by Isa Hansen
Celia offered her a courteous smile and quickly left.
Out in the hall she eyed the sticky note that had a few names on it—probably as a reminder of some sort. She pulled out the note from Liv’s alleged killer and held the papers side by side, comparing them.
It was too hard to assess whether or not she had a match. The sticky note was written with a quick scribble. The other note had been crafted carefully. While some letters were similar, others were not, and Celia wasn’t able to draw any conclusions. She put the notes together and stuck them in her bag. It had been worth a try.
Celia skipped the second part of the day where the class would get together.
Hans was the last person she wanted to see right now. Also, she needed to get back to the library. She needed the photo of the dress.
Quickening her pace, she slammed her locker door shut and moved with swift, hurried steps. She felt like the walls were closing in on her, like she needed to rush to put the pieces together before she was out of time.
Heading out through the main doors, she caught sight of a gaunt figure. Celia wavered when she saw her.
Nicole was entering as Celia was leaving.
Both girls stopped and looked at the other, the glass doors closing shut between them.
Nicole’s face looked even more pale than before. Celia thought she glimpsed a bruise, under the left eye. A shade of black and blue underneath the layers of makeup. Although she could have just been imagining it. Maybe it was a shadow, or the lighting: Nicole was standing right where bleak winter light met fluorescent sheen.
The guilt twisted in Celia’s chest as she walked away. She stopped and turned to look again—through the glass doors, but Nicole was gone.
***
At the library, she ducked down in front of the microfilm machine. She went straight for the article with Liv’s dress. She was tempted to sit and study the details of it but that would be a waste of time. She could do the comparing back home.
She also wanted printouts of the other articles, just in case there was anything in them that she had previously missed. She printed out the two articles on Liv’s death along with the obituary and funeral notice. While she was scrolling through the pages, another story caught her eye: an article about an event held at Rosenlunden estate on the afternoon of October 2, where the Rosensköld foundation honored a local construction project with a generous amount of money. The article wasn’t interesting in itself, but Celia’s desire to gain further insight into Alex caused her to print it out. She was nowhere near ready to say that all of this wasn’t his doing.
She also printed out the articles on the fire at Liv’s junior high school and the ones highlighting the summer crime wave. She hurried through the pages.
Before she left, she printed out one more article that had escaped her attention last time. One from August where Liv was the recipient of a swimming prize. She stood beachside with two other girls; all three of the young swimmers held trophies in their hands. A group of people were standing around them, smiling and applauding.
Celia collected her selected articles from the front desk, packed up, and headed home.
Back in the privacy of her room, she dove for the newspaper clippings in her bag. She flitted through them for the photograph of Liv in the striped dress. Then she pulled out the dress from her clothes drawer and studied the dress in the picture.
With increasing dread she noted the similarity of the two dresses. The stripes were of similar dimension. The length appeared the same. When she looked closely at the photograph she noticed an elaborate pattern at the top of the dress by the neck: a dark-colored crocheted pattern in a half-moon shape.
The neck of the dress in Celia’s hands bore the same shape and pattern.
She drew her finger over the detail of the dress.
Her legs went weak and the inside of her mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton candy.
It was the same dress. Had to be.
Either that, or someone had gone through a lot of trouble to make an extraordinarily similar version of it, and somehow Celia doubted that.
CHAPTER 38
Erik and Anette left early Saturday morning, two days before Christmas eve. They would stop by the Warbler first to pick up Maj-Britt, then head on to Stockholm. Celia watched them leave and waved from the doorway.
She resolutely shut the door, ready to get to work.
Winter vacation had commenced, and for Celia that meant going full on into investigation mode. She no longer had the distractions of school. She could focus solely on the case.
Her friends were deeply disturbed by the arrival of the dress, and she fully understood their concerns. They had all underestimated what was going on, letting themselves get lulled into safety thinking it was Alex’s games at play. But she put her head down with obstinacy, not giving in to her fears. It was like rolling a snowball down a hill: at some point it had gained so much weight there was no way of stopping it.
Being alone in the house was admittedly daunting, but Celia jammed it out of her thoughts. Instead she focused on the probe at hand. She sat down at the kitchen table and began filing through the details from her conversations with people about Liv.
She scribbled Katja’s name and drew a circle round it.
When Celia visited Katja, she’d made a cryptic comment about Hans possibly having hurt Liv. In light of recent events, Celia was highly interested in knowing why she’d made that remark.
She looked up Katja’s phone number online and punched in her number.
After a few rings Katja picked up.
“You again,” she said after she realized who her caller was.
Celia ignored the comment, skipped the niceties and got straight to the point: “When we last spoke you mentioned that Hans could have hurt Liv.”
“I said that? I don’t recall.”
“You did say that.” Celia drummed her finger against the table. “Why? What motive would he have had?”
“How should I know?”
“Why would you say something you didn’t know about?”
A sigh on the other end of the line.
“Liv was planning on breaking up with him. It wouldn’t surprise me if he saw it coming.”
Celia sat up. This was new information. “Why did Liv want to break up with him?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t tell me, or I just don’t remember. It wasn’t working out.”
“And you think he could have hurt her because of that?”
“Honestly? I’m not sure. It’s possible.”
“But when we talked, you said that Liv was scared of someone. If it wasn’t Hans, who would it have been?”
“I don’t know.”
Apparently Katja wasn’t feeling any chattier now than when Celia visited her a few months ago. Sensing it wasn’t going to lead anywhere productive, she ended the call. And made a decision: it was time to find Lottis.
Lottis was the one who discovered Liv’s body. The missing pieces were somewhere. Maybe they were with her.
Tracking down yet another Vi fem member was a risk considering Petter Blom’s warnings, but Celia was beyond the point of worrying about taking risks. Her mind was one track now and she was moving forward. She opened up her laptop computer.
After searching by name and clicking through a number of professional career profiles online, she found one that was promising: A Charlotta Svensson-Haag who, according to the woman’s online CV, was a 1989 graduate from Björkby’s local college. She’d stayed in Björkby for two years as a marketing intern, then she’d been at a company in Luleå for over a decade, and now she was working in Borås as a copywriter.
Included in the profile was a photo of the woman. She had soft, small features and shoulder-length dark blond hair.
Once Celia had a town of residence for Lottis, she went to the listings on the hitta.se search site. There she found a Charlotta Svensson in Borås, age 44.
Perfect.
Celia scribbl
ed down the home address of the woman. Then she did a quick lookup of the marketing agency where Lottis worked—adding that address and phone number to her notes.
Next she texted Zari to see if she was up for a day trip to Borås.
Anette had offered Celia the use of her car while she and Erik were in Stockholm. That was going to come in very handy right about now.
Zari sent a message back. She was free to come along.
Soon after, Celia was on the road to pick up Zari. The drive to Borås was just under an hour.
On her way out to the car, Celia had collected a bundle of mail from the mail box. Now parked on the street just outside of Zari’s house, Celia was going through the mail. She had some mail redirected from the States and a survey from school asking her to evaluate her fall semester. To her surprise, there was also an envelope from the Rosensköld family.
She was opening the latter when Zari knocked on the passenger window. She clicked the unlock button.
“Hej,” Zari said, climbing into the car. She noticed what Celia had in her hand: an invitation to the Rosensköld New Year’s Eve party at their estate.
“Are you going?” Zari motioned to the invitation.
“Wouldn’t think so.” Celia stuck the invitation with the rest of the mail and flung the bundle onto the backseat. She put Anette’s car into drive, looking over her shoulder as she pulled out and navigated a U-turn.
When they’d been on the road for a while, Zari said: “This might be a bad time to ask, but I was wondering if you could help me with something.”
“Of course, anything.”
“But with all that’s going on, maybe—”
“Don’t worry, I’m fine,” Celia said. In truth, she felt far from fine, but she was getting pretty good at pushing away her anxieties. Besides, she meant what she said—she’d do anything for Zari. “What do you need help with?”
“You know that essay I wrote a few months ago: Do I want to be Swedish?”
“Sure?”
“Well, my teacher liked it. Really, really liked it. She wants to enter it into this big international essay competition.”
“Hey, Zari, that’s great!”
“It needs to be translated. I’m doing that right now and was wondering if you could look over the English?”
“Of course,” Celia said emphatically. “Zari, that’s really awesome. I’m so happy for you.”
“Thank you,” Zari said, nodding. “It’s nice. The recognition from my teacher. And that she’s encouraging me and thinks my thoughts are valid.”
“Well, of course they’re valid.” Celia looked over at Zari. “By the way, have you seen Nicole lately?”
“Seen her,” Zari said curtly. “At school. But she doesn’t say or do anything. She doesn’t even look at me.”
Good.
So Nicole was keeping her end of the bargain. Celia felt bad for the girl, felt a sizable amount of guilt even, but if Nicole touched Zari or did anything to her, she’d be sure to lose it. She was strung so tight, it wouldn’t take much for her to spin out of control. “Let me know if that changes,” Celia said. “If I find out she’s up to something, I won’t be able to let it go…”
“Then maybe you can understand how Ebba and Oskar and I feel about what’s happening to you,” Zari said.
“I do, actually,” Celia admitted.
“About that.” Zari stalled. “I was over at Ebba’s house last night.” Another little pause and something flighty in her voice. “Oskar was there, too.”
“OK?”
“And we were talking … we don’t think you should be staying alone while your aunt and uncle are gone. You could come and stay with me or with Ebba, although we thought you might not go for that exactly, so…” Zari gave Celia a casual glance. “Oskar said he would stay with you, if you wanted him to.”
“He did?”
A nod from Zari.
“I see.”
Being alone in the house wasn’t ideal. That was obvious, even to Celia. And while she didn’t like her friends treating her like someone who had to be looked after, she found the idea of sharing the house with Oskar curiously appealing. She said, “Oskar really offered to stay with me? You don’t think he’d mind?”
Zari began texting, a sly look on her face.
“What are you doing?”
“Just letting Oskar and Ebba know that you want him stay with you.”
“Wait, what?!” Celia gave Zari an astonished stare.
Zari responded with an innocent shrug.
“I don’t want him to feel forced into it.” Celia thought about stopping the car to send a follow up to Zari’s message, stating there had been a misunderstanding.
But a few seconds later Zari’s face lit up. “He says he’ll be over tonight.” Zari looked up from her phone. “So now that’s taken care of.”
“I can’t believe you just did that!”
“You both want it,” Zari said unapologetically. “And anyway, you shouldn’t be staying alone right now. That’s just crazy.”
Celia focused on the road ahead.
She was left with a skittish swirl of emotions.
The thought of Oskar staying with her made her feel giddy—her body filling with a lightness, a tingling that was calm and overbearing all at once. She didn’t realize she was smiling until she heard Zari laugh softly.
“What?”
“You’re in love.”
Her first instinct was to deny it, but she didn’t.
Instead she gripped the steering wheel and drove in silence. She watched the austere landscape glide by, a hint of sun breaking through the winter clouds, streaking over the windshield, weightless and featherlike.
Zari was right: she had fallen.
So now what?
Zari just smiled at her. She was looking particularly pleased with herself. “Good,” she said. “Oskar will stay with you. It’s settled then.”
“I guess it is,” Celia said, even though the last thing she felt in that moment was settled.
***
They soon arrived in Borås; a laid-back, wintery small town with a river running through it. Just like in Björkby, the city center was split in two by the water passage. Bridges, grand architecture, mature trees, and city parks spotted the downtown area.
They followed Celia’s GPS to Lottis’s home address.
They parked outside a single family home in a quiet, woodsy area just north of downtown. When Celia rang the doorbell, a man who looked to be in his 40s answered. He was short and stocky and had an amiable face that reminded Celia of a squirrel: large brown eyes, broad slanting forehead, medium brown tufty hair.
A small child clung to his leg.
Celia asked if Charlotta was home and the man—whom Celia presumed to be her husband based on the silver band on his left finger—replied that she was at work: “Charlotta’s a bit of a workaholic, even gone on a Saturday.” The man laughed. “I hope to get her home for Christmas.”
Celia thanked him and she and Zari headed back to the car.
They followed Celia’s GPS through town to the marketing agency and reached their destination just on the other side of the city center. Celia and Zari left the car on a side street and walked the short distance to Lottis’s workplace.
Arriving at the three-story building that housed the marketing agency, Celia pressed the buzzer next to the agency’s logo and announced that they were there to see Charlotta. A professional female voice welcomed them up to the third floor.
They took the elevator up. A woman dressed in casual office attire—apparently the person to have buzzed them in—pointed them in the direction of a corner office. They stepped in, passing a round conference table and shelves overloaded with books and files.
A woman sat at a desk by the window. Celia recognized her from the picture online. She was slight-framed and small-boned, although her face looked older in person.
She looked up, giving them both a glance over but her eyes stayed on C
elia.
“You’re Celia,” she said.
“Charlotta, hi. I was hoping I could have a moment of your time.”
“I can’t speak with you.” Lottis scrambled up from her seat, her voice sharp and alert.
Zari stepped forward. “We just want to talk to you for a few minutes. Then we’ll leave.” She gave Lottis a warm and reassuring smile. “You would really be helping us out.”
But Zari’s innocent sweetness wasn’t enough.
Lottis hadn’t budged.
Celia said, “If you’re worried about Petter, we won’t breathe a word about that we’ve been here.” Her voice hardened. “On the other hand, if you don’t help us, I don’t know what we might tell him.”
Zari’s head snapped in Celia’s direction, her eyes wide.
Lottis on the other hand was still, her expression saying nothing at all.
“Sorry,” Celia mumbled, wondering when she’d become the kind of person who barged into people’s offices with threats. “That didn’t come out right.” She looked at Charlotta with desperate eyes. “Please, just a few questions. You can cut us off whenever you want.”
Celia wasn’t sure what made Lottis change her mind. She passed them to shut the door. “This has to be quick,” she said, motioning toward the conference table that was circled by cushioned chairs.
As soon as they were seated, Celia went straight to her questions. Clearly Lottis was familiar with who she was, so there was no need for her to introduce herself, although she did say, “As you might already know, I’m looking for information on my aunt Liv. I want to know what happened to her.”
She waited. Lottis made a slight gesture with her head. It said that yes, she was aware. There was no indication if that was through Hans, Katja, or Petter, but it also didn’t really matter. Celia wasn’t going to spend time second-guessing what consequences the conversation might have.
“You were the one to find Liv after she died,” she said.
“Yes.” Lottis’s face remained neutral. She folded her hands and pulled them into her lap.
