Perhaps, she thought, what had happened here was no human crime. The two victims had been upstairs, lounging around, perhaps asleep. Somehow a wild predator of some sort had crept in through an open door. A bear or wolf. Do such beasts climb stairs? Brand was uncertain on the subject of Swedish fauna. At any rate, the attack went down quickly. The bloody human footprints in evidence everywhere were simply the result of the terrified victims attempting to elude their fates.
None of that seemed likely, but the prospect served to inflame her mind. The animal she had seen—if she had seen one—was fearsomely large. She imagined it bounding back over the snowy yard. Having tasted human flesh, perhaps it would be hungry for more. Her police partner in New York had once been forced to fire his service weapon in order to halt the charge of an attacking pit bull. The dog went down in a heap. The memory had plagued Brand ever since.
She heard the scuff of footsteps crossing the landing. Brand wheeled around and automatically took up a shooting stance, training her sidearm at the doorway.
Hammar.
Seeing Brand standing with an automatic, posed to blast off his head, the man threw up his hands in surrender.
“Stanna, Veronika!” Stop.
“I told you to stay in the car,” Brand said, carefully lowering the pistol.
They stood for a moment amidst the desecrated room, decorated for a child but yielding adult horror. Brand noticed Krister had rigged two plastic shopping bags like booties around his shoes. Both bags were stained red. The dying afternoon heightened the atmosphere of spent violence.
Moving robotically, Hammar did the obvious thing, what anyone would do in this situation—he retrieved a cell phone from his pocket. Punching in numbers on the keypad, he raised the device to his ear.
“Don’t do that,” Brand said. She crossed the distance between them quickly and snatched the phone away. She still held the Glock.
"What are you about?” the man cried. “We must summon the authorities!”
Brand’s private emergencies eclipsed all other concerns. She needed time to think. “Did you get connected? Krister! Did you reach 9-1-1?”
He stared at her. “It’s not 9-1-1 here, it’s 1-1-2.”
“Were you put through?”
“No,” Hammar admitted. “But we must call the police, Veronika!”
“Not yet,” Brand said. Hammar was right. Every element of Brand’s professional training told her to notify the authorities immediately. Simple humanity and respect for the dead demanded that they report the situation.
But Brand was a fraught stranger in a strange land. She was badly frightened. A wrong move could prove disastrous. In the face of her determination, Hammar backed off. He followed her out of the room, down the stairs and out to the gravel driveway.
Moving away from the manor house, they stopped in front of the Saab. Brand looked off toward the shadowy woods. No sign of her vision of a dog-like creature remained. The fog of darkness closed in on the property.
Mentally, she tried to reverse roles, and think how she would react to the situation as a detective. She listed the elements. A deserted, isolated home. Wealthy owners. A gruesome scene of violence. A dead cop. A second victim. And a pair of strangers, one of them a foreign national, who had blundered into it all.
None of it was good. How would Veronika Brand and Krister Hammar appear to responding officers? Witnesses? Persons of interest? Suspects?
Brand couldn’t shake the feeling that her presence at the scene had somehow been orchestrated. She possessed the natural suspicious reflexes of a cop. Her paranoia usually served her well during investigations. Distrustful of appearances, skeptical of the facts, she questioned everything.
She tried to swallow a rising surge of anger. Somehow this Swedish immigration lawyer had led her into deep trouble. That she was a police herself might smooth things out. Professional courtesy demanded a certain soft touch. But she was not a cop. She was an ex-cop, Brand reminded herself. Still under investigation, on charges false and otherwise. A simple call to the States would open a whole can of worms. A can of snakes was more like it.
Brand spoke without looking at Hammar. “Why’d you bring me here, Krister?”
“I’m asking myself.”
“You knew,” she said.
Hammar sounded puzzled. “What? What did I know?”
“You bring me here to see the Voss family setup, and somehow we encounter something else. I don’t know what it is yet, but I’m going to find out. I’m thinking, wow, what a coincidence. But I’m a police, and I don’t much believe in coincidences. I always have to unpack them, check into what’s really happening.”
“I had no idea…” Hammar began. Brand cut him off with a glare. His protest sounded weak.
Fury rose in her. She paced, trying to fight it off. She had to think clearly. The sight of a subdued Hammar worked to enrage her further.
“It was you,” she said. “I wanted to go slow, but oh, no, you pushed. You played me.”
“No, Brand, no,” he said carefully, as if placating a lunatic.
She waved the pistol. Hammar shrank from her. “Now you’re scaring me.”
“Shut up! Is this even a Voss house?” Brand gave a sweep of her arm. “What is this set up? What did you want me to see?”
“I don’t know what to say!”
Brand paced some more, storming back and forth in front of him. She felt that her responses weren’t entirely logical. For one thing, her brain was in the midst of amphetamine withdrawal. Angry outbursts tended to come with the territory.
“Okay, okay,” she muttered. She took a deep breath. Visions of the bloody room assailed her. Glock in hand, she tapped herself absently on the forehead a few times, hoping to dislodge a few fresh thoughts. Then she stopped, standing stock still.
“It’s a— it’s a pipeline, isn’t it?” Brand said. “Some sort of transfer point. You were going to lure me up here—”
“I didn’t lure you! You wanted to come. You asked!”
She ignored Hammar’s objection. “You were going to
