Hidden in Snow (The ?re Murders, #1)(64)
“Which means we’re looking at a person with sufficient physical strength to subdue her for some time?” Anton says.
Ylva nods.
Daniel thinks about Viktor in his black hoodie. Medium height, broad shoulders. Amanda would have been no match for him.
“There wasn’t enough violence to cause death,” Ylva goes on. “For example, there are no clear signs of stasis—a blockage preventing blood flow. Nor is the larynx badly damaged. It is possible that she might have lost consciousness for a period.”
“Any idea how long?” Daniel says. “Can you tell if she was unconscious when she froze to death?”
“You mean did she come around and realize she’d been abducted before she actually died?”
“Something like that.”
Daniel hopes the answer will be no. He hates the thought of Amanda coming around, groggy and half-naked, in an unfamiliar location on the mountain before she passed away. Of her being sufficiently compos mentis to realize what would happen as the cold increased and she couldn’t escape.
The fear of death must have been horrific.
“I can’t tell you that,” Ylva replies. Daniel can see in her eyes that she knows exactly why he’s asking.
They end the video call, and the screen goes black.
Daniel takes out his phone; he has received a new text message, which he reads with growing interest.
One of the drivers of a SkiStar snow groomer has contacted the police. He was working late on Saturday night, just a few hours before Amanda’s body was found on the chairlift.
He thinks he saw someone driving a snowmobile on the piste around that time.
“We need to leave right now,” Daniel says to Anton.
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67
Harald is driving toward Unders?ker. He is meeting Mira at V?llisteg?rden campsite—a place where no one is likely to see them.
Everyone knows everyone else in a small community like ?re; he has to be careful.
There isn’t a soul in sight when he pulls into the parking lot and switches off the engine. He’s early, which is perhaps a good thing. It is such a relief to get away from home; he could use a few minutes alone.
Everything back there reminds him of Amanda. The air is so heavy with grief that he feels the pressure on his shoulders. It is paralyzing.
Harald leans back in the driver’s seat.
He wishes he had the moral strength to stay away from Mira, but right now there is no one he needs more. She is the only one whose presence he craves, the only one who can give him solace.
He fell in love with her when he first interviewed her for the job. She was a fantastic PA and quickly slipped into her role as his right-hand woman. They became close, as people do in that kind of working relationship.
He couldn’t help hoping for more, but he was careful not to show it. Instead he did his best to win her empathy and trust. He tried to be an understanding and supportive boss and always allowed her to set her own hours. If she had to leave early because of her daughter, he never objected.
The more they got to know each other, the more Harald realized how alone she felt within her marriage.
Mira’s husband, Fredrik, put his heart and soul into his company, which took its toll. Their relationship suffered because he was never home, and it seemed to Mira that she always came second.
One evening at the office, when she and Harald were alone, she broke down. Harald comforted her, listened for hours as she wept on his shoulder.
Then he kissed her, and life was transformed.
She turned him into a new person, ten years younger and full of energy. He was ecstatically happy, even though he had to lie to Lena and come up with excuses to carve out time together with Mira. She was the last thing he thought about before he went to sleep, and the first thing when he woke.
But Mira got cold feet.
She started talking about her marriage vows and Fredrik’s jealousy. She was terrified that he would find out what she was up to.
She ended it.
Harald has made a number of futile attempts to change her mind in the month that’s passed since she broke off their relationship. He never felt so alive as during the six months they were together.
Wonderful, bewitching Mira, with her shiny black hair and the faint dimple in one cheek.
He and Lena were so young when they met; he’d hardly been with anyone else before they married and their beloved Amanda was born. The years passed, the twins came along, life went on. Their relationship has become a partnership, a friendship, with shared responsibility for the home and children. They’re not unhappy, they haven’t fallen out, they’re just not . . . in love.
Harald had forgotten the heady excitement of falling in love when Mira came into his life. He was forty years old by the time he understood what passion between a man and a woman could be like.
He hears the sound of an approaching engine, and her white Toyota appears. That alone is enough to fill him with desire.
For a moment, reality disappears. Excitement is coursing through his veins, his mouth goes dry.
Nothing exists but Mira.
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68
Daniel and Anton are on their way to R?dkullen, where SkiStar keeps its snow groomers in a huge garage.
Preparing the slopes is a constant, ongoing task. As soon as the lifts close, the groomers start work. They are often out until two in the morning, particularly when it snows as heavily as in recent weeks. Sometimes they have to go out again at six, before the lifts start up.