Chapters (61)
- Cover
- Dedication
- Imagine a girl
- Prologue
- The Foreigner
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- The Skeptic
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- The Spectator
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- The Assassin
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- The Hunter
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Imagine a girl
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Also by Ben McPherson
- About the Publisher
“Now,” said Leela. “You need to be here.”
“We actually could take it out. For, I don’t know, twenty minutes or something.”
“Or did you somehow not hear what happened in Oslo today?”
“Literally no one would know. Why? What happened?”
“There was this huge explosion. The town hall.”
She could feel her mind as it refocused. “Sounds bad.”
“It’s most probably a bomb,” said Leela.
“A bomb,” she echoed.
She felt bad. She should call her father, tell him she was okay. But what if her father begged her to come home?
Of course she would never take the boat. She was processing, or something. An explosion in town. Police here to talk to them. She really should call her father.
So far from home.
She picked up the metal box. It was heavy. She shook it, but whatever was inside it was carefully held in place.
“So,” said Leela. “So, the police have information they need to give us. And the marshals are taking a roll call. I already told them you were here. Don’t make a liar of me.”
“Did I ask you to lie?”
Leela sighed theatrically. “Give me a break . . .”
The metal box looked important, but also somehow wrong, like an object kept outside in the rain.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll be three minutes.”
“Maybe we could go for a ride later?”
“No,” she said. “No, this was pretty much our only chance.”
What was it that made her take the key from the ignition? What made her pick up the metal box and stow it in her backpack? Some instinct that she couldn’t yet name, some growing feeling. She slid the key and her phone into the side pocket. She jumped ashore. When she looked back she saw a gray half footprint on the deck by the aft locker. She frowned. The earth on the island was dry and brown.
She slung the pack across her shoulder, headed up the hill. She would find the policemen; she would give them the key and the metal box.
She tightened the straps as she walked. The edges of the metal box chafed at her skin through the backpack. She felt sweat gathering where the pack met her dress, felt it pooling in the small of her back. Hard to believe it could be so hot.