Black Seconds by Karin Fossum Read Free Book Online

made him feel calm and nervous at the same time.
    "You being her cousin, well, that's incriminating in itself," Willy said. Finally he got up. The fender was loose. "Especially if they never find her. If they never find out the truth. Something like that brands people for generations. You know a girl was murdered out here forty years ago, don't you?" Tomme shook his head.
    "Well, she was. A guy raped and killed a fifteen-year-old girl. Both their families still live here. And you can tell just by looking at them."
    "Tell what?" Tomme asked. He was growing more and more nervous.
    "That it's all they ever think about. And they know everyone knows who they are. That's why they can never look anyone in the eye. That kind of stuff." He wiped a bead of snot from his upper lip. "The mother of the guy who killed her is close to seventy now. And you can still tell who she is from miles away."
    "Well, I can't," Tomme snapped. "I've no idea who she is." He wanted his friend to shut up. Hated all this talk of death and destruction. The only thing he cared about was the car. Making it whole again. Shiny and new, with unmarked paintwork, like it was before.
    ***
    She knows she is pretty, Sejer thought sadly. He was holding a photo of Ida in his hand. In his mind he could hear them all, an endless chorus of aunts and uncles, neighbors and friends. What a gorgeous child. He remembered his own aunts, who used to tickle his chin as if he were a puppy or some other dumb creature. And so I was, he realized. A shy, skinny boy with legs that were too long. He kept looking at the photo. For years Ida had seen her own beauty mirrored in the eyes of others. This had made her a confident girl, a girl who was accustomed to being admired, and possibly envied, too. Used to getting her own way with both her friends and her parents, though Helga came across as firm and strict, so Ida had also been given rules. She had never broken them. Who could have made her ignore her mother's warnings? What had he done to lure her away? Or had she simply been grabbed and bundled into a car?
    Adorable and precocious, he thought. It was a bad combination. It made her a target. Staring into those brown eyes it was impossible not to melt. He tried to connect these three things. Warm feelings for an enchanting child, followed by physical arousal, and finally destruction. He understood the first one. He even managed to imagine fleeting moments of desire. The purity, the fragility that children embodied. So smooth, uncorrupted, and tender; they smelled so good, they trembled and quivered. And purely by being an adult, you had the strength to take what you wanted. But to beat and squeeze the life out of a tiny child was beyond comprehension. The frenzied struggle as life slowly ebbed away in your hands was unimaginable. He rubbed his tired eyes, repelled by his thought experiment. He decided to call Sara's hotel in New York. She was not in.
    It was late in the evening. The town lay smoldering like a dying fire between blue-black ridges. He could go home and pour himself a glass of whiskey. He would probably be able to fall asleep quite easily. The fact that he could lie down and sleep while Ida was lost in the darkness, while Helga waited for her with stinging eyes, disturbed him deeply. He would rather be outside. Walk the streets with all his senses alert. Be outside because Ida was. The search parties still had nothing to report.
    He was startled by a knock on the door. Jacob Skarre popped his head around it.
    "You still here?" Sejer asked. "What are you doing at this hour?"
    "Same as you, I suppose. Hanging around."
    Skarre took a look around his boss's office. Beneath Sejer's desk lamp was a Play-Doh figure. It was meant to be a police officer wearing a blue uniform and had been made by Sejer's grandchild. Skarre lifted the figure and inspected it.
    "It's starting to go moldy," he said. "Did you know?"
    Sejer pretended not to hear him. It would never even cross his mind to