48
I shove open the door beneath the NáLLU INK sign hard enough for the bell to give a startled scream.
Brute wedges his nose through first, sniffing the threshold, the floorboards, the base of the counter, and every bad decision ever made inside this place.
Sindre looks up from behind the counter, his welcome catching somewhere between caution and politeness.
‘Well, that’s a cute pup. He can’t come in here, though,’ he says, eyeing Brute as the dog snuffles towards the couch.
I cross my arms and glare in response.
Sindre’s eyes meet mine. His smile thins, his weight shifts to one foot. When both brows lift, I know my intuition was right.
The man gives me a wry little curve of his mouth.
‘Uh-oh,’ he says. ‘Am I in trouble?’
‘I am going to get us a drink,’ I grind out. ‘In the meantime, you will take inventory of your brain. When I am back, you will tell me everything I need to know about Elias and how you helped him get me here.’
He sets his jaw with a stubborn click as he straightens and clasps his hands behind his back.
‘Whatever do you mean?’ he says smugly.
Brute stills. Lifts his head to me. He must sense what little restraint I have left evaporating. But murder is frowned upon and I need this tattooed arsehole for a while.
‘He might not return, Sindre. There are people who will do everything to hurt him. Kill him.’
His dark eyes turn darker. The arrogance is gone. ‘He’s fine. He’ll be back when he’s ready.’
We don’t move for a long second. The smirk is the first thing to go.
‘What do you know?’ he asks then.
I cross my arms and tilt my chin in response. If I’m sharing, he’s sharing.
It takes two beats of silence for the gravity of the moment to settle.
He then reaches beneath the counter and produces an unlabelled bottle and two tumblers.
‘We’ll need something stronger than what you’ll find outside. Lock the door. Flip the sign.’ He nods towards the exit and disappears behind the design room door.
Brute and I consider each other for a short intake of breath. But when I start after Sindre, he trots right ahead.
Good dog.
‘The cabin,’ I say before I am seated on a box of supplies. ‘How long have you been maintaining it?’
Sindre turns his glass slowly between tattooed fingers as he sets the bottle atop a makeshift table. ‘Since he built it many years ago.’
‘Did you help Elias build it along with the others?’
‘Jakob,’ he corrects with a sour face. ‘And yes.’
I press my teeth together at that. ‘Snowmobile,’ I push on, patience slipping faster than I can hold on to it.
‘Jakob’s money, my contacts.’
‘When Jakob arrived with an unconscious woman?’
He grins but says nothing.
And he doesn’t have to.
When he pours for the third time, I already know enough to understand the shape of their friendship. He had been helping Elias long before I became a problem with a pulse.
He had arranged the journey too. Made sure the timing was right and the story held together.
‘The Jakob Halvorsen identity was already real enough to survive ordinary questions about tax records and utility bills. I kept it alive while Elias was inside.’
‘Double identity.’
He lifts a shoulder and pours us another one.
To hell with the drinking limit, I guess.
‘Dyktig,’ I compliment him grudgingly.
‘Takk.’
The thanks leaves us staring at each other over the bottle.
I cross my arms. ‘Did you know he was going back?’
His expression changes by a fraction. ‘I knew the lawyer had found something. Jakob asked me to create a route into England and keep the cabin – and you – sorted.’
A cold knot pulls tight around my spine. ‘You didn’t think to tell anyone?’
‘No. He knew the word would reach Inga and she’d take my head clean off.’
I’m only marginally less inclined to do the same.
I don’t say it aloud – that it’s been three days, that it might be too late to do anything. I don’t want to feed the horror for fear of it becoming true.
Staring at the bottle as though it holds the answers, I push to my feet and glare at it.
Anders. I need to see what he knows. I can’t make half-arsed decisions with Elias’ future at stake.
My voice cracks and I shove my hand into the pocket of my jacket. My fingers find the small cloth bundle cradling Frida’s ring.
Sindre simply gives a nod as our eyes meet, not saying anything else. I can now understand why Elias enjoys his company.
But my first step towards the exit stops short. If Anders confirms what I think, I’m going to need Sindre again.
‘I’ll be back here,’ I tell him over my shoulder.
His eyes soften. Then a wicked smirk blooms over his pierced face. ‘As expected.’
The drive blurs into a long strip of grey road, black trees and Brute’s restless breathing beside me. The summer has suddenly become too harsh to stand, and the sun seems to be peeling my skin clean off.
Or it could be Sindre’s confessions.
They sit in my skull alongside Elias’ letter, one truth grinding against the other until I can’t tell which one hurts more: that Elias had planned every inch of my disappearance, or that he had planned my survival with the same ruthless care.
Gravel spits beneath the tyres. The ring is burning a hole in my pocket. When Anders’ house appears between a scattered stack of others, the rage has settled and panic is right back on stage.
I park suddenly enough for the truck to rock. Brute flies out the second I open the door, strutting towards the house as if he can’t wait to take a piece of the disaster unfolding indoors – I hear the yelling before I reach the entrance.
It’s not violent, but it’s far too shrill for a family that usually speaks as if peace is something they keep in large jars beside the sugar.
I knock once.
No one answers.
The skin between my brows puckers as I move to peer through the window.
Inga stands in the middle of the room, one finger pointed at Anders, her whole body drawn tight with fury. Olle, Henrik and Markus stand around their father in varying stages of anger. Sunna sits in the armchair near the mantel, the only person in the room who is not shouting.
Markus turns his head and clocks me, then taps his sister. Inga’s eyes cut to the window. The anger doesn’t leave her face, just changes form.
She says something I can’t make out and goes to open the door.
Wedging herself into the gap with her arms folded tight enough to crease her green sleeves, she offers no invitation and certainly doesn’t seem willing to step away to let me pass. Her narrowed eyes and the stubborn line of her mouth are all she gives me.
A family trait, it seems.
‘Did you know he was returning?’ she snarls.
Behind her, Anders shifts his weight. ‘She knew nothing.’
Her head snaps towards him, but I speak before she can loose whatever is gathering behind her teeth.
‘We should talk,’ I say, pulling Elias’ letter from my pocket and holding it out. For one absurd second, the truth inside it makes me want to fold it back against my heart and pretend none of them need to know.
Inga’s focus moves to the envelope, travels over me, then stops at Brute standing solidly at my side.
Her teeth work around something indecent, but she holds it in and takes the letter from me before stepping aside.
As I come in, I meet Anders’ eyes. He looks promptly down at his hands, rubbing one thumb over his palm as if the guilt might be scrubbed from the skin.
Markus moves before anyone else can. He stops in front of me and keeps his eyes on the floor, searching for the right words as if they might magically appear if he looked hard enough.
A rush of Norwegian comes at me. I can only untangle the first few words of apology. The rest reaches me when he lowers his head and cautiously extends one hand between us, leaving enough distance for me to refuse it.
‘He’s apologising for the Hunt,’ Henrik clarifies by the kitchen counter, where he’s propped with the signature lumberjack frame of the Nielsen-Halvorsen line.
I glance up at Markus, let him stew for a beat, then finally place my hand in his.
His cold fingers close around mine with almost painful care. I squeeze once in return. When he finally looks up, I give the bridge of his nose a gentle tap to underline the settled score – the same nose Elias nearly broke for donning the mask and dragging me into the Hunt.
A faint, uncertain, slightly mortified smile touches his mouth.
‘We’re all right,’ I tell him, hoping he understands the tone, at least. I try it also in Norwegian as best as I can, ‘Det er bra.’
Finally, Inga hands me back my letter with an uncertain expression, and we move into the sitting room where truths and lies await like burning kindling threatening to overtake the space.
And I tell them.
Not everything, just filtered things about the flight, Sindre, the way I woke in the cabin, how what happened between Elias and me changed after all that. Details remain in the dark and in my heart.
Sunna does not move. Neither does Anders. They sit with the same kind of stillness that runs in their nephew, as if every word has to be allowed to land softly before anyone is permitted to breathe again.
Inga?
Not still.
During my monologue, her mouth tightens. When I talk about the cabin, her arms uncross. Sindre’s confession has her glaring daggers.
Henrik folds his arms across his chest and leans back against the wall, jaw working as if he can chew the truth into something easier to swallow. Not only does he look like Inga’s twin despite being two years older, but now he’s also fashioning the glower endemic to Sunna’s side of the family.
And it makes sense. He probably understood only half of what I said. The half he did understand is enough: he has been in our house, watching us smile at him while all of this sat underneath it.
When I finish, the room has gone so quiet even Brute’s breathing sounds too loud.
Inga opens her mouth, but her mother takes her hand and offers a weak, warning smile.