Thirteen, Fourteen ... Little boy unseen (Rebekka Franck Book 7) Page 8

  “I thought you wouldn’t come, Mom,” Julie declared, as soon as we were in the car. William was crying helplessly, and Julie was on the verge of breaking down as well. I cursed Sune and part of me hoped he was hurt or something. It would be the only excuse I would accept at this point.

  But I had a feeling he wasn’t. And the thought drove me nuts. I kept calling his cell, but got no answer. I reached the point where I was actually worried about him and wondering if something really serious might have happened.

  I drove like crazy through town, shifting between being furious and deeply concerned. Neither was a comfortable feeling.

  “I will always come and pick you up, sweetheart. I was just a little late, that’s all,” I said to comfort them. “I lost track of time.”

  “Where is my dad?” Tobias asked. “Couldn’t he have picked us up?”

  You’d think, wouldn’t you?

  I parked in the driveway, then shooed the children out of the car. Julie hugged me on her way out.

  “Don’t ever forget me,” she said.

  I looked into her blue eyes. “I won’t, sweetie. You know that. And I promise to never be this late again.”

  It was with petrified steps that I walked up to the house. The front door was locked, and I fumbled with the keys before finally opening it.

  “Sune?” I almost screamed.

  Where the hell is he? Has something bad happened to him?

  There was no answer. I ran into the living room, but it was empty. I stomped upstairs and found my dad in his bed, reading a magazine.

  “Hey, honey. Say, is all well? You look pale.”

  “I can’t find Sune. He didn’t pick up the kids from school. Has he been home at all?”

  “He was here earlier. I heard him come home around one o’clock. He came in here and asked me if I needed anything. Later, I fell asleep, and when I woke up it was all quiet downstairs. Until you guys all came home. Is it that late?”

  “It’s past six o’clock,” I said.

  “Oh, my goodness. Well, it gets dark so early these days, I lose complete track of time.”

  “Yeah. Well, could you stay with the kids while I go look for him?” I asked. “I’ll make some sandwiches for them to eat, so they won’t be too hungry.”

  “Sure. I’ll come down in a minute.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  I closed the door to his room with my heart pounding. Where could Sune be? Had something really happened to him? I tried calling him again, but no answer. I ran downstairs to the kitchen and made a bunch of ham sandwiches, and soon my dad came down. He looked better.

  “Are you sure you’re up for this?” I asked and kissed his cheek. “I hope it won’t be long.”

  “Yes, of course I am,” he said.

  “I’ll take William, so you only need to keep an eye on the big ones. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

  My dad grabbed my arm and looked me in the eyes. “We’ll be fine. Sune is fine too. Worry will give you nothing but an ulcer. It’s like a rocking-chair, remember?”

  I nodded. “I know. It keeps me busy but gets me nowhere.” I smiled and kissed him. Then I grabbed William, gave him a sandwich and a juice box, and headed out the door.

  As I opened the front door, I spotted Sune further down the street riding his bike. Next to him was Jeppe on his bike. They were both laughing and chatting loudly. My heart dropped, and I stood like I was frozen on the front step. Could this really be? I mean, I felt relieved that nothing had happened to him, but it was very quickly replaced by extreme fury.

  What the hell had happened to him?

  They came closer, and now Sune was waving at me. Jeppe did the same. Had they no idea what had happened? And that was when I saw it. I couldn’t believe my eyes at first. It freaked me out.

  Jeppe had gotten a Mohawk. The exact same as Sune’s. He was even wearing the same spiked leather band around his neck.

  He looked exactly like Sune.

  27

  “DOESN’T HE look great?” Sune asked, as they came closer. “Jeppe told me he loved the way I looked, so we took a trip around town, went to my hairdresser and shopped for some clothes, giving him the same look. The hairdresser gave Jeppe a short Mohawk and shaved the sides of his head, then fixed mine up to match.”

  Sune looked great. I liked the short Mohawk, but I was so angry I couldn’t even speak. I simply couldn’t get a word across my lips. And not only that. I felt hurt as well. I felt abandoned.

  “What?” Sune asked. “You look angry.”

  Do you have any idea what time it is?” I asked. I knew I sounded like his mother, but what the heck was I supposed to say?

  “I know. We lost track of time,” he said.

  I had to really hold it in to not explode. “You lost track of time? What about the kids?”

  He looked confused. “I thought you were going to pick them up?” Sune said. “You said so when I left the office earlier. You said you were done with the article, so you could pick them up.”

  “What? No, I didn’t. I asked you to pick them up. Don’t you remember?”

  Sune shook his head. “No you didn’t. I specifically remember you said you would pick them up.”

  I couldn’t believe this. Had he completely lost it? “I didn’t. And I couldn’t pick them up. There was another story. I texted you. I called you. Why don’t you pick up your phone anymore?”

  “I think I’d better head home,” Jeppe said. “See you later, Sune.” They gave each other a fist bump and the hairs on the back of my neck rose when I realized how much they suddenly looked alike. It was kind of eerie.

  “I’m sorry,” Sune said. He sounded like he was getting angry now. “My phone ran out of battery. I didn’t have a charger. What do you expect me to do?”

  I closed my eyes for a second, then put William down and let him run back inside the house.

  The important part is that no one got hurt. Everyone is well.

  “I’m serious here, Rebekka. You can’t expect to be able to reach me at all times. Sometimes I don’t hear my phone; sometimes it runs out of battery. It’s just what happens. It’s not something I planned.”

  “I know. I know. It’s just that…well, the kids were picked up too late. I thought you were picking them up. I left you a message on your voice mail and texted you. I assumed you had seen it. I…I don’t know how to react to this. If I can’t trust you to be there for me, I don’t know how I can do my job. I need to know that I can count on you, and that you don’t just disappear for long periods of time. We’re supposed to be a team here.”

  Sune nodded. “I know. And I believe we are. But every now and then, I need to be me as well. I need to be able to go out with a friend. I can’t have you controlling me constantly, acting like you’re my mother.”

  I bit my lip and looked at him. It didn’t sound like Sune. “Where is all this coming from all of a sudden?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Ah, come on,” he said. “You really don’t think I’m capable of having an opinion of my own? You really don’t have good thoughts about me, do you? You emasculate me. Make me feel like a child. Jeppe was right about everything. To think I defended you when he said those things.”

  Sune sighed, shook his head, and walked past me. I stood in the cold for a few seconds, wondering what had happened to the man I loved, the man I thought I shared a life with. In just a few days, he had completely changed.

  I felt a deep sadness spread inside of me as I turned around and followed him inside, where the kids were fighting over a toy in the living room. I grabbed William and went upstairs. I gave him a bath. Then I took him to his room. I read a story and sang a song, then sang three others, until he was finally satisfied and fell asleep. I sat in the darkness of his room, wondering if I should even bother to go downstairs, or if I should simply just go to bed right away. I really didn’t want to spend time with my family. I didn’t feel like fighting more with Sune or have to solve any more conflicts. I wondered what
had happened to Julie and Tobias. They used to be the best of friends when Sune and I simply worked together. Ever since we moved in together, everything had changed. It was like they felt they had to constantly compete about everything. Was it an age thing? Or was the moving in together simply bad for them?

  Was it bad for us?

  28

  IT WAS putting it mildly to say that school was terrible for the twins. Mostly for Alex, of course. Upon entering kindergarten, she became the object of instant ridicule from classmates, both male and female. When she walked by, they would giggle behind her back, while whispering and pointing fingers. And it was everybody. Not just a few mean students. And not just on some days. It was every day. Non-stop. They called her names, ignored her, and didn’t include her in anything.

  Even their teacher didn’t accept her, the man recalled. The teacher knew something was different about her.

  The man could so vividly remember all those disapproving looks, the glares, the name-calling, and even the teacher who would simply point Alex out in class, call her up when he knew she wouldn’t be able to answer, or ridicule her in class, only to make all the other students feel like it was okay to mock her. It became something everyone did, and that somehow made it legal.

  Even the man knew that there was something wrong with his sister. Of course he did. There are certain ways people are expected to act and be. As a boy, you know what a girl is supposed to be like. Girls are delicate. They’re supposed to be into girl-stuff, dolls and tea parties and princesses and stuff. Alex wasn’t like that. She liked to do boy-stuff. And Alex even knew it herself. She looked at the girls playing and wondered why she didn’t want to do the things they did, why she wasn’t interested in what they played, then looked at the boys and saw that they looked completely different than she. Soon, she started seeing herself as not belonging in either category, and started referring to herself as an it.

  In school, her teacher thought she was dumber than the rest, and had her tested, but the test only proved that she was within the normal intelligence range, and therefore, the teacher concluded that because of her malfunctioning in the classroom, she had to be held back. She was simply unwilling to submit to authority.

  Knowing this, their parents contacted Dr. Winter, who told the school that there was nothing wrong with Alex, and that they had to consider her fragile emotional state, but that she was perfectly fit for first grade. Only a few weeks into first grade, however, the teacher had to file a report on Alex stating that she did everything opposite of what was expected of her.

  After that, Dr. Winter intensified his exercises with Alex, and often asked her and her brother to come to the clinic alone without their parents. That’s where they learned that there were two sides to Dr. Winter. The one he showed when their parents were around and the one he showed when they were alone. He would undress them and have them examine their body parts, to make sure Alex could see that there was an anatomical difference between the two of them. He would show them pictures of naked grown-up people in strange positions, often sexual positions, and ask Alex what she liked, who she could see herself having sexual relations with.

  Every time, she would point to the girl. After that, Dr. Winter concluded that Alex was a lesbian and explained that to their parents. But their parents never accepted that fact. They turned to the pastor for help. The pastor told them to whip the child, to force her out of it. The pastor called it a disease that could only be held down with brutal force. With time, she would learn to accept the fact that she was a girl and that she was supposed to marry a boy like all normal girls.

  But she didn’t. Alex refused to accept it.

  Night after night, she still cried in her sleep, stating that she was a boy, that she wasn’t a girl, that she would never be a girl.

  When puberty hit, Dr. Winter started having more and more sessions with them both. He talked constantly about sex and showed them pornographic movies and pictures to the extent that they started fearing having to go there. They would scream and yell every time their parents told them it was time for their session with the doctor or the therapist.

  When Alex’s breasts still hadn’t developed at the age of fourteen, Dr. Winter started giving her estrogen.

  “To make you fill out a bra,” he said.

  Alex was angry and refused to take the pills. “I don’t want to wear a bra,” she yelled, and then ran to her room. But her parents forced the pills in her anyway.

  The mocking continued at school, and every day, Alex’s stomach hurt so badly while walking the long way to the school.

  Until one day, when Alex spotted Leonora. She was a new girl in eighth grade. Tall and blond and simply gorgeous.

  The man sighed and looked at the old class photos. He let a finger run across Leonora’s picture. They had both been in love with her back then, but she was Alex’s great love, so the man had stayed away. Finally, Alex had found something to be excited about, something to make her day brighter. Finally, she actually looked forward to going to school. Finally, she was smiling. It was like a spell had been broken, like a curse had been lifted on her life.

  The man shed a tear when thinking about it. He looked at the picture of the beautiful blond girl that had made his sister so happy for the first time in her short life. That smile, the long blond hair and the blue eyes were looking back at him. He kept touching her face, first gently, then harder and harder, rubbing on the picture with his nail, until he scraped the face off.

  29

  “IF A SERIAL killer is on the loose, then we need to warn people.”

  I was sitting in the office the next day, wondering about the four killings and how they were connected when Jens-Ole called. I told him I thought it might be the same killer.

  “We need to tell the story, Rebekka,” he said. “So people are careful and don’t go out late at night and so on. They deserve to know.”

  “It’s just…well, I can’t get anyone from inside the police force to publicly make a statement. I can’t get it documented that the killings are connected. When I call and ask about it, they tell me they can’t say anything yet. But I looked at the autopsy reports, and all of them have been beaten with a weapon similar to a police baton. They all conclude that. Even the last one, Dr. Korner. The baton leaves marks on the skin. This guy is beating his victims to death, then dressing them up and displaying them for us to find.”

  “But you can’t write that because you got the information illegally, and the police are denying and covering it up because it might be one of their own, which makes it even more urgent for us to tell the story,” Jens-Ole grumbled. “What do we do? Hm…”

  “Unnamed sources? Anonymous?” I asked, looking at Sara, who placed a piece of pastry in front of me and a cup of coffee. I smiled and mouthed a thank you while she went back to the police scanner.

  “I hate having to do that,” Jens-Ole said. “It’s just not credible enough. It sounds like we’re guessing and making up our own stories, but yes, I believe that’s what we’ll have to do. It’s the only way. You do that, and I’ll take care of management. Write, Goddammit. Write your story.”

  He hung up. I put the phone down and looked at Sune, who was staring at his screen. We had hardly spoken since last night. I had asked him to come in and help me get access to the police file on Dr. Korner, so I could check the forensic report. Now, there was nothing more for him to do, and I knew he was only waiting for me to tell him he could go home, but I didn’t want to. I knew he would only spend time with that creepy guy Jeppe, and I hated that. I knew it was selfish, but I wanted him to stay here with me. After all, the newspaper was paying him for an entire day. They had to. Even if we only asked him to do a little work, as a freelancer he was being paid for the entire day. So, while eating my pastry, I wondered if I could come up with something else for him to do. I was, after all, writing a big article about how the killings were connected, and they needed some photos besides the ones they already had.

  “Su
ne could you maybe go downtown and take some pictures from outside the police station for my article?” I asked.

  “Why can’t your journalist friend do it?” he asked.

  Sune had been mad at me ever since he realized David had taken the pictures for my story the day before.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, your photo-journalist friend,” he corrected himself sarcastically.

  “Could you please just do this for me?” I asked, ignoring his comments. I wasn’t in the mood for fighting.

  “Can’t you just take some pictures from the archives? The building is the exact same as it was the last time.”

  “You know they prefer the pictures to be new,” I said.

  Sune shrugged. Then he grabbed his camera. “I guess,” he said.

  Sara took off her headset. “Could you bring back lunch? Maybe some of those sandwiches from the bakery on the corner? They’re so good.”

  Sune shrugged again. “I guess.” He put his jacket on, and without a word of goodbye, he left the office.

  “What’s eating him?” Sara asked when he had left.

  I sighed and leaned back in my chair. I had a bad feeling inside of me. I didn’t like what was happening between us.

  “A late teenage rebellion?” I said.

  Sara laughed out loud while putting her headphones back on. I didn’t laugh.

  30

  I DIDN’T like the idea of writing an article without anyone confirming its content, and luckily, after writing most of it, I had an idea. I called an old friend at the Copenhagen forensic department. I knew him when I was in Iraq. He worked on helping identify victims, especially when a bomb had been set off in a public marketplace or after a roadside bomb attack. He came back to Denmark a year after me.

  “Rebekka! Wow. It’s been years. How have you been?” Kim asked.

  “Good. Can’t complain. Guess you heard I moved to Karrebaeksminde?”