An accidental slip of a blade...

A tragic incident on the operating table leaves a patient damaged for life and leads a young surgeon to abandon his profession as a physician... Now, years later, a series of senseless, gruesome murders are rocking the same medical community.

Then murderous revenge...

The weapon? A surgical scalpel. But who exactly is preying on these victims? And why? What does this grisly pattern reveal? And who will be the one to stop it? Special prosecutor Jana Berzelius, who has her own dark secrets to hide, is in charge of the investigation. What she can’t know, until she is finally closing in on the murderer, is just how her own mother’s recent death is intimately connected.

This intricately plotted and relentlessly suspenseful medical thriller keeps everyone guessing until the bitter end.

Also By Emelie Schepp

Marked for Life

Marked for Revenge

Slowly We Die

Emelie Schepp

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018

Copyright © Emelie Schepp 2018

Swedish Edition © 2016 by Emelie Schepp

English Edition © 2018 by Emelie Schepp

Published by arrangement with Grand Agency

Translation by Suzanne Martin Cheadle

Emelie Schepp asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © June 2018 ISBN: 9781474050944

Praise for International Bestselling Author Emelie Schepp

On Marked for Life

“A stellar first in a crime trilogy.... Schepp couples an insightful look at the personal and professional lives of her characters with an unflinching multi-layered plot loaded with surprises.”

—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“A fast-paced thriller with a good blend of police procedural, the draw of a ninja-strong female lead, and enough adrenaline to make a good night’s sleep a near impossibility.”

—Booklist

“Move over, Jo Nesbø.”

—Fort Worth Star-Telegram

“Intriguing.... The challenging, multi-layered heroine makes it worth the read.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“An exceptional novel.... The author has done a great job with the characters, and readers will want to continue reading this trilogy to see how these cliff-hangers are going to play out.”

—Suspense Magazine

“One mind-blowing thriller.... It will keep readers guessing and thirsty for more.”

—Manhattan Book Review

On Marked for Revenge

“In Swedish author Schepp’s outstanding second novel,

[she] sure-handedly brings her characters to unhappy life in a police procedural that lays bare the most sordid aspects of immigrant-related crime.”

—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Emelie Schepp is rapidly securing her place as the master of the ensemble police procedural novel.... Make time to read Marked for Revenge in one sitting. The pages just fly by.”

—Bookreporter

To Dad

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

THE WOMAN OPENED her eyes and looked straight up at me. Her hands began clawing desperately at the air, as if she’d just realized what was about to happen.

I could see her surprise, her confusion, and I whispered to her that there was no alternative, that it was too late, she had already seen too much in the back of the ambulance.

She should have kept her eyes closed, shouldn’t have looked around with her meddling gaze, shouldn’t have seen me take the ring.

“I’m sorry,” I said, pressing my hands against her nose and mouth, “but what would you do if you were me?”

She didn’t answer. How could she?

She struggled again to pull her face away from me, making one last desperate attempt. Her thin body thrashed up and down on the stretcher. She tried to grab my hands, but instead her fingers just pulled at my arms with increasing panic. Her nails tore at my skin, but I didn’t stop. I pressed harder. Harder.

She tried to scream, and I heard a gurgling sound. She couldn’t keep it up any longer; her strength began to wane, and she blinked a few times without any tears falling.

And then, finally, it came. The awareness. This was the end. Her brain let go of all other thoughts, taking in the reality—crystal clear and horrifying.

There was no sound, only a tiny gasp as she surrendered, as her body finally relaxed and became completely still.

I took my hand away from her mouth and listened to the silence. I smiled. It felt so simple, so undeniable, so complete.

This was a deviation from the plan, yes, but nevertheless it was a beginning. I was filled with excited anticipation, with revenge.

CHAPTER

ONE

Wednesday

PHILIP ENGSTRÖM LEANED against the black kitchen counter at the ambulance station in Norrköping. Cool spring air wafted in through an open window. He reached for the cup in the coffee machine, wrapped his fingers around it and enjoyed its warmth. Then he walked through the room, sank down onto one of the sofas and took a couple of sips before putting the cup on the nearby coffee table.

He had one hour left before his overnight ambulance shift ended. He had to fight a strong desire to close his eyes and drift off, if only for a few minutes.

He knew that he shouldn’t give in to his exhaustion; he needed to pull himself together after the shift’s stressful events, but he couldn’t help himself. He nodded off and was dragged down into sleep where he dreamed of a whirling, rushing waterfall. Then he heard someone yell, and he jerked himself awake, his hands fumbling over the table and knocking over his coffee cup.

“Philip!”

“Hi, Sandra,” he said, drowsily.

Sandra Gustafsson stood six feet from him, one hand on her hip. Her hair was blond and her eyes the same green as their work clothes. She was the newest paramedic, the most recent in a series of recruits. She was in her early twenties, competent, worked hard and seemed to care about her colleagues.

“Still tired?” she asked.

“Not one bit,” Philip said, getting up and wiping the coffee from the table with a wad of paper towels before sitting back down on the couch.

She looked at him as he attempted to stifle a yawn, then went to the coffee machine, picked up two cups and filled them.

He couldn’t resist smiling when she held one out to him. He took a quick sip and glanced at his watch.

“Time to go home soon,” she said.

“Yep,” he said.

“Do you want to talk before you go?”

She sat in the armchair across from him. Her body was trim and fit.

“About what?”

“About the patient who died.”

“No. Why would I want to do that?” he said, taking another sip of coffee, still feeling drowsy and thinking that he really should start taking better care of himself. The nature of his work meant his sleep was often broken, and as a result he didn’t sleep enough. He knew he needed more than an hour or so here or there.

“It was an unusual situation,” she said.

“It was your everyday heart attack. What is there to talk about?”

“The patient could have survived.”

“But she didn’t, okay?” Philip listened to the hum from the coffee machine as he thought about the woman who had died on his shift. He noticed his hands trembling.

“I’m just wondering how you feel about it all,” she said.

“Sandra,” he said, putting his mug on the table. “I know you’re just trying to be supportive, but that psychology nonsense doesn’t work on me.”

“So you don’t want to talk?”

“No. I already said so.”

“I just thought...”

“What did you think? That we would sit in a circle and hug each other? Should we all put on our comfiest pajamas, too?”

“According to protocol...”

“Let it go. I’ve worked as an ambulance nurse here for five years. I know exactly what the protocol is.”

“Then you also know it’s not okay to fall asleep on a call.”

Silence filled the room.

“Just think if someone found out?” she whispered.

“No one will find out,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, it falls under work confidentiality.”

“What?”

He looked around, checking that no one was within earshot.

“You heard what I said.”

“What the hell, it can’t be like that!” she said.

Philip met her gaze. “Why not?”

“You’re not sane,” she said. “You’re completely...”

“I know it sounds strange.”

“Strange? It sounds wrong...”

He looked at the door and thought about how much he wanted to leave work right this very moment. He wanted to feel the calm, hear the silence, above all be rid of Sandra.

“I’m sorry, Philip. I can’t let it go. You’re the one who messed up, not me.”

“I never mess up, just so you know. And that’s not why the patient died.”

“Do you really believe that?”

Philip stared at her as he raked his hand through his hair and took a deep breath to calm himself.

“Okay,” he said after a long moment. “This is what we’ll do. If, contrary to my expectations, anyone finds out that I happened to fall asleep briefly on a call, I promise I’ll report myself.”

“What about me, if that happens?”

“You can blame everything on me. Claim you were afraid to say anything because you were new on the job and all of that. Make it all my fault.”

She just looked at him.

“Do we have a deal?” he said.

“Yes, this one time,” she said, quietly. “But you should really get a handle on things. One more incident and I’ll report you.”

“Thanks,” he said, leaning forward and laying a hand on her shoulder.

“I’m serious,” she said.

“I know,” he said, getting up.

* * *

Prosecutor Jana Berzelius sat on one of the chairs in the broadcast studio with her legs crossed. She was waiting for her turn to be interviewed by Richard Hansen, the host of the morning program for Channel P4 Östergötland on Swedish Radio.

When she saw Hansen’s signal, she walked silently to the seat opposite him and put a pair of headphones on. She listened as Hansen smoothly changed topics and announced that next up was Norrköping lead prosecutor Jana Berzelius, here to talk about a rise in criminal gang activity.

“Extortion, robbery and violent attacks with hammers, knives and automatic weapons. Gang violence continues to increase. Jana Berzelius, you’ve been the lead investigator in many cases of serious organized crime here in Norrköping for many years. What do you think is the reason for the increased violence we’re seeing?”

Jana cleared her throat. “First of all, we have to remember that we’re talking about the number of reported crimes, that an increase in crime, statistically speaking, isn’t the same thing as an actual increase in crime...”

“You’re saying that the numbers lie?”

“What we can see is that gang violence all over Sweden is increasing, at the same time as violence in society in general is decreasing.”

“And what is causing the increased gang violence?”

“There are a number of possible explanations,” she said.

“Name a few.”

She leaned forward. “You already named the most important ones in your introduction, and I can only agree that increased access to firearms along with an increase in social and economic segregation are contributing factors in this context.”

“As you know, we’ve been tracking the criminal gangs in Norrköping,” Hansen said, looking down at the papers in front of him. “Our stories about gang activities regarding the illegal trafficking of weapons, narcotics and people are our most-followed stories. It has been a year since that coverage originally appeared, and there’s hardly been any improvement in this area. Very few jail sentences have been handed down, few cases have even ended up at trial and many people are saying that the Swedish legal system is failing. Should we be concerned?”

“There is always a risk of error in the criminal justice system, which in unfortunate cases can lead to wrongful convictions or even a failure to convict.”

“Can a biased prosecutor pose such a risk?”

“Yes, just as much as manipulated police reports, misleading expert witnesses or false testimony. No one, not even a prosecutor such as myself, can deny that these are the dangers that sometimes result in wrongful convictions,” Jana said.

“And what do you think about those voices calling for harsher sentencing for violent crimes, for example?”

“We can’t prove that harsher sentencing results in fewer crimes. However...”

“In the United States, they have prioritized stricter sentencing, and it has resulted in—” Hansen said.

“But we’re talking about Sweden. Norrköping, specifically,” Jana clarified.

Hansen looked down at his papers again. “Stricter sentencing is an important objective of the opposition’s legal policy.”

“The foremost duty of criminal policy should be to work for increased opportunities for crime prevention.”

Hansen looked up at her and said, “In so-called Policegate, police brass and businessmen have been accused of interfering with justice, accepting bribes and smuggling narcotics, and they will very likely receive long prison sentences, if convicted.”

“That’s correct.”

“From what I understand, Policegate is both complicated and unusual. Besides the obviously reckless elements of violent crime, this is also about a state-appointed official of the highest level who abused his authority, and very gravely so.”

“You’re referring to National Police Commissioner Anders Wester,” Jana said. “But we don’t have the whole story yet, and not all of the suspects have been questioned...”

“That’s true, but you can’t deny that harsh sentences are needed in such a unique circumstance, to set a precedent for how seriously our society views this type of crime, can you? This is about our trust in the police force.”

“I can’t comment on that case,” Jana said.

“But don’t you agree that the penal system is a way for society to see how seriously different offenses are taken?” Hansen said.

“Yes, but as I said, there is no proof that harsher sentences result in fewer crimes, in the short term at least.”

“If I understand you correctly, you think that, instead, we should invest more resources in policies that focus on prevention, and this is the only way to lower crime?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“And what has led you to this conclusion?”

Jana looked him straight in the eye.

“Experience.”

* * *

Nurse Mattias Bohed was walking through Ward 11 at Vrinnevi Hospital with his colleague Sofia Olsson. Outside Room 38 sat a high-security guard named Andreas Hedberg, his back straight and hands folded. As the two nurses approached, Hedberg smiled shyly in Sofia’s direction and stood to unlock the door.

Once they had entered the room, Hedberg closed the door behind them and locked them in.

Murder suspect Danilo Peña had been receiving care in this private room, with a security guard stationed outside the door around the clock. Mattias didn’t know much more about the patient than what he had read online—that the guy was a criminal who had been mixed up in what had come to be called Policegate. He was suspected of having killed several Thai girls caught up in drug trafficking. The nursing staff that had been handpicked to take care of him had received a strict warning: absolutely no one was allowed to be alone with the patient in the room.

“Did someone forget to turn off the light?” Sofia asked when she saw that the lamp near the bed was on.

“No,” Mattias said. “I don’t think so.”

The private room was small and, aside from the usual medical equipment and monitors, contained only a bed, a nightstand and a chair.

Sofia took out a small glass bottle and swirled it carefully before drawing the fluid into a syringe.

“Oh, by the way, you heard that the patient woke up yesterday, right?” she asked.

“You’re kidding.”

“Yes, I am,” she said, smiling.

“Are you trying to scare me?”

“No, I just want you to be careful.”

The patient lay quietly in the bed, except for the rhythmic motion of his chest as it rose and fell with every breath. He was flat on his back with his eyes closed, a heart monitor attached to his chest and arms tucked under the blanket.

Mattias kept his distance even though he knew that the patient was in a drug-induced sleep.

“What’s up with you? I was just joking,” Sofia said, noticing Mattias’s nervousness. “He’s never shown the slightest sign of waking up when I’ve been here. He’s hardly even moved—he’s been lying just like this every single time I’ve come in.”

“But theoretically he could wake up if the medicine isn’t strong enough.”

“Oh, just relax,” she said.

“But, really, what would happen if he did?”

“He’s not going to wake up,” she said. She walked over to the bed and spoke to the patient in a calm voice telling him that it was time for his shot.

“Why are you talking to him if he can’t hear you?”

“Force of habit, maybe?”

She held the syringe full of sedative in her left hand and lifted the blanket up with her right.

“Could you give me a hand?” she asked.

Mattias went over and stood beside her, then reached over and wiped the skin of the patient’s upper arm with an alcohol swab. Danilo Peña’s body looked thin, he thought. He had probably lost a lot of muscle mass while lying in that hospital bed.

Mattias walked around the bed and tossed the swab into the wastebasket as he watched Sofia move the syringe closer to Peña’s upper arm.

“Sweet dreams,” she said.

Just then, Peña’s hand twitched and his eyes opened. Sofia jumped back and dropped the syringe on the floor. It rolled under the bed.

“Is he awake?” asked Mattias, who had backed up several steps toward the door.

“No. Look, his eyes are cloudy, unfocused. He’s still unconscious. But I wasn’t prepared for him to... I mean, I was just so surprised.”

She leaned over to pick up the syringe, stretching her arm under the bed, but it had rolled out of reach.

“It’s on your side. Could you pick it up while I prepare a new one?”

Mattias looked nervously at the patient before kneeling down on the floor. He could see Sofia’s feet and legs as he searched under the bed.

The syringe lay far back against the wall; his name tag and the pens in his chest pocket scraped against his chest as he wriggled in to reach it.

Just then, he heard a thud above him. He looked around but couldn’t see Sofia’s legs anymore.

“Sofia?” he said, getting up quickly, his hand gripping the syringe.

His body flooded with adrenaline when he saw that the blanket had been cast off and the bed was now empty.

Draped across the chair next to the bed was Sofia, her arms hanging limply and her eyes closed.

Mattias stared at her, his heart pounding so hard that it thundered in his ears. Not until then did he realize that he should press the alarm button and call for help, or call for the guard. But his body refused to obey him.

He took a step back, turned slowly and discovered the patient standing completely still behind him, just two steps away, his fists clenched and his eyes dark.

Mattias gripped the syringe harder and raised it, as if to defend himself.

“Don’t even think about it,” Peña said hoarsely, stepping toward the nurse.

Mattias tried to jab the syringe into Peña, but his arm movement was too predictable. Peña caught his arm instead and twisted it, causing a sharp pain to shoot through Mattias’s body.

“What do you want?” Mattias whimpered. “Just tell me what you want, I can help you...”

The pain in his arm rendered him unable to say anything more. He couldn’t stand it any longer, and the syringe slipped from his hand and fell to the floor.

“Take off your clothes.”

“What?”

“Take off your clothes. Now!”

“Okay, okay,” Mattias said, but remained standing. He felt paralyzed, as if he were completely incapable of moving.

Only when Peña repeated the words a third time did he finally understand. As he pulled his white shirt over his head and dropped it to the floor, he noticed Peña’s monitor wires came loose and dropped to the floor.

“Pants, too.”

Mattias glanced toward the door.

“Are you stupid? Hurry up.”

The blow to his face came so quickly, Mattias didn’t have time to react. He touched his mouth gingerly and felt warm blood between his fingers.

Peña leaned over and picked up the syringe.

“Please,” Mattias said, “I’ll do whatever you want...”

“Your pants.”

Mattias quickly undid the drawstring on his white pants, pulling them down past his knees. He tried to pull one leg out, but his white gym shoe got caught in the fabric. He lost his balance and fell sideways. He felt a sharp pain in his hip as he landed on the floor but continued tugging on his pants leg.

He finally got his shoes and pants off and noticed the goose bumps covering his skin. He thought about his son, Vincent, who always got undressed so slowly. He always had to nag the boy when it was time to take a bath or go to bed. Now he promised himself that he would never nag him again. Never again, he thought, feeling a lump forming in his throat.

“You forgot your socks. Come on!”

Mattias pulled off his socks, and looked at Peña.

“I have a family, a son...”

“Get up,” Danilo said. “And get into the bed.”

Mattias stumbled forward, lacking nearly all physical control, but he managed to stay on his feet and climb up onto the sheets. He waited, panting and trembling.

“Now what?”

“Lie down,” Peña said.

“Here? In the bed?”

“In the bed.”

Mattias noticed the sheets were still warm as he laid his head on the pillow. He was uncomfortable but didn’t dare move. Next to the bed he noticed a heart monitor machine and IV fluid pole.

Peña bent over and attached the heart monitor clip to Mattias, then picked up the shirt and pants from the floor, and put them on. The pants hung loosely from his waist. Then he turned back toward Mattias, pushed aside the sheet and held the original syringe over the nurse’s naked chest, a half-inch above his heart.

“It’s time for your shot,” he said with a sneer.

Mattias saw the needle pierce his skin. Then everything happened so quickly he didn’t have time to react as a coldness spread through his veins.

A red dot appeared from the puncture wound and soaked into the white sheet.

He should have felt scared, but he didn’t feel anything. All he could do was observe and register.

Peña said something, but the words echoed as if they had been uttered in a tunnel. Mattias saw him adjust the white shirt, pick up the pen that had fallen on the floor, put it in his breast pocket and look at himself in the mirror. He smoothed both hands over his dark hair before turning again toward Mattias.

“Sweet dreams,” he said.

He walked toward the door. Mattias heard it unlock, open and close again.

“This can’t be happening,” was his last thought.

Then he felt it come. The silence.

Followed by the chill. It began in his feet and hands, spreading slowly from his legs, arms and head in toward his heart.

And finally, darkness.

CHAPTER

TWO

Unknown caller.

JANA BERZELIUS SIGHED, ignored the call and turned her cell phone facedown on the desk. She seldom, almost never, answered if the number was unlisted, and for the moment didn’t want to be disturbed.

She had left the Swedish Radio offices on foot, walked down the hill and across Järnbron, picked up her briefcase from her apartment, then drove to her office in the Public Prosecution Building. Once at her desk, she cast a glance at the computer screen and began typing.

Her cell phone rang again.

This time she picked her phone up and looked at the display, which again read Unknown caller.

Just then she heard a knock on the glass door. She looked up and saw her colleague Per Åström standing there with a wide grin. He waved hello with his whole hand.

She had come to enjoy Per, and now and then they had dinner together. Per was, practically speaking, the only social company she allowed herself. She didn’t like socializing in general, and felt no need to hang out with other people just for the sake of it. To her, conversation was meant almost exclusively for the purposes of work. When she was in the courtroom, she had no problem making long statements in order to present facts, but personal conversations were a challenge—a challenge she wasn’t interested in taking on. She wanted to keep her private life private.

Per knocked again, miming: Can I come in?

She looked at her ringing cell phone again, then at Per standing outside the door. If she let him in, she could count on wasting more precious work time—after already having lost a whole morning at the radio studio. Per rarely kept to the short version of stories, and even if he saw her look at her watch, he wouldn’t take the hint that she had other things to do besides listening to him.

The decision was simple.

She shook her head at Per as if to say “not now,” which only seemed to confuse him. So she spun her chair a half turn away from him, put her phone to her ear and answered the call. “Hello, have I reached Jana Berzelius? This is chief physician Alexander Eliasson.” The voice was remarkably calm. “Is this a good time to talk?”

She frowned.

“What is this regarding, Dr. Eliasson?” she asked.

“I’m sorry to call like this, but...I would like you to come down to the hospital.”

“Why?”

“Early this morning an ambulance was called to your parents’ house in Lindö and...”

“How is he?”

“I’m afraid that...”

“My father, how is he?”

“I’m not calling about your father.”

“I’m sorry, I thought that...”

She took a deep breath.

“I’ve been trying to reach him all morning,” the doctor said. “Your father and I have been friends for a long time, you see.”

“My father has difficulty communicating these days,” she said.

“Yes, I know, and I’m so sorry about what happened to him.”

“It was self-inflicted.”

She looked out the window, watching birds soar high over the rooftops.

“So what is it you’re calling about?”

“I’m afraid the ambulance didn’t arrive at the hospital in time.”

A few seconds passed as she tried to collect her thoughts.

“Are you talking about my mother?” she said quietly.

“Yes, I am,” the doctor said. “And I’m truly sorry, but your mother...Margaretha...has passed away.”

* * *

The sun peeked through the thick blanket of clouds, and the bare trees cast thin shadows over the asphalt. Detective Chief Inspector Henrik Levin pulled into a parking spot next to a Volvo and sat for a moment with his hands on the wheel. He looked at the police cruisers and knew that the forensic techs were already there.

Officers had searched the area and collected footage from the traffic cameras. The search for Danilo Peña, who had apparently escaped from the hospital, was in full force.

“Hello? Are you going to sit there all day?” Mia Bolander had opened the passenger door and was giving Henrik a tired look. He turned off the ignition, stepped out of the car and walked with Mia toward the main entrance.

As they walked, Henrik surveyed the area. He saw the people’s curious looks and the uniformed officers standing with their legs shoulder-width apart on either side of the rotating doors. Then he let his gaze wander over the large parking lot to the little grove of trees and stones and back to the hospital buildings.

“He’s probably long gone,” Mia said, registering his searching gaze. “But it’s fucking bold of him to walk straight out through the main entrance.”

“If that’s what he did,” Henrik said. “Four buses have left the area, twenty-odd civilian cars and two ambulances, but no one saw him.”

“Have we closed off the hospital exits?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

“And monitored the buses?”

“We’ve checked them. Nothing.”

“Paratransit services?”

“Nothing there, either.”

“And taxis?”

“We’ve checked with all companies, but we got nothing.”

“So how are we going to get him this time?” she asked with a sigh.

“The BOLO has already gone out. But he could just as easily still be somewhere on the hospital campus.”

“I hardly think so,” Mia said, wrinkling her nose. “And the guard?”

“He’s still missing. Danilo probably took him with him.”

With a practiced motion, Henrik lifted the plastic police tape. He held it up for Mia before he ducked under it himself and walked with heavy steps toward Ward 11.

He squinted at the bright spotlight shining from Room 38 and saw forensic technician Anneli Lindgren crouching down in the middle of the hospital room. Her white protective coverall rustled as she stood up. She pulled off her mask and nodded toward them.

Henrik stepped inside, then Mia followed. Both looked around. The air was warm, and a red handprint was visible on the floor.

“We’ve lifted footprints from Danilo Peña, so we know he got out of bed here—” Anneli gestured to the right side of the bed “—attacked the female nurse here, knocking her unconscious. She fell onto the chair, where we found her.”

“And the other nurse?” Mia asked.

“He was passed out in the bed when we came.”

“In the bed?”

Anneli nodded.

“Naked,” she added.

Henrik shoved his hands into his pockets and turned his gaze toward the door.

“So Danilo Peña forces Mattias Bohed to take off his clothes and lie in bed, then Peña dresses in Mattias’s scrubs, asks the guard to unlock the door and leaves the room.”

Henrik walked slowly to the door.

“So when Peña leaves the room...” he repeated, stepping into the hallway. “He attacks the guard, but doesn’t leave him here.”

“Probably takes him with him because he wants to use him as a hostage,” Anneli said. “But no one has seen either of them. Not yet, anyway.”

Henrik looked up at the ceiling and stroked his hand over his chin.

“So he leaves the ward with the guard’s help, but doesn’t go to the main entrance...”

“No, he likely goes down this fire exit over here,” Anneli said, pointing to the end of the hallway.

“Show me.”

They walked through the ward past a series of rooms and stopped outside the door that was the fire exit.

“We haven’t had time to go through all the elevators yet,” Anneli said, “but look at this.” She pointed to a bloody fingerprint on the doorframe. “But I have to get back now,” she said.

“Okay,” Henrik said. He listened to her footsteps become fainter as he stayed and examined the fingerprint. Then he carefully opened the fire exit door, walked slowly down the staircase to the next level and stood in front of that stairwell door, which he examined just as carefully. As he was about to turn the door handle, he noticed another bloody fingerprint. He slowly opened the door to Ward 9. Down the hallway, a television was blaring an interior decorating show. Henrik heard the show’s music along with the voice of the host, who apparently was teaching viewers how to build a stepladder. Henrik headed in that direction. As he passed the room, he saw an older woman in floral pants sitting on a couch, her gaze fixed on the TV set.

He walked by a number of other rooms, their doors all closed.

At the end of the hallway, he noticed that the door to a storage closet was ajar.

As he surveyed the area, he could still hear hammering coming from the TV as he tried to count how many civilians might be in the vicinity. Suddenly he heard a moan from the storage closet.

He drew his weapon and held his breath for a moment. Then he pushed the door all the way open with his left hand, his weapon pointed straight into the darkness.

“Police!” he yelled, but then lowered his weapon, his heart still pounding when he saw it wasn’t Danilo Peña in the closet.

It was the guard.

* * *

Jana Berzelius didn’t bother waiting for the stoplight to turn green before crossing Albrektsvägen and speeding along Gamla Övägen. As she drove, she mentally replayed the call she had just gotten from chief physician Alexander Eliasson that said her mother was dead.

A dreamlike feeling spread through her body, and she became increasingly surprised at her reaction. Her mother—not her birth mother, but the woman who had adopted her—had been one of the few people with whom she’d had something resembling a relationship.

But had she loved her?

No, maybe not.

When she had first received the news about Margaretha, she wanted to scream at the top of her lungs, smash something to pieces. Why couldn’t anyone in her life stay safe! But instead she had stood in her office, quiet and still, as if not to let the pain in, not to grant it space within her. Then, without a word to anyone, she had left her office, gone down the stairs, taken a deep breath of spring air and gotten into her car.

At the main entrance to Vrinnevi Hospital, where the ambulance had taken her mother, Jana noticed a heavy police presence. But she didn’t think much of it as she stepped through the emergency room doors.

A man with a high forehead and a silvery gray beard put his hand out and greeted her kindly.

“Hi, I’m Dr. Alexander Eliasson. We spoke on the phone.”

She introduced herself.

“I’m anxious to know the cause of death,” she said.

“Yes, I understand,” Alexander said in a calm and friendly voice. “Your mother, Margaretha, died of a heart attack. And although the ambulance arrived quickly, the paramedics couldn’t save her life. As I’m sure you know, heart attack is the most common cause of death in Sweden.”

Jana nodded.

“What do you think?” he said. “Should we go...see her?”

Jana nodded again.

They walked down a hallway. She was in no hurry to face what awaited her, but at the same time wanted to get the identification behind her. She walked a few paces behind the doctor. He looked back now and then and tried to smile at her, but she avoided his gaze.

“It’s hard, I know,” he said. “But at the same time, it’s an important part of the grieving process. I’ve heard many people say that seeing their loved one a last time gave them a sense of relief, a release.”

She didn’t answer.

“But certainly, there are many ways to feel, think and act when we’re confronted with the fate that awaits us all. Especially when we’re dealing with a parent. Were you close, you and your mom?”

He made one more attempt at small talk, but gave up after a while when he realized that she wasn’t interested.

Her concentration was fixed on her footsteps; she thought about how each step sent small, imperceptible waves through her body.

“I imagine in your profession you are accustomed to seeing the deceased. But it can affect you differently when it is someone you are close to,” the doctor said when they arrived at the room.

She remained silent, and he mumbled something as he reached his hand forward and pushed the door handle.

The door to the small room opened slowly. He let her go in first, and she felt his searching gaze on her. What was he expecting? Sorrow and nervousness? Or desperation, screaming, pleading?

Instead of meeting his gaze, she stood in the middle of the room without moving a muscle.

The entire room was yellow. The linoleum floor, the walls, the ventilation shaft. There were a table and two chairs, and a print on the wall depicting a blue sky over a valley. Otherwise the room was void of personality.

A room for death.

Her mother, Margaretha Berzelius, lay on a gurney with a white sheet covering her body. Her small, pale hands lay by her side atop the sheet. The tendons were visible under the skin. Her thin-rimmed glasses were missing. Her eyes were closed, but her mouth was gaping open. Jana noticed the slight bruise marks on her mother’s nostrils and thought it must have come from CPR.

“I am terribly, terribly sorry,” the chief physician said, pulling a chair forward. Jana shook her head.

“Are we done?” she asked.

“There’s no hurry,” he said. “Take your time.”

Jana felt her jaw muscles tighten.

“Thank you,” she said. “But I would like to leave now.”

* * *

Philip Engström unlocked the door of his single-story house in Skarphagen, stepped inside, flicked on the light and stood there as the door swung shut behind him with a thud.

From the silence, he could tell that his wife, Lina, wasn’t home. Did she have a lecture? Or was she at the library working on her thesis? He couldn’t remember what she had told him when he left for work the day before.

He yawned as he took off his shoes and jacket. He continued into the bathroom and took a pill from a blister pack of Imovane—a sleep aid—and swallowed it with a sip of water. Then he popped another sedative, Sobril, into his mouth and pushed it far back on his tongue to avoid its terrible taste. He swallowed that, too.

He’d been having trouble sleeping for at least ten years now. But he was able to get by as long as he took the pills that his doctor prescribed for him. He could only sleep when medicated, and so his sleep was never really deep or refreshing. But at least he slept.

As he dried his hands on a towel, he realized that his ring finger felt naked. He held up his hand and saw his wedding ring was missing. Where had he had it last? In the crew lounge? In the ambulance? In the locker room? He hadn’t the faintest idea.

Damn it!

Philip went into the bedroom and lay down, pulling the comforter over himself and closing his eyes. He tried to relax but couldn’t. He tossed and turned, kicked off the comforter, then quickly pulled it back over his body again.

Shit!

The conversation with his colleague Sandra hadn’t exactly made him feel calmer. He knew that she meant well, but it unnerved him. If she hadn’t become a close friend of Lina’s, he would never put up with her intrusiveness.

Sure, sometimes you might want to process something by talking it through. But in this case, what was there to talk about? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. A patient died on the way to the hospital. Period. No one’s fault. It happens. Not everyone survives a heart attack.

Truth be told, there was only one person he could really talk to these days. Not about his feelings, of course, but about everything else. His colleague Katarina Vinston, who was six years older than him and who was not only incredibly supportive, but also a skilled paramedic and ambulance driver.

He and Katarina had spent a lot of time together on the job. They had long conversations in the rig, and often ate and even exercised together in between calls. Their professional relationship had gradually spilled over into a more personal one. Katarina was the only person he could fully confide in. She was his best friend.

Philip reached for his pants on the floor, and although he knew the pills would take effect any minute, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and called Katarina on FaceTime. When she answered, he immediately wrinkled his forehead in worry. The beautiful, dark-haired woman he knew was now pale-faced, her cheeks sunken in.

“It seems as if you’ve been out sick a long time,” he said.

“Only a week,” she said softly, “not that long.”

“You don’t look like yourself,” he said, “but I’m still glad to see you.”

She laughed out loud.

“I take it I should ask how you’re feeling,” he said.

“I’m better,” she said.

“Better, meaning healthy?”

“Yes. I’ll be there for our workout tomorrow.”

“Are you sure?”

She laughed again, louder this time, and Philip saw her eyes glitter.

“But I would’ve liked to stay at home a bit longer,” she said.

“Why? Aren’t you feeling well enough?”

“Oh, that’s not it. I’m just getting tired of working, of the routine. Aren’t you?”

“No, actually. I could work forever as long as the job stays interesting.”

“And you think it is?”

“Yes, I do. I like my colleagues, and enjoy being with them and they...well...”

“They like being with you?”

“Yes. At least I think so.”

“And that’s important to you?”

“What can I say?” Philip said, his voice steady, meeting her thoughtful gaze. “I’m reliable. Without me, the whole place would fall apart.”

“What about Richard Nilsson?” she asked suddenly.

“What about him?”

“I was asked to take his shift tonight, but I said no. Is he sick, too?”

“No idea. Either he has a bad cold, or he’s sitting at home with his old lady and kids. Doesn’t matter to me.”

“So did you take the shift, Philip?”

“Yes. I clock in again at eight tonight.”

“And that’s the start of a twenty-four-hour shift?”

“It’s not against the rules.”

She held her pale blue eyes on him for a long time before saying: “I don’t understand how you can do it. Don’t you get exhausted?”

“Not really,” he said, and now it was his turn to smile. He grinned widely but not convincingly enough.

She shook her head. “It’s never a problem for you, is it?” she said.

“Nope. I like to keep busy and I like my job.”

“Well, I’m going to have a problem with you if you don’t go to sleep now.”

“Why? What do you mean?”

“I mean that I want to work alongside a well-rested colleague at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. Especially if you’ve already been working the previous twelve hours. So go to sleep now.”

“It’s hard to sleep when it’s still light out.”

“Try anyway.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “See you in the morning, then, Katarina.”

And then she was gone.

Philip put the phone down on his stomach and observed the numbness starting to flow through his body from the pills. He looked at the potted plant on the windowsill, watched the leaves swaying back and forth, and relaxed, relieved that the pills had started to take effect.

* * *

Jana Berzelius had seen death up close many times. But seeing her mother’s body at the hospital was another thing altogether. It was too close, and she hadn’t been prepared for it. Now her body would be sent to the morgue, lying there until the funeral took place.

Jana didn’t care that a heart attack was the most common cause of death in Sweden. The only thing she could think about was how sad she felt now that her mother was really gone—forever. And that the sadness surprised her.

She rested her elbow on the inside of the car door and decided there was no reason to get all emotional. Her mother was dead, and she might as well just notify her father immediately. He should know.

She started to drive, passed a small truck, swung through a roundabout and continued on Lindövägen. She darted around a bus marked with orange-and-red circles that was about to swing out from its stop. The driver honked the horn loudly with annoyance several times at her.

When she stopped in front of the large white house in the wealthy Lindö neighborhood, she realized that her palms were damp. Her keys jingled as she unlocked the front door to her childhood home.

In the hallway, she was met by a musty odor that repulsed her. She felt a fleeting panic in her chest and fought the impulse to leave, to escape the rotten, sickly sweet smell of illness.

But she had no choice.

She had to tell her father.

Her palms were still sweating as she unbuttoned her coat and hung it on the brass hook.

Jana glanced down the hallway lined with rooms, then walked toward the kitchen. The house was unlit, but sunlight peeked in through the curtains of the living room and was reflected on the ceiling as she passed through.

She could hear a strange rolling sound coming from the kitchen.

She stood still, listening.

It was almost three months ago that her father tried to commit suicide when she confronted him about his involvement in Policegate. She alone knew that he had been corrupt throughout his career as a prosecutor. And she had made a promise to him to never reveal it.

She heard it again. A heavy, swinging sound, as if a person was slowly wheeling himself across a wooden floor.

As she entered the kitchen, she saw the wheelchair and stood observing for a long time.

There he sat.

Old. Gray. Miserable. Incapacitated.

“Hello, Father,” she said.

* * *

Lead investigator Gunnar Öhrn opened a can of Coca-Cola and drank it quickly, as if he were worried it would go flat. Henrik and Mia stood next to him near the window. It was afternoon, and the staff kitchen was otherwise empty.

“It feels shitty to be hunting Danilo Peña again,” Mia said, slurping her coffee.

“The boathouse where you caught him, might he have gone back there?” asked Henrik.

“Hardly,” Mia said. “He’s definitely fucking disturbed, but he’s not that crazy. Arkösund has to be the last place he’d go.”

Mia thought of the boathouse, and she could almost feel the cold whirling flakes as she watched the ambulance helicopter take off into the sky above her. They had managed to rescue a Thai girl from drowning, a girl who had been used as a mule in the Policegate drug ring. Close to the boathouse they had also found Danilo, the man who was holding the Thai girl captive in the boathouse and who had tried to kill her.

Gunnar sighed.

“But how could he be in a medically induced coma and then just suddenly stand up, plan his escape and just walk away? The doctors at Vrinnevi must not have been monitoring his condition very closely,” he said. “Why was he in the hospital for so long, anyway?”

“I talked with one of the doctors,” Henrik said. “There’d been a complication after the various surgeries he underwent for his injuries. Something had started leaking after the last of the operations when they stitched up his intestines. It caused an infection, if I understood the doctor correctly,” Henrik said. “Danilo was on a number of medications as he recovered, including Stesolid, which is a muscle relaxant and a sedative...”

“And which put Mattias right to sleep,” Mia said.

“Yes, Stesolid makes you drowsy. But if you stick a needle full directly into your chest, you risk hitting the heart or lungs. You can die if you don’t get care immediately.”

“So Mattias Bohed got lucky,” Gunnar said. “Have we gotten any information from the guard who was beaten and locked in the closet?”

“Nothing worthwhile,” Henrik said.

Anneli Lindgren came into the staff kitchen and nodded at them, her eyebrows raised.

“Are you having a meeting in here?” she asked.

“Only of the more informal variety,” Henrik replied.

She took a mug from the cupboard and filled it with hot water. Gunnar tried to ignore Anneli, pretending that his former live-in partner and the mother of his child hadn’t entered the room.

“Was his name Anders, the guard?” he asked.

“Andreas,” Henrik said.

“Sorry, I...”

Gunnar took three long, slow gulps of his Coke as he waited for Anneli to leave the room with her cup of tea.

“So. Where were we?” he said once the sound of her footsteps had disappeared down the hallway.

“The guard’s name is Andreas Hedberg, and he’s twenty-four years old,” Henrik said. “Worked as a guard for a year or so.”

“And he probably won’t stay after this,” Mia said.

“Why did they have a relative rookie outside the door? I thought we insisted on only the most experienced,” Gunnar said. “Have we checked him out thoroughly? He didn’t help Peña, did he?”

“And received a beating as thanks, you mean?” Mia said.

“Probably not,” Henrik said. “But we’re questioning him this afternoon.”

“Should we put Danilo’s name out there?” Gunnar asked. “I assume the media has already snapped up the news. You don’t cordon off the entrance to Vrinnevi without good reason.”

Henrik furrowed his brow.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that Danilo Peña is a dangerous criminal.”

“But we’ve already issued a BOLO for him once, in connection with Policegate,” Henrik said, looking resolute. “Won’t it make us look completely ridiculous if we put his name and picture out there again?”

“Yes, but do we have a choice?” Mia said. “How long can we hide that Peña has escaped from his guarded room at the hospital? If something happens while he’s AWOL, it will only mean that we have to deal with a whole new mess of shit. Haven’t we already had enough to deal with?”

“You have a point there, Mia,” Gunnar said, setting his empty can on the table. “But I agree with Henrik, that it’s probably better to work quietly for a bit longer.”

“Good,” Henrik said. “We have to focus on finding him before the media even knows that he has escaped and prove that our new organization actually works.”

Gunnar grinned.

“Okay, then,” he said. “Collect all of the information we have on Danilo.”

“What do you want to know?” Henrik asked.

“I want to know everything. Again.”

CHAPTER

THREE

PHILIP ENGSTRÖM STARED at the ceiling light, thinking about the strange dream he’d just woken up from. He had been in a museum, looking at a man dressed all in white who was standing completely still in a glass case. The disturbing part was that the man looked exactly like him.

He reached across the bed, grabbed his cell phone to check the time and saw that it was already five in the afternoon. He also saw a text from Lina, read it quickly and got out of bed.

He put on his pants and pulled a shirt over his head as he left the bedroom and walked into the kitchen. As usual, the refrigerator door refused to open until he jerked the handle with both hands. He surveyed its contents: butter packets, ketchup bottle, jar of pickles.

Just as he picked up the milk carton to check the expiration date, he heard Lina’s voice from the entranceway.

“Hello? Sweetie, are you home?”

“Yes, I’m here,” he answered. He heard the front door close as he took a mouthful of milk from the carton and put it back in the fridge. When she came into the kitchen, he was standing quietly by the kitchen table.

“Great that you’re already up,” she said. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yeah,” he mumbled.

She caressed his arm, gave him a light kiss on the cheek and set a white plastic bag on the table.

“I got takeout.”

“Oh, nice.”

“Red curry.”

“Are we celebrating something?” he asked

“No, I just didn’t want to waste time cooking dinner. I thought we could use the time for something better.”

Philip felt her hand slip around his arm, and he looked at her. The text message she’d sent earlier had been just three words: Snuggle time tonight.

It meant that she wanted to have sex at least once if not more in the next few hours before he had to leave for work. Their wedding three years ago had marked the beginning of a long struggle with infertility. He was now in his thirties, and she was only twenty-five, and it felt as if they already had tried everything. Their specialist could not find any medical reason why they couldn’t get pregnant on their own; they were told they probably just needed to relax.

Lina eventually devised the current plan, a schedule to have sex as often as possible around when she was ovulating,

Today happened to be three days before, and so they should have sex. Not necessarily because they wanted to—just because that was how their life was now.

“We have to,” she said.

“I know, I know,” he said. But he didn’t want to think about routines and schedules. Not today, and especially not now. He hoped the stiffness of his smile wouldn’t give him away, but it did.

“Don’t you want to?”

“Of course I do.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!” he said, much more emphatically than he’d intended.

She jerked away and refused to look at him, instead staring into the bag at the aluminum containers with their steaming lids.

Philip didn’t know what to say. He hated the goddamn plan. Hated to have sex on schedule like a stupid robot.

One day several years ago he had been told by his own father that he was a coward, a loser, for choosing to be an ambulance nurse. He hadn’t spoken to his father since that day, but what if he had? What would his father say to him if he found out that his son wasn’t even capable of getting his wife, the love of his life, pregnant? Would he call him a double loser? Or something even worse?

Fortunately he would never know. He made a promise to himself never to speak with his father again. But even so, his father’s words had affected him. He actually felt like a loser all the time, but he tried not to show it or speak of it. Not even with Lina. He didn’t want to let her in that close. Didn’t want her to think of him as both inadequate and weak.

“Look...” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she said, shrugging her shoulders in disappointment and pulling one of the containers out of the bag.

Suddenly he felt dizzy and closed his eyes when he realized he was seeing double. When he opened them again, she was looking at him questioningly.

“Maybe we should just eat,” she said curtly, taking out the other container.

Now it was his turn to stop her.

“Come on, now...” he said.

She shook her head so forcefully that her light brown hair fell into her face. He went over to her, lifted her chin and kissed her softly on the mouth. Then he let his hand travel over her cheek and around the back of her neck. He looked at her with a smile in his eyes and knew there was only one way to make her happy.

He pressed his lips against hers again, and this time, she responded in kind. His hands found the small of her back and her skin underneath her clothes, her soft breasts, her panties.

They might just as well make love right there on the table, or standing against the wall, or on the kitchen floor. He didn’t care, and he knew she didn’t, either. Nothing else mattered as long as they had sex.

Now he felt her eager hands pulling at his shirt. Her breath quickened as he pressed her against the wall, felt her body trembling in excitement. He kissed her again.

“Come with me,” he said, holding out his hand.

“Aren’t we going to eat?” she said, taking it.

“Yes, but let’s start with dessert.”

* * *

Jana Berzelius watched as her father held his fork clumsily, bringing it to his mouth with great concentration. But his hand seemed to have a mind of its own and the food ended up on his cheek and chin. She was sitting with him and his nurse in the kitchen in Lindö.

Her mother had told her that meals took time and that her father had finally begun to eat by himself, but Jana had never imagined that she would see him eating like a child, undignified, a bib around his neck and food around his mouth.

He dropped the food again, then lowered his fork to scoop up another bite when the nurse stopped him. She smiled, took the fork from him and picked up a small mound of mashed potatoes.

“Open your mouth,” she said softly.

But he refused, turning his head away and pressing his lips together like a defiant child. She bumped the mashed potatoes against his mouth.

“Come now, open your mouth now, Karl.”

Jana had no desire to sit there any longer and watch him struggle with his meal. She left the kitchen soundlessly.

She went up the stairs and through the hallway, opening the door to her father’s office. From the doorway, she surveyed the shelves, desk and paintings on the walls.

It had all happened in this room.

Jana had tried to stop him that day from shooting himself with the pistol. The bullet had traveled diagonally, injuring the left side of his brain, which meant that he couldn’t walk or move his body properly.

She stepped into the room now and walked around the desk. She saw the mess of papers and thought how nothing was like the old days. Her father’s strict order was gone, the sense of control that had been his signature all these years.

She paged slowly through bills for water, electricity, trash collection. Various dates, all out of order. Dozens of papers in no organization whatsoever.

She had just begun straightening them into a neat stack when she heard someone clear their throat behind her. She looked up and saw the caretaker standing in the doorway.

“Yes?” Jana said curtly, irritated at the woman’s curious gaze.

“You’re the daughter, Jana, right?” she asked. “I didn’t have the chance to greet you properly in the kitchen. I’m Elin Ronander.”

“I didn’t want to disturb him while he was eating,” Jana said.

“And I’m sorry to bother you now, but I’m just wondering where Margaretha is...?” Elin said. “She always leaves a note on the kitchen table if she is going somewhere. When we came home early this morning from the overnight stay at the rehabilitation center in Örebro early, she wasn’t here. I was surprised and there wasn’t a note. I called her cell, but...”

Jana looked at her. “How long have you been taking care of my father?”

“Since he came home from the hospital. Your mother hired me because she was feeling overwhelmed. I work twenty-four-hour days.”

“So how well do you know Karl?”

“Well, I take care of his physical needs,” she said. “But I don’t know much beyond that.”

“I want your objective opinion. I need to know exactly how he’s doing and what his prognosis is.”

Multiple wrinkles appeared on Elin’s forehead as she took off her glasses and polished them on her knitted cardigan.

“Karl has made considerable progress in recent weeks,” she said.

“And what about the future?”

“That I can’t say. You’d of course have to ask his doctors.”

Jana picked up the stack of papers, tapping it twice against the desk.

“But do you think he might make a full recovery?”

Elin sighed and put her glasses back on.

“I imagine it’s going to be a long and difficult rehabilitation for him, but I’m seeing distinct improvements all the time. Just a week ago, he couldn’t get out of his wheelchair without help. This morning he not only got out of it, but took a few steps all by himself.”

“So the answer is yes?”

“Look, it’s very difficult to say for sure, but if everything goes well, he should eventually be able to walk in the garden here.”

“And his speech?”

“He will need to work on that regularly, too. Every day. He needs that stimulation in order to learn to speak again,” she said. “And it’s important that family members help as much as they can.”

“I can’t come here that often,” Jana said.

She walked around the desk, past Elin.

“Then your mother will have to bear a heavy load. My contract is only for two more months.”

Jana froze.

“I’ll renew the contract if you will take full responsibility for his rehabilitation. Is that acceptable?”

Elin nodded yes.

“Good,” Jana said. “And one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“Tell Father that his wife is dead.”

* * *

Anneli Lindgren stood on the staircase landing and raised her hand to knock. It felt odd standing there like a stranger outside her own front door. She unzipped her jacket as she waited and ran her hand down over her shirt in an attempt to smooth out any wrinkles that had formed over the course of the day.

Gunnar opened the door but wouldn’t look directly at her. He hadn’t last time, either.

“It’s all in the bedroom,” he said, leaving the door ajar as he walked back into the kitchen.

She noticed the odor of fried food and saw an empty frying pan on the stove. A jar of lingonberry jam and two empty plates sat on the kitchen table.

“Don’t you use the hood vent?” she asked.

“There are six boxes,” he said, ignoring her question and putting the lid back on the jam jar. “They’re right by the door.”

“Does Adam know I’m here?”

“Adam!” Gunnar yelled at the top of his lungs.

“Well, he certainly does now!” Anneli said, smiling in an attempt to lighten the tense atmosphere.

But Gunnar didn’t smile. He didn’t say anything. She felt her cheeks begin to flush, and she shifted uncomfortably.

“I guess I’d better get started,” she said.

“Yes, do,” he said.

As she went toward the bedroom, she noticed how unkempt the apartment was. The bathroom faucet was dripping. In the living room, the remote control had been tossed onto the floor, with the batteries alongside.

The boxes were stacked up next to the closet. Four in one stack, two in another. The first box hardly weighed anything; it was probably only light clothes. The second was heavier, and she was panting by the time she got it to the car.

She didn’t want these boxes, actually. She didn’t need what was in them and felt annoyed that neither Gunnar nor their son, Adam, offered to carry them to the car for her.

She stopped to catch her breath and rested her hand against the cold car window. Closing her eyes, she felt the chill spread through her fingers.

A voice inside her blamed herself: It was your fault! All of it was your fault!

She knew it was. If only she hadn’t given in to Anders that time.

It was still her own damn fault. She had been cheating on Gunnar, and now she had to move out of his condo. It wasn’t the first time she and Gunnar had lived apart. Actually, she couldn’t count how many times they had separated and then gotten back together again. The one thing she could be sure of was that they had been together on and off for twenty years. The other thing she could be sure of was that she had screwed up big-time.

She had thought it would be easy to find a new place to live, but the housing market had heated up. Condos were hard to come by, and rentals were in high demand. It had never been so difficult just to rent a place.

She hadn’t dreamed she would have to call her mother and ask if she could live with her, even temporarily. Sure, she’d done this before—but that was when she was twenty years old, maybe twenty-two.

Now she was fifty-four.

Her son, Adam, was waiting for her in the hallway after she stuffed the last box in the car.

His skin was broken out in acne, and his bangs were combed to the side, covering his entire right eye. A white headphone cord hung around his neck, his cell phone in his right hand.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said wearily and walked past her.

“Bye!” she called into the apartment, but all she received in response was silence.

She walked down two steps but then stopped, thinking she should go back and say something, explain to Gunnar that it wasn’t really fair, that this was her home, too. She should be able to stay.

She wanted to stay, to start over, forget her misstep and move on from it.

“Mom?” Adam’s voice echoed in the stairwell. He was standing a few steps below her and was holding one headphone out from his ear, looking at her questioningly.

“Are you coming?”

“I’m coming.”

She sighed, cast one last glance at what was no longer her front door and continued down the stairs.

* * *

Jana Berzelius crossed the street and continued on to the narrow lanes of the Knäppingsborg shopping district. The shop windows displayed a crowded jumble of hand towels, pillows and cookware decorated with branches and leaves, featuring every imaginable shade of blue and green.

Upon entering her apartment, she took her phone out of her coat pocket, hung up the coat and went into the bedroom. She noticed that Per Åström had called, but she didn’t bother listening to his message. She was sure he was wondering why she’d left the office so hastily today, and she had no desire to explain it to him. Her mother’s death was a private affair. She had all she could handle just thinking about having to make the funeral arrangements.

She tossed the phone on the bed, stripped down to her underwear and wrapped herself in her bathrobe. She had intended to heat up some tomato soup for dinner, but now she didn’t have any appetite. Instead, she took out a bottle of white Bordeaux from the refrigerator and poured herself a glass of wine.

After two sips, she held the cold glass against her forehead. She wanted to cool herself down, repress the thoughts that had again begun running through her head. She was filled with rage, a rage that usually made her feel invincible and strong, but right now was making her feel weak—because her mother’s death made her think about the death of a different woman. The woman who had actually given birth to her.

Jana took the glass from her forehead and gazed into it, at the concentric circles created on the surface by the vibration of her trembling hand. She took another sip of wine and tried to push her thoughts away, knowing that if she didn’t stop them, they would take her to the painful memory of her real mother.

Her biological mom. The one who was murdered so many years ago.

She didn’t want to think about her real mother. She hadn’t in many years. But now she couldn’t stop where her mind was racing.

She raised the glass to her lips but hardly noticed as she swallowed. She had already been dragged down into her memories and found herself back in that tight, stuffy metal shipping container as it made its way across the Atlantic. She sat huddled up next to her mother, kept asking her over and over if they would be there soon. Her dad had told her to be quiet like everyone else packed into that airless space.

They had been on their way to a new land, to Sweden, to the promise of a new and better life.

She remembered how her heart had been pounding as the shipping container was eventually opened. Three men stood outside. With weapons in hand, they selected seven children. She was one of them. She could still feel the harsh grip on her arm as she was yanked out into the light, away from the mother and father she loved and who had protected her.

That was the last time she saw her birth parents alive.

The men pointed their weapons directly into that tight, stuffy space. She would never forget the deafening sound of shots being fired. But the worst part came when everything had fallen silent and the men took a step back to admire their work.

Jana swallowed hard and rubbed the back of her neck. She drew her fingers over the welted letters that were carved there long ago, K-E-R.

Maybe it had been a mistake to start digging up her past. Maybe it would have been better to just let it be once she escaped and was adopted by Karl and Margaretha. Once she was educated and had a safe new life—even if she had no clear memory of what had come before.

But she was haunted by those carved letters K-E-R—and was determined to discover what they stood for. So she set out to collect information over the years, filling journal after journal, writing and drawing her memories from dreams and nightmares. And from all of these notes, a terrifying picture of her childhood had formed.

She had been forced to train with the other trafficked orphans as a child soldier, a mercenary whose only purpose was to kill.

Her adoptive mother, Margaretha, had never known any of this. But her adoptive father, Karl, knew everything. As it turns out, he had been a part of it. To protect himself, her father found out where she had hidden her boxes that contained all of her journals and notes, and he had stolen them from her, had put them in his own secret hiding place. But now he was incapacitated. She needed to find out where those boxes were stored. Was anyone guarding them? Making sure they didn’t fall into the wrong hands?

Who? Jana thought, raising her glass to her mouth again.

* * *

Henrik Levin carefully closed the front door behind him. He left his shoes in the hallway, hung up his jacket, then stepped into the kitchen. He could hear his infant son, Vilgot, screaming and his wife, Emma, talking softly to him in the bedroom upstairs. She was shushing him gently, saying it was time to go to sleep.

Henrik smiled to himself and walked up the stairs, peeking quietly into the bedroom and seeing Emma standing there with Vilgot in her arms. Her delicate face was pale, and her hair, which was almost always in a large topknot, hung loose. He nodded to her quietly, then continued silently to his son Felix’s room, stroked his hair and whispered good-night. Then he went to his daughter Vilma’s room, where he accidentally stepped squarely on a Lego.

“Shit!” he said.

“Daddy, you swore.”

“Why aren’t you asleep?” he asked, leaning over the bed and meeting Vilma’s large, blinking eyes.

“You said ‘shit,’” she said.

“Don’t say that word.”

“But you just did.”

“We shouldn’t say ugly words.”

“Why did you do it, then?”

“Because I hurt my foot.”

“Don’t we say ‘ow’ then?”

“Yes, but sometimes we say ugly words when we hurt ourselves or when we’re angry or tired.”

“Why?”

“Because. Now, my curious little monkey, it’s time for you to sleep.”

Henrik pulled the covers up to her chin and kissed her on the forehead. He closed the door quietly.

Emma turned toward him as he returned to their bedroom.

They hugged with Vilgot between them.

“Hi,” Henrik said. “You look beautiful.”

“Thanks,” Emma whispered.

Henrik laid his hand gently on Vilgot’s little head.

“Did you have a good day today?”

“No. Vilgot’s not sleeping enough. I remember both Felix and Vilma could sleep a few hours in a row by this point. Vilgot hardly sleeps more than fifteen minutes at a time, it seems. I don’t get anything done during the day. I have no idea how I’m going to be able to plan this move.”

“Don’t worry about it. The movers are coming a week from Friday, and the cleaners come the weekend after that. All we have to do is pack.”

“It’s a little more than ‘all we have to do,’” she said, rocking the baby in her arms. “I feel so stressed. When I walk around the house, all I see is all the stuff that needs to be done. You don’t see it day in and day out.”

“I know,” he said. “But I have a few other things to think about right now. A man accused of murder escaped from the hospital today.”

“From the hospital?” Emma asked, looking at him. “Who?”

“Do you remember Danilo Peña?”

“Yes, of course. He escaped?”

“Yes.”

“Oh dear,” she said. “And you’re searching for him, I assume.”

“Yes, everywhere.”

“Around the clock?”

Henrik met her gaze.

“Yes.”

“So I’m going to have to take care of the move myself,” she said.

“Not necessarily.”

Henrik let his eyes drift to the floor, seeing the scene before him again. The ambushed male nurse with the syringe stuck in his chest, the bloody fingerprints, the guard beaten and tied up in the closet. A violent criminal on the loose.

Vilgot whimpered, bringing Henrik back to reality.

“Let me take him now,” he said to Emma.

“Are you sure?”

“You need to eat.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll eat after you do.”

Emma padded out of the bedroom.

Henrik shifted Vilgot in his arms and rocked him. He felt the baby’s tiny hands and stroked his soft head. Then he let his gaze wander around the room, and his thoughts returned to Danilo Peña.

A shiver suddenly went down his spine, as if someone were watching him from behind. He turned and looked out the window toward the dark yard. The glow from the closest streetlight stretched over the smooth lawn to the open area in front of their townhouse.

He couldn’t put a finger on his sudden uneasiness, but something made an icy chill creep up his spine when he thought about Danilo Peña out there somewhere.

He looked at Vilgot again and saw that the baby was asleep. His heart was pounding as he laid him in the crib. Then he left the bedroom and went downstairs, going first to the entryway and checking that the front door was locked.

Not just once.

Twice.

* * *

The tomato soup was simmering in the kitchen.

Jana Berzelius left the pot on the induction cooktop and reduced the temperature. She still wasn’t hungry, but she thought she should probably eat something anyway. She pulled the hollow-edged carving knife out of the knife block, cut a thick slice of leftover sourdough baguette and stuffed a piece of it into her mouth as she flipped through channels on the wall-mounted television in her kitchen to find the news station.

As she removed the simmering soup from the cooktop to the counter, she heard her cell phone ring from the bedroom. When she went and picked it up, she saw a familiar name.

Twice earlier that day she had ignored Per. This time, she knew she had to answer. She put the phone to her ear as she walked back to the kitchen.

“I think you’re avoiding me,” he said loudly to compensate for the noise in the background.

“What makes you think that?” she asked.

“Well, first of all, you didn’t let me into your office today. Second, you haven’t answered my voice mail.”

“I’ve been busy. Something came up that...”

“I can hardly hear you,” he interrupted.

“It was nothing,” she said.

“I waited for you to come back, anyway.”

Jana sighed, opened a cupboard and stretched on her tiptoes to reach a soup bowl.

“Why is that?” she asked.

“I was going to tell you something about a person in whom you might be interested...”

“A person?”

“Yes, a person who is now an escapee.”

“And who is that?” she said.

“Danilo Peña.”

The bowl slipped from her hands and broke on the tile floor. She tried to process the significance of Per’s words, but it was hard to compose her thoughts as they raced around in her head. What? How had her nemesis, Danilo, escaped? It couldn’t be true. Per must have said the wrong name, she thought.

“Could you say that again?” she said in an attempt to stay calm.

“You remember Danilo Peña, right?” he asked. “The Thai women, narcotics smuggling?”

“I remember,” she said curtly.

“He escaped from the hospital today.”

She leaned forward, supporting herself with her hand on the kitchen counter.

“And what are the police saying?” she asked.

“At the moment they have no knowledge of where he could be but believe that he’s still in town. I’d love to tell you more over dinner.”

“Dinner?” she asked.

“Yes—I left you a message about dinner. Asking if you’d like to come to my place for filet mignon tonight.”

“Oh, well...I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“But you have to...”

“...eat, I know.”

Suddenly, she heard something knocking and stiffened. Slowly, she went out of the kitchen, looked down the dark hallway at the jackets and shoes and then into the bedroom.

“Hello?” Per said.

“Yes?” she replied.

“You don’t even have to walk. I can come and get you, and later I’ll drive you home.”

“It’s only a mile, Per.”

“How can you say no to filet mignon?”

“I don’t know...” she said, walking back to the kitchen. The light from the television colored the tile floor red, blue and white.

“I have a hard time understanding you sometimes,” he said, and she realized she’d fallen silent again.

“We’ll talk tomorrow,” she said, hanging up.

She looked at the remains of the broken dish and picked them up, one after another, and tossed them in the garbage.

Then she stood at the kitchen counter to cut another piece of bread, but the knife wasn’t there.

She looked around, thinking that maybe she had put the knife back in the block, but the slot was empty.

She muted the television. She listened carefully to the sounds of the apartment, but she heard only her own breathing.

Her hand steady, she took a second knife from the block, gripped it securely and moved slowly toward the dark entrance to the living room.

The adrenaline pulsed through her body and heightened her senses, as she became more and more convinced that she wasn’t alone in the apartment.

Her eyes scanned around the living room, seeing the contours of furniture, and then the wall. She hesitated for just a moment before reaching out and flipping the light on.

What she saw made her blood freeze.

She stood still, unable to move, not fully comprehending what she was looking at.

The man on the sofa smiled at her.

“So we meet again,” he said.

Danilo.

CHAPTER

FOUR

HER BLACK NYLON skirt had inched up too high around her waist. She yanked it down, knowing it was far too short to be appropriate, but at Harry’s, no one cared about appropriateness. They only cared about long, sexy legs.

Which Mia Bolander had known for a long time that she didn’t have.

But she had a pretty smile!

Her teeth were chattering as she crossed the tram tracks. She hadn’t bothered wearing a jacket. The fee for the coat check was too high—three dollars a night would add up to a significant monthly expenditure.

The chilly evening breeze played with her hair as she turned off Sandgatan. She looked at the construction cranes standing there and thought about how the naked blocks of concrete would soon become incredibly expensive condos. The ground floor was reserved for businesses and was sure to contain a pizzeria.

How fucking original.

Her fingers had become frozen stiff by the time she passed Strömparken. She tried imagining she was in some warm country like Spain, on the way to a club or bar without having to freeze her ass off.

Another five minutes and she had finally arrived.

There was a throng of people outside Harry’s. She estimated maybe thirty people were waiting in line. Men and women with low shoes and high heels, tight shirts and plunging necklines, torn jeans and sparkly dresses.

A good night, in other words.

Mia pushed her way forward, and the bouncer waved her in. A few people whistled and muttered when she went past. She was a single woman moving slowly forward through a crowd, and in that moment, she was relishing the attention.

Men noticed her.

The music was deafening when she entered the bar. She worked her way in and studied a small group of about ten people, mostly men.

She kept her distance, watching them silently but with a wide smile on her face. She let her gaze rest on each of them for a few seconds, and prepared for the questions she could ask. It wasn’t a problem if a guy had a ring on his finger or mentioned children—quite the opposite, really. It could lead to more questions, like: What are your kids’ names? Are they twins? How old are they? Do they go to day care? What’s your wife’s name? How long have you been married?

And she knew that she would hear that the man in question was heavily dependent on his wife, who was a gifted graphic designer, or that he worshipped his twin sons, or that he had had two surgeries on his leg and liked model airplanes.

That was okay. Most just wanted to talk—about themselves. And those who did were the easiest prey.

The worst were the guys who showed off their muscles at every opportunity. She always avoided that type.

She also avoided talking about herself. But she did answer questions asked of her. It was important to be polite and pleasant.

And to smile.

It would be an exaggeration to claim that Mia Bolander was looking for steady companionship. She didn’t want it to seem that way, at least. There was a certain level of turnover, and the men that she couldn’t stand after the first night were sifted out. And those who got to go home with her more than once usually fell into the category of “ugly and horny.”

Maybe tonight would be different?

She straightened her back, stuck her chest out and smiled even more broadly.

She was exhilarated and ready.

She prepared herself for the most important question of the night—and her answer.

Do you want to fuck?

Hell yes!

* * *

Her robe had opened so that her bra was showing. But Jana Berzelius didn’t move. She didn’t dare take her eyes off Danilo.

His beard had grown out, and his hair was an inch or so longer. It covered the letters carved into his neck, similar to her own. He was wearing scrubs and white sneakers. A bag sat on the floor in front of him.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

He just stood up and walked toward her, his jaw clenched. She saw that he had the carving knife in his hand, and she gripped her own knife more firmly. She took a few steps backward, trying to maintain the distance between them, staying prepared.

“You deserted me at the boathouse,” he said, referring to the last time they’d encountered each other in a manhunt.

She didn’t answer. She didn’t want to fan the hatred she knew he already felt for her. Before the police had arrived to the boathouse in Arkösund, she had gotten into a fight with him. She had sought him out at that cold place just to put him away for good. But when he’d told her he was working with her father, she had to restrain herself. And she had left him, wounded, yet alive in the snow.

The expression on Danilo’s face changed. His eyes darkened.

“I just want to show you how I feel about that,” he said, approaching her, the knife held threateningly in his hand.

The attack came quickly.

She raised her left arm to block. It burned as the sharp knife sliced her upper arm.

She dropped her knife but kept her eyes locked on him, saw him advancing again. Then all of her senses awoke at once. With a yell, she kicked the coffee table over and pushed it forward until Danilo was on the floor with the white tabletop over him, surrounded by overturned candles and a broken vase.

She attacked, hitting him in the face with brutal force.

He answered by forcing her and the tabletop off him, coming to his feet. She shook off her robe, grabbed her knife and jabbed toward his neck. But he had executed the exact same movement, and they froze with their arms parallel.

They stood eye to eye.

Her knife was against his neck. His was against hers.

“We have a problem,” he said. “You want to see me dead. I want to see you dead. So what do we do?”

She was breathing heavily, yet noticed the beads of sweat that had formed at his temples.

They were standing far too close to each other, which made it difficult to anticipate his next movement.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t see any good reason not to kill you.”

“I can give you one,” he said.

She looked at him. She felt the urge to make her final attack, but something was stopping her.

The blood ran in rivulets from the wound on her arm, dripping from her elbow to the floor.

“The boxes,” he said. “Your journals, your notes, your identity.”

She looked at him. His facial expression changed, and he lowered his knife toward the floor and looked at her calmly.

She attempted to process the situation. She hadn’t been prepared for him to retreat, so she waited a few seconds before taking two steps back and lowering her knife, as well.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

“Yes, you do. And I know you want them back.”

“You don’t know anything,” she said, picking her robe up from the floor without taking her eyes off him. The wound on her arm stung as she pulled the fabric over it.

“It just so happens that I do,” he said.

She tied the belt as tightly as she could around her waist and gripped the knife again.

“What exactly do you want?”

“I thought we could exchange services.”

“Exchange what?”

“Your boxes—the ones that hold your secrets—for you letting me stay here.”

“What?”

“I’ll give you your boxes back, safe and secure, and you’ll let me stay here.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Why not?”

“You’re a wanted man, Danilo. The police are searching all over for you.”

“I’m aware of that, and that’s why this is the best place to hide.”

She felt her irritation growing and was having a hard time standing still.

“No,” she said, shaking her head.

“I’ll stay here until things have calmed down a little,” he said. “You’re a prosecutor. No one will suspect you.”

“It won’t work! Don’t you understand? It’s impossible!”

“You want your boxes back, right? They contain your letters, journals, evidence of things that could destroy you...”

“You’re forgetting something. They contain information about you, too.”

“But I’m the one who has them, and I don’t care about my reputation. If you don’t let me stay here, I’ll make sure to send the contents to everyone who might be interested in getting to know the real you.”

“You can’t.”

“Karl wouldn’t like the truth coming out, either. Think about what he’s done to you, to me, and all the other children who came here in those shipping containers. He has marked us as his own. Your adoptive father is evil personified. And you have been complicit in not turning him in to the police. Think about every one of his guilty cronies he has protected, all of the court cases he has manipulated, think about...”

“You’re a part of all of that.”

“And?”

“Is that all you have to say?”

“For me, there is no alternative,” Danilo said. “Once I was victimized, I didn’t have a wealthy family that adopted me, redeemed me, gave me an education, a job, a future. You’ve been handed everything on a silver platter, Ker.”

“Don’t call me that name.”

“All you have to do, if you don’t want anyone to find out about your complicit past, is let me stay here.”

She took a step forward, trying to breathe more calmly, but the aggression held her in its iron grip.

“If they do catch me,” Danilo said, “you can say goodbye to your job as prosecutor, goodbye to your luxury apartment, goodbye to your freedom...”

She examined his face, searching for any clues that he was bluffing, but he looked perfectly calm.

“You’re lying,” she said. “You don’t have the boxes. You don’t even know where they are!”

“I do.”

“My father has them! He took them.”

“Wrong, Jana. Your father and I took them together.”

“Why should I believe you? Out at Arkösund, when I asked you, you said you didn’t know anything.”

“Oh, but I did.”

Jana looked at him, breathing rapidly.

“Now I understand why my father saw you as a risk,” she said, “why he wanted you gone.”

“Maybe so, but now I’m the only one who knows where the boxes are and can get to them.”

Jana’s eyes narrowed.

“I still don’t believe you,” she said.

“You don’t believe me?”

“Prove it to me.”

The smile disappeared from his lips.

“Do you really think that I would bring them here, all wrapped up with a big bow on top? Think again.”

“I want proof that you have them.”

“You’re just trying to buy time.”

“That, too.”

Danilo stood silently for a moment before walking toward her.

She stood completely still, unmoving, feeling her muscles tense as he approached. She let him come closer but was ready with the knife.

He leaned forward, hissing in her face.

“Is this proof enough for you?” he asked, pulling a torn piece of paper from his pocket.

She grabbed the paper and stared at it. It was a page of her journal that contained her own words, she saw, written by her child’s hand many years ago.

“I’m staying here,” he said, “and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

She gripped the knife tightly in her hand, wanting desperately to use it, but she knew that she had to release both the knife and the urge to destroy him.

Danilo was right. There wasn’t anything she could do.

Not right now.

August 22

Dear Diary,

It started by first break today.

Martin and I hid in a corner of the schoolyard. Everyone else from class stared at me so strangely. They whispered and pointed and laughed.

I told Martin that we should go back into class. But when we opened the door, the teacher said that we couldn’t be inside during recess. So we went back out and huddled in the corner.

They kept it up during history lesson.

While Holger wrote the names of the Swedish kings on the whiteboard with marker, others started whispering. It began in the far back of the room, with Camilla and Markus, then traveled through the room. The longer Holger stood at the board, the more the gossip spread. Everyone listened and giggled before whispering to the next student.

When it was finally my turn to listen, Linus leaned toward me and said softly: “You are a disgusting freak.”

I didn’t say anything. I knew they wanted me to react, but I didn’t. I just looked at Holger and tried to forget about everyone staring at me, about the mean words they said. But it was hard.

In the afternoon, I went to the hospital with my mother. It was time for yet another of her physical exams. I thought it smelled good in there, but I didn’t tell anyone that.

I didn’t say anything at all the whole time we were there. I just looked at the doctor, at his pale face. He tried to say he was sorry, that he understood that it could be confusing, that he knew that it wouldn’t help, that it was highly unusual for an operation like the one my mother recently had to go wrong.

But how could I forgive him? He’d taken my whole world away from me.

The doctor had no answers; he sat with his head down. He couldn’t say anything definite about the future. But he believed my mom would be okay.

Mom didn’t think so. I could tell in her face, in her eyes. But she didn’t admit that to me.

Don’t worry, she said as we left the hospital. She said it again just a minute ago, too, before she went to sleep.

I’m also going to bed now, because tomorrow is a new day. A new shitty school day.

CHAPTER

FIVE

Thursday

AIDA NORBERG, HAVING recently graduated from school, was on the morning bus heading home after working her overnight shift at McDonald’s. Sitting beside her was her coworker Melvin Axelsson. Melvin was babbling on and on about how tired he was because he’d been running around for hours and hadn’t even had the chance to drink anything his whole shift.

“Hello? We work in a total sauna. How the hell do you stand it?” he said to her.

She didn’t respond. She let him continue complaining as she looked out the bus window. The glass was scratched and dirty, but she could make out the contours of people walking along the street.

At Eneby Center, she said goodbye to Melvin and stepped off the bus. She could see her neighborhood more clearly now: children on scooters, businessmen in cars, students with backpacks.

She pulled out her cell phone and began walking down the street. She opened the newest version of Instagram and scrolled through the new filters, thinking how it wasn’t very different from previous versions.

She selected another app.

Facebook, always Facebook.

Someone had added her to a group called Feminist Perspectives. She didn’t want to be part of anything like that. She decided she would leave the group as soon as she had a chance. But for now, she was across the street from home, and it could wait.

A yellow-and-green tram went by, and garbage swirled around in its wake. She put her cell phone back into her pocket, crossed the tram tracks and went into the courtyard between two apartment buildings. She stopped outside the entrance to her building and looked up at the dark windows of her family’s apartment. As usual, she felt anxious about coming home. Would it be yet another day of her mother’s pitiful crying, followed by prolonged silence?

She didn’t want her days to be like this.

Aida stood outside for a moment, trying to collect her thoughts. She had dreamed of getting her own place. Many of her friends already had their own apartments—studios, mostly, with kitchenettes. But it was one thing to leave home by yourself, and something completely different to leave behind your little sister.

She went upstairs and put her key in the door, and was just about to turn it when she realized that the door was already unlocked. Her forehead wrinkled in concern as she stepped into the apartment.

Her little sister Sara’s backpack was still hanging in the hallway, as was her jacket. That meant Sara hadn’t gone to preschool today. As Aida hung up her jacket in the hallway, she heard a weak whimpering sound. She glanced toward the room she and Sara shared. Something about the sound and the closed door made her nervous.

Was he here?

Aida’s body tensed as she moved toward their bedroom. She noticed the key was in the outside lock. That was unusual. She had turned that key countless times—but always from inside the bedroom. This time, someone had locked it from the outside.

She swallowed, turned the key and opened the bedroom door.

The roller shade was pulled down and the smiling moon lamp above Sara’s bed was turned off. Aida could barely see inside.

“Sara?” she whispered into the darkness.

There was no answer, but the whimpering sound became more intense, so she stepped in and turned on the ceiling light.

In the bed, almost fully concealed by a down comforter, lay her little sister. Her hair was tousled, and she was looking at Aida with a glassy gaze. Her eyes radiated confusion more than the fear they had when they were forced to listen to the abuse going on in the next room. But her little body was trembling.

Something unusual had happened in their apartment. What had he done this time, that fucking idiot?

“Come here,” she said, reaching her arms out for her little sister. But Sara resisted.

“Calm down,” she said, attempting to put her arms around her sister’s small frame.

But Sara wrenched herself free from her older sister’s attempted embrace, creeping even farther under the comforter. She was still whimpering.

Aida turned her gaze back toward the doorway, and at that moment began to understand. She stood up and listened intently as she quietly left the room. Various scenarios raced through her head, each one worse than the one before as she approached the living room, where she found an unbelievably gruesome scene.

She stood paralyzed with horror at the sight of her mother tied to a chair, covered in blood, her head hanging limply, her hands severed and lying on the floor.

* * *

Philip Engström was jerked hastily awake by the alarm in the ambulance station.

He swung his legs out of the narrow bed and immediately saw on his handset that the call was high priority. He had ninety seconds to get himself and the ambulance driver into the rig and on the road.

It had been a stressful night with nine calls and hardly any sleep. It was just eight o’clock now, and the second half of his twenty-four-hour shift was just beginning.

When he got to the ambulance, he saw Sandra standing there, waiting.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he said.

“Get in,” she said, climbing in behind the wheel.

Philip raked his hands through his hair, hopped in the rig and pulled the seat belt across his chest. “Where is Katarina?”

Sandra drove quickly out of the garage, noting the address of the apartment in Eneby listed at the top of the navigation screen. She turned on the sirens and blue flashing lights while Philip began reading the information from dispatch.

“A woman has lost consciousness. Bleeding heavily from her wrists. Both hands severed. Police on the way.”

“Her hands are severed?” Sandra asked.

“Yes,” Philip said.

“Suicide attempt? Accident? Does it say anything more?”

He shook his head.

They drove past the hospital parking area and out onto Gamla Övägen toward downtown. Philip saw the industrial district, the fences and barbed wire that encircled the buildings.

“To answer your question, Katarina is apparently still sick,” Sandra said.

“Strange. I talked to her just yesterday. She said that she would be back today.”

“Yeah, but you know, the symptoms of exhaustion are nothing to play around with. I don’t think she can handle the stress.”

“No, not everyone can,” he said.

Large clouds filled the sky, and a shadow lay over the road. The speedometer read 75 mph.

“My heart still pounds every time,” she said, “as if I’m scared I won’t be good enough, won’t be able to help, that my efforts won’t suffice.”

“You sound like a professor when you use words like ‘suffice,’” he said.

Sandra smiled. “Haven’t you ever felt like that?”

“No.” He raked his hand through his hair again.

“Not to change the subject,” he said, “but you haven’t seen a gold ring lying around anywhere at work, have you?”

“No. Why?”

“I’ve lost mine.”

“You’ve lost your wedding ring? Nice move.” She smiled.

“I already know it’s not, but thanks for the reminder.”

He rested his elbow on the door and looked out through the windshield. He felt the vehicle swaying and closed his eyes for a second.

“You should stop taking those meds,” she said.

“What the hell would I take meds for?” he mumbled.

“I don’t know...”

“Do you think that I need meds?”

“No, but sometimes you slur your speech,” Sandra said. “It’s obvious you’re on something.”

“I’m just tired. Can’t a person just be tired?”

She didn’t answer. Or maybe she did; Philip didn’t know. He was already in the borderland between dreams and reality.

* * *

She felt sick as she pulled her jacket over her shoulders. Jana Berzelius stood in her walk-in closet with her eyes on the mirror. The bedroom door was locked. She wasn’t scared, that wasn’t the issue. She wanted to be at peace with her thoughts. Her mother had just died. And now this. She had thought all night about the situation, about Danilo. About him staying in her apartment.

The police hadn’t yet issued a description to the general public, which gave her some amount of relief. Just think what would happen if someone had seen him near her apartment and recognized him?

During the hours she’d been awake, she had heard him moving through the rooms, opening the refrigerator, flushing the toilet. Then finally everything had become silent. He had presumably fallen asleep, but she didn’t want to know where, whether on the sofa, the floor or the chaise longue.

How had he gotten in? Through a window? Or had he been able to pick the front-door lock without her ever noticing?

Irritated, she fastened the top button on her jacket and adjusted her hair to cover her neck. She thought about how she should have been more aware, should have seen something, heard something. But she had been taken completely by surprise, and she hated it. Hated that he was unpredictable, that his movements were always so difficult to anticipate, that he could always get past whatever defense she put up. She hated his bold, competent, hostile, intense manner. Hated that he was the one who always made up the rules of the game. Hated their shared past.

Danilo was, in a way, uneducated—he had learned from experience, from practice. He had learned to navigate in his reality. He had no normal boundaries.

But then, she didn’t, either.

Because of that, her reaction had already exposed her. That she hadn’t killed him showed exactly how important it was for her to get the boxes back.

And he knew it.

She sighed, turned off the light and left her room.

* * *

“Philip!” Sandra said. “Wake up!”

“I am awake!” he shouted in the ambulance cab.

He met Sandra’s serious gaze and knew that she had yelled at him more than once. They were already in Eneby.

“Bring the bag,” she said, getting out of the cab.

Philip rubbed both hands over his mouth and eyes, grabbed the medical bag, and with the stretcher between them, they ascended the stairs to the second floor.

On the top step sat a teenager, her cell phone pressed to her ear. She was wearing a gray T-shirt and ripped jeans. Her hair was black, and she had a wing tattooed on her right lower arm. It began around her wrist and ended at her elbow.

When she saw Philip and Sandra, she pulled the phone from her ear and got up. Her shirt was bloody and her face pale; she was clearly upset.

“Hurry. My mom’s in there,” she said, pointing toward the open door. “You have to help her. Her hands... They said that I should try and lay her down, but her arms are tied to the chair and I don’t know how to free them. I tried, but I can’t do it.”

The girl’s body was shaking.

“What’s your mom’s name?” Philip asked, examining the girl’s face.

“Shirin.”

“And yours?”

“Aida.”

Philip and Sandra followed her into a room furnished with a leather sofa, round rug and long drapes. Tied to a chair in a sitting position was an attractive, middle-aged woman, wearing a black top and leopard-print pants. She seemed barely alive.

“What the hell...” said Philip, exchanging glances with Sandra. They heard Aida’s voice behind her.

“She was like this when I came home,” she said. “There’s so much blood...oh god, I can’t look...”

Both of the woman’s hands had been cut off and lay a couple of feet from the chair she’d been tied to. Around each arm was a white zip tie, both pulled so tightly that they were cutting into her skin. The blood dripped slowly from her wrists. Judging from the amount of blood on the floor, Philip quickly surmised that the woman was in shock from extreme blood loss.

He rushed forward, lifted her head up and confirmed that her airway was free. He placed one hand on her forehead, two fingers under her chin, and gently tilted her head farther back. At the same time, he thought there was something familiar about her face. Had he met her before? When? Where?

“Shirin,” he said. “Can you hear me?”

She didn’t answer.

He leaned over so one ear was near the woman’s mouth, looked at her rib cage and saw she was breathing.

“What happened? Who did this to you?” he said.

As he tried to find her pulse, he continued talking to her. He pressed his fingers to her neck and tried to establish the strength and frequency of her pulse, but he could hardly feel it.

“Shirin,” he said, but she didn’t answer. Only when he took her shoulders and carefully shook her did she react.

“We have to cut her loose,” he said to Sandra, who was standing behind him. “Quickly.”

“How should we do that?” she asked.

“I can’t cut the zip ties without first stopping the flow of blood.”

Philip opened the medical bag, pulled out the blood pressure cuff, placed it on the woman’s upper arm. He closed the air valve and pumped it up as much as possible.

The blood flow stopped in that arm.

Now he had to stop the arterial flow in the other arm, but he didn’t have another cuff with him.

“Shit, I need...” he began, but he faltered when he saw that Aida stood near the doorway with her back to them.

“God, god, god,” she was whispering.

For the first time in ages, Philip felt his heart pounding.

The metallic scent of blood filled his nose as he thought about how he needed one more bandage to stem the blood flow. He stood up.

“Philip,” Sandra said, but he had already left the room. He ran down the steps out to the ambulance. He found a tourniquet and ran back up the stairs with the strap in one hand. When he returned to the room, he saw that Aida had crawled into the fetal position in one corner of the sofa and was hugging a pillow so hard that her knuckles were white.

He placed the tourniquet around the woman’s left arm and began to twist it to tie it more tightly. Just as he was about to tie it off, he heard a voice.

“Mommy...”

The voice didn’t belong to the teenager. It was softer.

Philip lost his concentration when he glanced up and saw a little girl standing in the doorway, a scared look on her face. Her bangs were swept to the side, and her hair was messy. She was wearing a light blue nightgown with Princess Elsa from Frozen on the front.

“You were supposed to stay in our room,” Aida said, getting up. “Go back in there, Sara!”

Aida pulled the girl’s arm, but she resisted.

Philip and Sandra exchanged glances again before returning to the woman.

Philip was resolute as he released the zip tie.

“Help me now,” he said, signaling to Sandra to get hold of Shirin’s limp, heavy body.

They counted to three.

“One, two, three.”

They placed her carefully on the stretcher, working silently, knowing what was at stake. Her condition was critical.

“The hands...” Sandra said, nodding toward the severed body parts still lying on the floor.

“We need to bag them and put them in an ice water bath,” Philip said.

He opened the medical bag, pulled out two resealable bags. “Here, see if you can fill these in the kitchen.”

He slipped on a pair of latex gloves, then reached for the hands. But because of all the blood, he lost his grip on one of them and it slipped to the floor.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he said quietly and tried again as Sandra came back into the room with the bags filled with ice water.

His face was stony as he placed each hand into its icy bath and sealed the bag, then laid the bags next to Shirin’s body. He and Sandra counted to three again and lifted the stretcher.

Then the younger girl peed. The puddle spread under her bare feet.

“Mommy!” she cried, beginning to stomp her feet in the puddle.

Aida picked her up and carried her out of the room.

“We have to go,” Philip said to Aida. “The police are here now.”

“Go, then,” she said. “I’ll stay here. With Sara.”

Philip felt the bulk of the weight of the stretcher in his arms as he led them down step by step.

In the entryway, they met two uniformed officers who immediately continued up to the apartment.

As soon as they had gotten the patient into the ambulance, Sandra got behind the wheel as Philip connected the third wire of the EKG. He shook his head at the slow frequency. Usually he would have inserted an IV, but because of the severe blood loss, there was no chance he would find a large enough vessel.

He looked at the patient, studying her rib cage. It was hardly moving.

He considered using the intraosseous drill for access to the venous system through her bone marrow, but then folded the blanket back and looked at the tourniquet. He checked the strap multiple times and realized something wasn’t right. It was loose.

It wasn’t until then that he realized he hadn’t tied it properly.

As he threw the blanket completely back, he saw the last sight he wanted to see. Blood flow to her arm hadn’t stopped after all. It had continued to flow from her left wrist and collected under her body on the stretcher.

“For Christ’s sake!” he exclaimed.

“What’s going on? How is she?” Sandra shouted through the cab window.

“I can’t stop the bleeding!”

She met his eyes in the rearview mirror, then swerved to avoid a truck that hadn’t bothered to pull over for the flashing lights of the ambulance.

Philip pulled the tourniquet tighter, but the vehicle swayed and he lost his grip.

“Can you drive straight, please!” he screamed, reaching for the strap again. He pulled and pulled. He knew that every second counted now. Sweat beaded up on his forehead and his mouth was dry, but he was finally able to get the tourniquet in place. Just as he tied it off, he became aware of the sound from the EKG.

A single, solid tone.

And he knew. For the second day in a row it was the sound of a patient’s death.

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