“I might as well. Go for it, I mean.”

“But you can’t just think like that.”

“What do you mean, ‘think like that’?”

“Honestly, Mia, Martin Strömberg is not exactly a mother’s dream for her daughter... We’ve just questioned him for being, well, who he is.”

“But you’re forgetting something. Maybe I’m not looking for my mother’s dream for me.”

“What are you looking for, then? A criminal?”

She looked at Henrik in all seriousness.

“You are so boring, Henrik. But okay, I’ll forget about him then.”

“Of course you should. You’ll find someone else. Someone better, Mia.”

“Maybe,” she mumbled as the light turned green.

* * *

In the last few miles before reaching the coast, he was filled with a sort of inner peace that allowed him to lighten up on the gas. There was no reason to stress right now. The drug mule might need a few extra minutes to release the last of her delivery.

He drove somewhat more slowly past the snow-covered fields and the leafless trees. He felt the wheel tremble when the wheels met the ice-covered edges of the road.

He rested his head on the headrest and smiled, thinking it was time to snuff her out, to make room for someone else.

A quarter-mile from the coast, he turned off the headlights. He didn’t want to risk anyone noticing them. Him, really. All it would take was one nosy local and the whole operation would have to move.

It was a problem that the moon was shining far too brightly. It worried him.

Go behind a cloud, for fuck’s sake, he thought with his gaze turned toward the large, stubborn celestial body that shone blindingly white high above the tops of the spruce trees.

Finally, he got out of the car and stood still with his arms at his sides, listening and watching for any sign of life. Then he began walking toward the building. With long strides, he trudged through the ankle-deep snow, keeping the whole time in the shadows of the trees, hidden from the moonlight.

It’s time, he thought, just before he noticed the footprints outside the structure.

Before he noticed that the footprints weren’t his.

* * *

The wind increased, as did the falling snow.

Henrik Levin wanted to go home, take the kids to the park and go sledding. He knew they would be jubilant in the untouched, white blanket of snow that waited for them on the little hill behind the house.

It would be fun for him, too, sitting on the Snow Racer and speeding down the hill, the wind and cold on his face.

But he didn’t get up out of his chair. It was as if he were looking for a reason to stay.

He thought about the Thai girls. Shouldn’t they find out more about them? Two more entered in the statistics for narcotics crimes. Two more in unsolved cases.