Chapter 52
Liisa
My screams went unheard. The police hadn’t tried very hard.
There were two more visits after they first came to Johanna’s home.
The second time they came in and searched the cabin.
Johanna must have been expecting it. She seemed to know the woman who came, bringing another officer to help her with the search.
But they didn’t find the trapdoor. I wasn’t able to scream that time.
Mikael had dragged me into the hole seconds before they arrived, pushing me down ahead of him, where I landed on the mattress with a thud.
I couldn’t call out if I wanted to, as the fall had winded me.
I couldn’t breathe. Mikael was fitter than me and jumped down, landing on his feet.
The hatch was closed, the rug pulled over from above.
I drew a breath to cry for help, but Mikael clamped a hand over my face.
“I’ll cut your throat if you bite,” he hissed in my ear, his breath laced with a hateful liquorice stench.
The coolness of the blade against my skin was enough to make me stop.
“You’re not the first, you know that, don’t you?
” he whispered. “I don’t want to kill you, but I will, if you make a sound. ”
I had no choice. So we listened, me tasting the dirt on his hand as footsteps rose above. There was laughter. Such a thing was in short supply, and it sounded alien in this space. Doors closed. Briefly I heard a woman—older, perhaps? She spoke in a warm voice and told Johanna to “take care.”
“Listen to me,” Mikael whispered, knowing that Johanna would be back soon. “Listen, if you want to live.”
Then he told me a secret. One that made everything fall away. The cabin door closed. He dropped his hand, and we took each other in. That was the day that everything changed.