Thirteen, Fourteen ... Little boy unseen (Rebekka Franck Book 7) Read online

  Alex blushed and looked down at the bed, avoiding Leonora’s eyes.

  “You do want to kiss me, don’t you?” Leonora asked again.

  Alex looked up and their eyes locked. Then, she smiled. “Yes,” she said.

  “Yes what?”

  “Yes, I want to kiss you, Leonora.”

  Leonora laughed and sat up. “I knew it!”

  Alex shrugged, feeling self-confident, but still hopeful that maybe, just maybe Leonora felt the same way.

  Leonora closed her eyes and stuck out her lips. “Then kiss me, you fool!”

  Alex blushed again. She felt a deep sensation in her stomach, while waves of excitement rushed over her. Could this really be happening?

  “What are you waiting for?” Leonora said.

  Alex shrugged, then leaned over and closed her eyes, just before her lips hit Leonora’s. She could smell her skin. It was intoxicating. She held her breath as her lips landed on Leonora’s. But something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong, Alex soon realized, and opened her eyes, only to stare into the eyes of Brian from her class. Brian was, the most disgusting of all the boys, the one who never showered, always picked his nose in class, and smelled like cheese. Behind him, from behind the couch, up jumped three girls from their class. They stood right behind Brian, and so did Leonora. They were all laughing and pointing their fingers at Alex.

  “DYKE!” Leonora yelled. “I knew you were a disgusting lesbian!”

  “Dyke, dyke, dyke!”

  All the girls laughed, while Leonora pulled out a tape recorder from under her pillow and pressed play.

  “Yes, I want to kiss you,” Alex heard her own voice say. Then Leonora rewound the tape, and played the bit over and over again. “Yes, I want to kiss you, Leonora. Yes, I want to kiss you, Leonora.”

  Alex stared at the girl she had loved so deeply, the girl she had adored beyond anything in this world, while Leonora laughed along with the other girls, mocking Alex, telling her how they had been playing her all this time, how Leonora was never her friend, that she would never belong anywhere, that they would play the tape at school to warn every girl about her, warn her that all she wanted was to get into their pants.

  “No one will ever be your friend again, Alex,” Leonora said. “No one.”

  That night, the boy held his sister in his arms, while she cried and swore she would kill all of them.

  “I’ll beat them to death,” she said. “I’m gonna beat them all to death.”

  35

  I GOT some expert to tell me that it was actually not an easy task in this country to get ahold of a real police-baton. Not the same type they used within the force. They were handed out only to officers, and just like their guns, they had to hand them back when they left the force.

  “They have serial numbers, just like guns, so they know if one is missing,” he stated.

  “But, it could have been stolen, right?” I asked.

  “Yes. But, again, the police would know if one was missing. Of course, no system is perfect, but in theory it shouldn’t be happening.”

  I wrote it all down and put it in an article. I called the police station for a comment, but they didn’t have one, they told me. Just as I had expected. No matter how this turned out, someone in the police had made a mistake. Either someone had lost his or her baton, or the killer was within the force. That made a pretty good article, I believed.

  When I was done, I called Sune. I needed him to come down and take pictures for me, as I did the vox-pop. He sounded exhausted when he answered.

  “You have a job,” I said.

  “Come on, Rebekka.”

  “Now what? I let you sleep in and you’re still mad? I don’t get you.”

  “Can’t you get someone else to do it? I don’t feel well.”

  I growled. I wanted to throw the phone at the wall. “That’s because you’re hung over. Maybe if you didn’t go out drinking on a Thursday night with your friend, then this wouldn’t happen.”

  “Yeah…well…” Sune said, sounding completely indifferent.

  “You know what?” I said. “I’ll find someone else. Someone who would like to work and make money. You just stay in bed.”

  I hung up before he could say anything. I was so angry I could explode. What the hell was he thinking? He was about to ruin everything for himself. If he started saying no to jobs, he was soon going to be out of work completely. I didn’t understand what was going on with him. Could it be a late teenage rebellion after all? Who was he rebelling against? Me?

  I grabbed the phone and pressed a number.

  “Hey there,” David said. “Good to hear from you.”

  “I have a job for you. I’m missing my photographer again. Don’t ask. Could you step in? I know it’s on short notice.”

  “No worries. I’m in the neighborhood anyway. I’ll stop by the office. See you in a few minutes.”

  Working with David felt so good. We walked across town and ended up in the square, where we started interviewing people, asking them how they felt about the killings, if they were scared.

  Of course, they all were terrified. Who wouldn’t be? Four killings was certainly something to creep people out. Especially with the way they were killed. Beaten to death, then dressed up and displayed. And, yes, then there were the details about the cut off genitals. That was the most terrifying part, most people seemed to agree.

  “If he did it while they were still alive, it must have hurt like crazy,” an old lady carrying grocery bags said. Her eyes flamed with excitement as she spoke. I got the feeling she thought it was all very thrilling. Like a TV show or something.

  “So, you’re not afraid to go out?” I asked.

  The old lady shivered. “Oh, yes, I am. I’m horrified, but you gotta eat, don’t you? I don’t have anybody to shop for me. And to think we can’t even trust the police anymore. What is this world coming to?”

  Another woman we interviewed told us she thought she knew who the killer was.

  “He’s my neighbor. I tell you. It’s gotta be him. He’s a policeman. I see him every day when he leaves the house in his uniform. He looks at me like he wants to beat me with that baton of his. I always knew he was up to no good.”

  “Now, there are a lot of police officers around town; they’re not all killers, just because they suspect one of them to be,” I argued.

  “Oh, no. But it’s him. I just know it is. You mark my words.”

  I shook my head and noted what she said. David took her picture, and we thanked her before approaching someone else. This time, it was a guy, around fifty. He looked shyly at us as we walked closer.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “We’re from Zeeland Times. Would you mind answering some questions?”

  “I don’t know, maybe,” the guy said.

  “It’s about the four killings. We’re just trying to take the temperature of the population. How they’re feeling about all this and so on.”

  The man stared at me strangely. “Well, I feel horrible. I can tell you that much,” he said. “I knew one of the victims. Or, rather, I knew her daughter. Pastor Kemp’s daughter Camilla. I went to school with her. I wasn’t too fond of the mother, but the daughter was so nice. Beautiful as well. Such a shame.”

  “Why weren’t you fond of the pastor? I thought she was very popular around here?” I asked.

  “Well, not that it’s important, but her daughter was homosexual, and the mother never approved of that. She threw her out and told her never to come back. Camilla died of AIDS back in the nineties and they never made up. Today, the mother still preaches against homosexuality. You’d think the death of her daughter would make her change her mind, huh? Well, now she’s gone.”

  “She was against homosexuals?” I asked, when another piece of the puzzle suddenly fell into place. I looked at David.

  “Yes, I even heard that she tried to help families with homosexual teenagers to convert their children, so to speak. You know how some people think it’s a d
isease and that it can be cured. But I don’t know if that’s true.”

  36

  “THERE’S THE connection,” I said to David, as we walked back towards the office. “At least between the therapist and the pastor.”

  He nodded pensively. “But what about the others? The couple in the lake? Were they fighting against gay rights as well?”

  “That’s what we need to find out,” I said, and sped up.

  We walked into the office and I showed David to the computer where Sune usually sat. It looked strange to have someone else sitting there, especially David, since I knew how Sune felt about David. Sara thought it was exciting to have someone like David in our editorial room. She kept glancing at him and making small moaning sounds when he got up and walked to the restroom or to the kitchen to get coffee.

  “He’s so handsome,” she whispered, as soon as he was out of the room.

  David loaded the pictures and we started picking out the right ones for the vox-pop. David went to the bakery to get us sandwiches for lunch, while I wrote the article. As soon as it was sent and we had eaten, we both sat at my computer and started researching.

  The couple from the lake had been identified as Dan and Tina Toft. They were a couple in their fifties. They used to live in a house in the middle of Karrebaeksminde. He was a lawyer; she was a secretary. Everything about them seemed very ordinary.

  “According to this, they’re leaving behind a son,” David said.

  I shrugged. “We should talk to him, then. What’s his name?”

  “Hans Toft.”

  “Can we find him?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s a pretty common name. But it’s worth a try. Let me do just a simple search.” David reached over and tapped on the keyboard. “There you go. There are forty-four with that name in Denmark. Apparently, none of them live around here. The closest is in Roervig, more than an hour and a half from here.”

  “But, it might as well be any of the other forty-three out there,” I said with a sigh.

  “You’re right,” he said, and picked up his cup and drank from it. Even when he sipped coffee he was attractive.

  “I say we simply go to the couple’s address and talk to the neighbors. What do you say?” I asked. “Maybe do a little vox-pop out there and ask them how they feel and so on. Maybe snoop around a little. According to the police report, they were killed in their home and then taken to the lake.”

  David put his cup down and smiled. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

  I grabbed my phone and looked at the display, hoping Sune would have called, or at least texted, but he hadn’t. I sighed and put on my jacket. David looked at me with a smile.

  “Are you alright?” he asked when we got outside.

  “I guess,” I said. “It’s just Sune. It’s strange. He hangs out with our neighbor constantly, and last night he came home drunk, and today he didn’t even bother to show up when I called about this job. I don’t know what to do about him.”

  We walked towards the car in silence, while I wondered what to do about Sune and our relationship. I missed him like crazy, and I hated myself for enjoying David’s company this much. I felt so disloyal for discussing Sune behind his back, and especially with David. I couldn’t stop wondering about that text David had sent me the night before, telling me he missed me. What did he mean by that? Did I want him to want more out of this than just friendship?

  David put his hand on my shoulder. His touch warmed me. My stomach was hurting with sadness.

  “It’s okay, Rebekka. You can talk to me about anything. I’m your friend, remember?”

  “I know,” I said. “It’s just so hard to explain. I mean, it’s like I hardly know who he is anymore. It’s like he’s pulling away from me. The past few days have been a nightmare. I don’t know what to do. It’s like he’d rather I left him completely alone, but I’m afraid that if I do I’ll lose him.”

  “Maybe it’s just a phase,” he said. “Maybe he needs to act out a little and have some space to figure things out. Then he’ll come back to you.”

  “But I just…I get so angry at that Jeppe guy. Ever since he came into our lives, everything has changed. It changed Sune completely. I really hate him.”

  David tilted his head. “Do you really think it is fair to blame everything on him? Yes, he came into your lives and everything changed, Sune changed, but could it be that Sune might have acted out anyway? If it hadn’t been this guy, maybe he would have…maybe found someone else to act out with?”

  “You meant the problem goes deeper than that?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Maybe it would make things easier if you simply accepted this Jeppe guy.”

  I pressed the remote and unlocked the car. “You really think so?”

  “Plus, you can’t really force him to do anything, you’ll only end up pushing him further away. Give him the space he needs, and then he’ll realize how great a life he has.”

  “So, what you’re basically saying is…I have no choice. Accept the way things are and hope for the best? Doesn’t sound very reassuring.”

  David opened the door to the passenger seat, then paused and smiled. “I wish I could say something else to make you feel better, but…”

  “Well, that’s not your fault.”

  I sat in the driver’s seat, thinking about Sune and this Jeppe guy. Had the troubles started when he came into our lives, or were they already there? Was David right? I had put all my anger and frustration on Jeppe, thinking he was the problem, but maybe it had started long before this.

  The thought didn’t make me feel any better.

  37

  LEONORA CHRISTINA Stroem shared a name with royalty, but that was about all she had in common with the princess that was the daughter of King Christian the 4th, back in the seventeenth century.

  While the princess was engaged at only nine years old, and later married and had ten children, Leonora Christina had never met the right man, and never had any children, much to her regret. Well, at least not yet. At the age of almost twenty-nine, she wasn’t out of the race just yet, even if her mother believed it was all over for her.

  “He’s never going to leave his wife. You must know that by now,” she kept telling her.

  But, Leonora believed he would. At least that’s what he kept telling her he was going to do. And she believed him. Even after four years together, she believed he would soon tell his wife that it was over.

  “I just need to wait till after the vacation to Bermuda,” he had told her. “It would simply ruin the vacation if I told her before we went, and I can’t do that to the children.”

  “Of course not.”

  “What was it he said the last time?” her mother now said on the phone, when Leonora explained to her what Morten had told her. It was Friday afternoon, and she had just come back from the firm when her mother had called. What a way to kick off the weekend.

  “Oh, yes, he had to wait till after the wife’s surgery,” the mother continued.

  “Well, he could hardly spring this on her right before she went into surgery,” Leonora said. “You can’t blame him for that. They have, after all, been married for fourteen years and have two children together. It’s a big thing to split up after that much history together.”

  “It was plastic surgery, Leonora. Don’t you see it?” her mother argued. “It’s the same damn thing every time you ask him. He keeps coming up with excuses. It’s been four years now! Don’t you want a family? Don’t you want to move on?”

  She did. But the thing was, she really loved him. He was everything to her. They had met at the law firm. She was an associate and he was one of the partners. Morten had hired her four years ago, when she was fresh out of law school. She had been the youngest in the firm. On a conference trip to Aalborg, the northern part of Denmark, he had made a pass at her at the hotel bar. She had let him, since she had been intoxicated by him and the way he talked. They had sex in the hotel room all four nights they spent there, and while
lying there, Morten had started complaining about his wife.

  “I want out,” he had said. “I can’t stand her. But there’s always the children, you know?”

  It was his second time around, he had told her. He had a child with another woman that he was married to for only a few years, when he’d met his current wife, who he’d had an affair with until it was discovered.

  “She got pregnant, and I had to marry her. It was a mistake. She was nothing but a fling, a flirt, and now I’m stuck with her. She’s nothing like you. You smell incredible. You’re so beautiful I can hardly believe it. I have never been with a woman this beautiful.”

  He had asked her to save herself for him, and she had liked that. Soon, he bought her an apartment close to the firm, where they would meet up during lunch breaks or in the afternoon when his wife thought he was working late. He would tell her how amazing she was, how deeply he loved her and wanted to be with her instead of his dreadful wife. So, Leonora had decided to wait for him, wait for him to find the right time to leave his wife. And she knew he would eventually, because he really couldn’t stand her. But there was always something. Always something they had to wait for. Leonora was saddened every time he postponed it, but at the same time, she found it very appealing that he was so concerned about his wife and children’s wellbeing that he didn’t want them to be hurt. It would happen. It just had to be at the exact right time.

  “But the right time will never come, Leonora,” her mother hissed on the phone. Leonora was tired of having the same conversation over and over with her mother, and tried to end it.

  “Listen, I got to…”

  “You’re stupid, Leonora. Such a waste…”

  Leonora felt the tears build up in her eyes. She felt so exhausted. So tired of hoping and waiting. So tired of having to defend herself and him. It was, after all, her life, wasn’t it?

  “There’s someone at the door,” she lied. “Gotta go. Bye, Mom.”