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Back Love and Other Lies Save as PDF
Chapters (61)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Imagine a girl
  4. Prologue
  5. The Foreigner
  6. One
  7. Two
  8. Three
  9. Four
  10. Five
  11. The Skeptic
  12. Six
  13. Seven
  14. Eight
  15. Nine
  16. Ten
  17. Eleven
  18. Twelve
  19. Thirteen
  20. Fourteen
  21. Fifteen
  22. Sixteen
  23. Seventeen
  24. Eighteen
  25. Nineteen
  26. Twenty
  27. Twenty-One
  28. Twenty-Two
  29. Twenty-Three
  30. The Spectator
  31. Twenty-Four
  32. Twenty-Five
  33. Twenty-Six
  34. Twenty-Seven
  35. Twenty-Eight
  36. Twenty-Nine
  37. The Assassin
  38. Thirty
  39. Thirty-One
  40. Thirty-Two
  41. Thirty-Three
  42. Thirty-Four
  43. Thirty-Five
  44. Thirty-Six
  45. Thirty-Seven
  46. Thirty-Eight
  47. Thirty-Nine
  48. Forty
  49. Forty-One
  50. The Hunter
  51. Forty-Two
  52. Forty-Three
  53. Forty-Four
  54. Forty-Five
  55. Forty-Six
  56. Forty-Seven
  57. Imagine a girl
  58. Acknowledgments
  59. About the Author
  60. Also by Ben McPherson
  61. About the Publisher

We drank wine and watched the fire and did not speak. Neither of us would say it, but I could see she was thinking it too: that we had failed Licia; that these people had stepped in to provide something we could not. In Licia’s own eyes she had become something exceptional.

After a time I took my wife in my arms. Elsa cried then, a long, keening wail that rang out across the fjord. And I cried too, silently, as men are taught. We cried for our family, and for Franklin and Vee, and for what the last year had done to them. Most of all we cried in mourning for our daughter Licia, who was lost to us now; who was never coming back.

For five days we barely spoke. We caught fish in the fjord, we collected wild strawberries, and we slept in the sun. None of us spoke about Licia—not once—though we were locked into place by her crimes. On Monday the Andersens would speak about her. Then the world would learn what she had done.

On Saturday Tvist rang to tell me he had arrested Bror personally. “We’ve got him this time,” he said.

All we could do now was wait.

Forty-Five

I was standing naked outside the cabin, spitting toothpaste and water onto the grass, when Tvist called again. I picked up my phone. It was five-fifteen on Monday morning.

“We’re up,” I said. “Thanks for checking.”

“This is about Bror.” I could hear the strain in his voice.

“Have you charged him?” I said.

“We don’t yet have enough. The case we are building will be strong. I give you my word.”

“Please tell me you haven’t released him.”

“We expect to rearrest him soon.”

Vee had breakfast on the table. She looked burned out, pale, a little shaky.

“Nice outfit,” she said as I passed. “Very Scandinavian.”

“Sorry. I’ll get dressed.”

“You okay, Dad?”

“Are you?”

“Sure.”

I dressed. We ate with the door to the cabin thrown open. We could see through the window the headlights of a police Volvo as it drew up by the harbor. And as we crossed the fjord in the rowboat I sat in the bow, vibrating with rage, watching the police driver as he smoked a cigarette down by the dock. Vee rowed carefully, turning regularly to check her position, dutiful and cautious, while Elsa sat in the stern with Franklin in his car seat, her stiff gray bag at her feet. The motion of the boat had lulled Franklin to sleep again. He was smiling as he slept, fingers exploring the contours of his cheeks.