“Our parents believe that the pack should sleep together, so when I was little, they built a huge bed for all of us, fifteen feet wide. I have my own now, but Oscar still sleeps there.”

Anette felt a cold breath of air on the back of her neck.

A family bed?

BOWLS OF CHIA seed porridge sat congealing on the kitchen table—breakfast prepared by a father with no appetite, for a family that wasn’t home. Iben ought to be here, sitting with her elbows on the table and her mouth full, laughing at his bumbling attempts to prepare the vegan fare that she herself had introduced to the household. But in spite of her best friend being missing, she had gone to a morning rally at the Danish Youth Council. Iben was active in their environmental organization. His daughter, idealistic and stubborn as hell.

Kasper Skytte tilted his head back and downed what was left of the Fernet-Branca. The burning sensation in his esophagus felt good, as did the subsequent wave of nausea. He wasn’t particularly fond of Fernet-Branca, especially not in the morning, but today of all days he needed liquor and the blissful indifference it spread through his body. Kasper didn’t have a drinking problem—his addiction wore a different face—but he knew that he sometimes drank too much. That his already ample wine consumption had escalated to something decidedly unhealthy in the seven years since his relatively amicable divorce. That he only coped with being a single parent by having a drink and a couple of hours alone in front of the computer screen to look forward to at the end of the workday.

When his ex-wife moved to San Sebastián with her new boyfriend six years ago, she had agreed to let Iben remain in Denmark. Kasper had gotten the condo, their daughter, and—much against his will—the dog, a Coton de Tulear named Cookie that he had begrudgingly walked twice a day until it finally kicked the bucket last year. In other words, he had gotten everything and she had walked away with nothing but her freedom.

And yet she seemed to have taken some part of their daughter with her, for with every passing year the emptiness in Iben’s eyes grew. At least when she was looking at her father.

The gate banged shut in the front yard, and he looked out the window to see if it was her. It was the upstairs neighbor. Iben had promised to come straight home after her meeting, and now she wasn’t even answering the phone when he called. He started throwing away the remaining porridge but gave up on doing the dishes. They would just have to wait for later.