Hidden in Snow (The ?re Murders, #1)(9)
She’s so shocked that her immediate impulse is to stay exactly where she is. She could go to sleep here on the ground; at least then she wouldn’t have to deal with everything that’s happened.
It’s all too much. She’s covered in snow, and it’s even found its way inside her jacket and started melting. She has no feeling in her toes.
Christian would be sorry if she was found here in the morning.
She shakes her head, drags herself to her feet. She brushes off the worst of the snow, picks up her case, and staggers the last few yards up to the house.
The main door is at the back, past the separate ski entrance, presumably to avoid spoiling the view.
She fumbles with the code to the ultramodern lock. She is shivering so violently that she can hardly stand still.
She has never felt so small, so abandoned. The realization that Christian has left her is hammering away in the back of her mind.
At last, she manages to open the door. The smell of the wooden house envelops her immediately, a reminder of something comforting from her childhood, a crackling fire, hot chocolate with whipped cream. Sitting on her big sister’s knee while Lydia reads her a story.
The relief of coming into the warmth almost makes her burst into tears.
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WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11
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8
It has turned twelve by the time Hanna gets out of bed and shuffles into the kitchen in her scruffy old pajamas.
There is nothing wrong with Lydia’s guest rooms. There are four on the lower ground floor, three with generous double beds. Hanna has chosen the one in the eastern corner, decorated in burnt tones of red, brown, and orange, with an amazing view over the lake.
In spite of the comfortable accommodation, she slept badly, waking several times to find she’d been crying in her sleep.
She pads over to the Nespresso machine and presses the button for extra-strong coffee. In the freezer she finds bread and lots of other food. It is packed with meat, fish, and vegetables; there are even homemade cinnamon buns.
The fridge provides marmalade, Kalles caviar, and other spreads with use-by dates well in the future. There is a box of eggs on the top shelf. Of course there are eggs, even though the house was supposed to be empty.
Lydia said the place was well equipped. Hanna has to smile at her super-organized sister.
She makes herself two sandwiches, then flops down at the table and puts on the TV to dispel the silence. She stares out of the floor-to-ceiling windows. The sky is overcast, and snow is falling gently. Up above Renfj?llet a barely visible corona of light reveals where the sun has hidden itself. Lake ?re lies down in the valley, linking the mountain slopes.
She follows the lake with her gaze until it curves west toward Duved. Beyond the mountains is Norway, less than forty miles away.
She forces down one sandwich and throws the other in the trash. She drinks her coffee, but it does nothing to diminish her headache. The bottle of red wine she’d liberated from Lydia’s cellar when she arrived yesterday evening is standing empty on the countertop. Hanna knows enough about wine to make an educated guess at the price; it must have cost at least two hundred kronor.
She makes another cup of coffee, then takes out her phone and starts scrolling through old photographs of Christian. After a while she reaches the ones she took last summer, when they went to visit her parents in Guadalmina in Spain. They’ve had a house there for decades.
She took a lot of pictures during their stay, mainly on the patio where they would enjoy a drink in the afternoons.
Christian wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up almost every day. The Mediterranean behind him was as blue as his eyes, and the sun turned his light-brown hair gold.
Dad and Christian played a round of golf every morning, and Hanna suspected that Christian sometimes let him win.
Her parents’ obvious delight in their “son-in-law” almost made her ignore the fact that they preferred to ask about him rather than her. None of her previous boyfriends had managed to evoke that satisfied expression on her mother’s face.
Nor had she, to be honest.
Christian represents everything that her mother and father adore. He grew up in one of Stockholm’s more prestigious suburbs; he has a degree and parents who still live in a beautiful house. The similarities with her own upbringing are ridiculous.
Except that Hanna has never felt at home in that environment. She has always been out of place.
She never fit in, unlike pretty, popular Lydia, who always achieved high grades and had a stream of well-brought-up boyfriends politely calling round to see her.
It wasn’t until she met Christian that Hanna felt special.
She also loved her parents’ reaction when she finally arrived home with a man who met their demands.
It was so nice to be . . . good enough in their eyes. For once.
She sees a hare come hopping across the garden, all by itself. Its clear footprints break the snow cover, its big hind feet perfectly placed in front of the forefeet.
It seems to be as lonely and abandoned as she is.
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9
Amanda and Ebba are sitting outside the school, smoking.
The sky is gray, and it’s freezing cold. Ebba is doing her best to enjoy her cigarette, even though the bench they’re sitting on is turning her thighs to lumps of ice.
She feels the nicotine spreading through her body.