.

Many thanks to Naser Khader, who patiently spent time explaining cultural concepts and differences and helped to flesh out some of my characters, both in terms of their lives and their behavior. A special thanks to the man on the National Police's Mobile Task Force who was more help to me than I really had a right to ask for. And a big thanks to my friend in the Pathology Lab, who's always game right from the beginning. Without him, there would never have been a book. And to my friends in the Murder Division at the Copenhagen Police Department, without whose help I couldn't have built a world around Louise Rick.

Also a big thanks to my capable editor, Lisbeth Moller-Madsen, who is an immeasurable help. Without her it wouldn't have been fun. And to Lotte Thorsen and Jeppe Markers, who read for me; and to my husband, Lars; his two beautiful daughters, Emma and Caroline; and my wonderful son, Adam, because you put up with me withdrawing to do my work.

Sara Blaedel.

end.