Chapter Fourteen #3
“Not sure about that one yet,” she admitted.
“Now we’ve turned your phone off, he can’t track us that way.
I believe he was probably using the sniper as his other method of shadowing us.
With him gone, the kidnapper will probably be wondering what’s going on, but will hopefully still be in the dark for a little while longer. ”
“Unless he had more than one henchman out there,” Jiro replied darkly. Aurora merely shrugged at that, but it was one more reason that Jiro was determined to accompany her.
The next few hours were spent in the cold, first talking on the phone to Viskten and then waiting for the other police units to arrive, which took nearly two hours.
Aurora insisted they wait down by the lake’s edge, but periodically, they returned to the cabin to get warm—his clothes were now dry, but standing around in the dark as the temperature plummeted was not fun.
Aurora told him they should be glad that at least it wasn’t blizzarding, as that would make it very uncomfortable.
Swedish people were nothing if not practical.
The first hint that this might turn into a bigger situation than he’d thought came when all the other cops arrived on their snowmobiles.
It seemed like there were hundreds of them, but in actual fact they were probably at least fifteen, which felt a bit like overkill.
It wasn’t like there was a whole gang of Yakuza hordes to be vanquished out here; it was just him and Aurora, and she’d already neutralized the threat.
He also hadn’t realized that a cop discharging a gun was such a big thing—she was only returning fire, defending herself from a man intent on killing them.
But as soon as Inspector Dalstrom arrived, he strode up to Aurora and officially relieved her of her weapon, which was then sent away for forensic testing, almost as if she was a suspect in a murder rather than an avenger of evil.
He also advised her there would be an inquest into the shooting, and asked her to hand over her badge, placing her on desk duty until further notice, which shocked Jiro.
But Aurora did everything she was asked without question, clearly understanding the formalities better than he did.
Later, she confirmed that whenever there was a police-involved shooting, a strict protocol had to be followed.
It was only then he realized this was the first time she’d had to follow that protocol; this was the first time she’d discharged her weapon while on duty, and again that sharp twist of guilt stabbed him through the gut.
It was his fault she was going through all of this.
The frozen lake was then set up almost like a scene from a murder mystery movie, with bright lights, people milling around—some of them in white suits, which Jiro assumed were forensics.
Once Aurora had walked the inspector through the whole sequence of events, she and Jiro were sent to the cabin, supposedly to stay warm.
But he knew it was to keep them out of the way.
At least someone had thought to bring them food and hot beverages, which helped to revive Jiro considerably—the chocolate bars Aurora had been keeping in her pocket were now sodden and inedible.
His conversation with Inspector Viskten had gone well. Aurora’s partner seemed like he was a man who had his head screwed on right, because he said if Aurora believed Jiro’s claims, then so did he. He was going to place a call to his friend in the FBI and get back to them once they returned to HQ.
Jiro was hoping to be allowed to visit his father in hospital once they got back to town, but he was soon disavowed of that notion when Aurora told him they would need to be interviewed—she called it giving a statement—before they were allowed to go anywhere.
At least he’d been able to check in on Kenichi by calling the hospital, but the nurse he spoke to reported no change in the old man’s status.
Which meant he was still in a coma. Jiro’s shoulders had sagged at that news, but then Aurora had reminded him that at least he was still alive, and that he needed to stay strong so that when his father did finally recover, he could be there for him.
Now and then he would catch Aurora’s eye, and something would pass between them. Their little secret kept him warm, but they never spoke of it.
Afternoon turned into evening, and finally Dalstrom said he would escort them back to the car on a snowmobile—thank God they didn’t have to walk out—and then follow them back to the police HQ in a squad car.
Jiro again got the feeling they were being treated more like criminals than heroes, but he kept his mouth shut.
Then evening turned into night as they were firstly interviewed in separate rooms, and then brought together to sit around the conference table, explaining to Dalstrom and his partner, Constable Moreau, over and over what had happened out there in the snow and why they decided to go without telling anyone, which seemed to be the biggest sticking point for the detective inspector.
Aurora continued to answer his questions calmly and directly, but Jiro found himself becoming increasingly frustrated with the merry-go-round of the same questions being asked in a million different ways.
At one stage, Jiro had stopped the proceedings, demanding to know if they had any news of Taro.
The constable had been the one to tell him they were still looking for his brother, and he would be the first to know if any new information came to light.
The disparaging side of Jiro wondered if this was actually true; were they really even working on finding his brother?
Jiro itched to get out of here. He wanted to check in on his father.
He wanted to look for Taro, although God knew where he was going to start.
But doing something, anything, was better than just sitting around.
It was nearly ten p.m. when Aurora’s phone pinged with an incoming message.
Jiro had been doing his best to stay awake, but his eyelids kept drooping, and he knew he’d probably nodded off once or twice already.
The conversation had mostly been in English, for his sake he presumed, but the droning voices were having a soporific effect.
“Oh, shit.” Aurora shot up from her chair. “Sorry, I’ve got to go.”
That woke him up. What was wrong? What message had Aurora just received?
“We haven’t finished your debrief,” Dalstrom complained.
“I need to get home. My father is… alone, and the lady I asked to check on didn’t turn up as planned.” Jiro had noticed Aurora had been getting more and more agitated as time went on, and now he understood why.
“Right then.” Dalstrom’s demeanor changed as she explained.
“If you need to attend to your family, then you must go.” Clearly, family was important to him, which surprised Jiro a little.
Until now he’d found Dalstrom boorish and a by-the-book type of officer.
Perhaps there was a soft side to him as well.
Jiro also stood. “I’m going with her.” He wasn’t taking no for an answer.
Not from Aurora and not from Dalstrom. She was clearly worried about her father, and now so was he.
He was also worried about her, but this was a good excuse for him to stay by her side.
And it gave him a good reason to get out of this bloody room.
Aurora took her jacket from the back of the chair, and glancing at him once from under lowered brows, she exited the room almost at a run, with him hot on her heels.
“What’s going on?” he asked, chasing Aurora down the hallway.
“That was a message from Millie. She only just got my text; she’s been down in Stockholm visiting her family. Which means no one has been to check on my dad all day.” There was a grim tone in her voice.
“I’m sure he’ll be okay,” he said, hoping it was true.
“If he is okay, he’ll be starving and cranky as a bull.
But my dad is not a very patient man. I’m worried he might try to do something…
” She never finished her sentence, and it left Jiro to wonder what a man who was practically wheelchair-bound could get up to on his own that might cause a problem? He was about to find out.