Catching her breath, Lauren surveyed the damage. A family picture of Ragnar, Freyja, and their children lay smashed at her feet. The rest of the living room was in shambles. Berg walked over to where the shotgun was propped up, grabbed it, and took the remaining shells out. He pocketed them as he stood watch from the doorway. The only sounds were Ragnar’s heavy breathing, the wind rattling the windows, and Freyja’s quiet sobs of ‘I’m sorry.’
Því miður.
It wasn’t lost on Lauren that those were Gunnar’s last words as well.
FORTY-THREE
Ragnar survived.
That was the only happy ending in the story Lauren and Berg relayed to Matt back at the University Hospital, which, ironically, was where Ragnar was also being treated for a shotgun slug to the gut. Freyja went willingly with the local police after she made sure Ragnar was strapped onto a gurney in the back of the ambulance. Holding her head high, she walked from the house like she was on the pageant stage again, knowing all eyes were on her, back straight, chin up.
She was a remorseless queen covered in blood.
Lauren watched from her perch on the back of her own ambulance. She refused to ride in it to the hospital, but she let them rewrap her bleeding hands and put astringent on the little burns speckling her face like freckles from when she almost took a nosedive into the boiling stream.
Now, back in Reykjavik, they were catching each other up on the events of the last twenty-four hours. ‘When you told me to double check everyone registered in the hotel, I also expanded our flight search to include every name we’d come across: Jakob, Bjarni, Stefan, and Freyja.’ Matt was doing much better. Lauren thought he didn’t look so sallow in his mint green hospital gown and that his color had come back. They’d detached him from all the bags and drips and he was sitting up on his own. ‘Freyja popped up on a flight into New York City the day before Gunnar was murdered. Then it had her leaving the day after the murder. It never dawned on me that Icelandic women don’t have the same last names as their husbands and that she might have flown in from somewhere else.’
Berg gave the rail of his bed a playful shake. ‘We are a mysterious people, my friend.’
‘Then we got the text message translations. Freyja was desperately texting Gunnar. He had let it slip which hotel they were in. He never expected her to show up. I guess Gunnar finding out he had a millionaire for a father really scared Freyja because she couldn’t use her family’s money against Ragnar anymore,’ Lauren said.
‘Ragnar told us he went looking for Gunnar when he didn’t come back from the ATM,’ Berg explained. ‘He found Freyja in the alley standing over Gunnar with the brick. He told her to turn around, get back in her rental car, go back to New York City and fly out as soon as she could. Then he packed his things and left out of Toronto.’
‘So they hatched this cover up when they both got back to Iceland?’ Matt asked.
‘Freyja was the mastermind behind it, I’m sure. She fooled us all,’ Lauren said, sitting on the edge of Matt’s bed, cupping her hands in front of her. ‘Now comes the fun part. Extradition.’
‘Is she fighting it?’
Berg let out his bellowing belly laugh. ‘Of course she is!’
‘Ragnar wants her committed into psychiatric care. She’s looking at a murder charge in America and assault and attempted murder here, but I think she’d rather do hospital time in Iceland than jail time in Attica,’ Lauren said. ‘Our district attorney has already forwarded all the legal documents to the New York State Executive Office. They’ll petition the Secretary of State, requesting that a President’s warrant be issued for her arrest and for extradition back to the states. The US Marshals handle extradition once the warrant is issued. It’s out of our hands now. We get to go home, while the lawyers fight it out from here.’
‘Ragnar is cooperating,’ Berg told Matt, hitching his thumbs in the waist band of his jeans. ‘He says Helga called Bjarni, who in turn called Freyja and gave her the heads up we were probably coming to the bar. Freyja told Bjarni to leave; she didn’t want him to tell us that he’d told her about Ragnar and Gunnar’s affair. Then Freyja got in her car, sped over and waited in an alley. After she hit you with the Land Cruiser, she called Ragnar. He met up with her and they drove out to their cottage to stash the Cruiser and came back in the white Skoda. We didn’t have a car sitting on their penthouse until that next morning, so they snuck back in the underground parking lot and holed up.’
‘What flushed them out?’ Matt asked.
‘They had that big fight, where she left in the middle of the night. Apparently, he wanted her to turn herself in. He says he was heartbroken over Gunnar’s death and wanted her to do the right thing.’ Berg didn’t look convinced. ‘He still went ahead and covered up Matt’s assault. For their children’s sake, he said.’
Lauren shook her head. ‘Ragnar was protecting her. He’s still trying to protect her, although he says he’s filing for divorce. That might not be enough to keep him from getting charged in this whole mess as an accessory after the fact.’
‘Freyja must have been really desperate to go to those lengths to kill Gunnar and then try to stall our investigation,’ Matt said.
‘She’s in denial. Ragnar is who he is, and she can’t accept it. I guess she thought by going to trainers three days a week and being the ever-dutiful wife, Ragnar, somehow, would fall out of love with Gunnar.’ Lauren picked at a loose thread on her bandage. ‘It’s sad really. She’d rather kill Gunnar than be embarrassed or alone.’
‘At least this whole affair is not at the top of the nightly news,’ Berg added cheerfully.
‘Why not?’ Matt asked. ‘There’s only one murder a year in Reykjavik, right? You two were in a shootout with a homicidal former beauty queen. There should be news crews camped outside my hospital door right now.’
‘Something juicer came up,’ Berg said. ‘They arrested my cousin on public corruption charges last night. And he’s taking down every dirty politician he knows with him. There’s money missing, powerful people pointing their fingers at other powerful people, the Russian mob is involved; it’s a huge scandal. The entire city is in an uproar.’
‘I guess yesterday was your lucky day,’ Matt said.
Lauren glanced down at her hands. When she’d stood in front of the mirror in her bathroom this morning, both of her knees and elbows were black with bruises. ‘If you say so.’ Somehow, catching Gunnar’s killer should have made her feel better, or at least like she accomplished something, but instead there was the empty feeling that Mr Hudson wasn’t going to live long enough to see Freyja go on trial. Catching the right person was a step towards healing, but it didn’t bring the victim back. Gentle, handsome Gunnar was still dead and his loved ones were still left to mourn.
‘Is Sam here yet?’ Lauren asked, picturing Matt’s boss walking around in the same stupid polished black shoes that Matt had worn. Berg had wanted to stop at a store and get him a decent pair of practical boots. Lauren talked him out of it. Matt seemed like he’d rather freeze than tarnish his polished, professional image with snow boots.
Matt nodded and put his good hand on some folders on his nightstand. ‘He came by early this morning. Dropped off about a year’s worth of paperwork I have to finish as soon as possible, told me he was proud of me and then left. Apparently, he has lots of important meetings with important people to discuss these important matters.’
‘You sound like me now,’ Lauren smiled.
‘Maybe you’ve rubbed off on me,’ Matt grinned back.
‘Enough with the love fest,’ Berg interrupted. ‘Lauren has a date with the Blue Lagoon Spa. It’s touristy, I know, but she’ll regret it if she came all this way and didn’t see it before she leaves.’
‘Like me,’ Matt groused. ‘Who didn’t get to see a thing.’
‘Well, brother, if you have to come back for Freyja’s trial or a hearing, I have a friend who runs a Game of Thrones tour. He takes you to all the places they filmed here
. You can even dress up like a Wilding and get your picture taken.’
Matt’s eyes went wide. ‘I am so there.’
FORTY-FOUR
Berg and his family drove Lauren out to the Blue Lagoon, stopping on the way along one of the wood and barbed wire fences that lined the highway. They all got out of Berg’s personal car – his poor work car had been blasted to pieces by Freyja and had to be flat-bedded back to the city – and stood on the side of the road. Berg produced a loaf of bread and began to give short sharp whistles.
A wide ice field stretched in front of them with mountains visible in the distance. One of those long, low buildings and a small house set back from it were the only structures she could see.
‘What are you doing?’ Lauren asked. If his wife and daughter hadn’t been standing there, grinning, she’d have thought he had finally lost his mind.
‘Just wait.’
He gave another long whistle and then she saw them. From a distance a group of small dark blobs were coming their way. It took a minute for her eyes to focus through the glare off the snow. It was a herd of horses, their long manes blowing with the wind, slowly clomping across the ice field to get to them
Berg passed slices of bread to everyone. ‘Watch your fingers,’ he admonished Lauren. ‘Put the bread flat on your palm or hold it out by the edge so they can grab it.’
The beautiful brown and white horses came right up to the fence. Lauren reached out and touched one’s velvety nose and he nuzzled her bandaged hand. He turned his watery brown eyes to her and she fed him a slice of bread, which he gently pulled from her fingertips.
‘Have you decided what you are going to do about your house guest?’ Anna asked, feeding a white speckled mare that had come to her.
Lauren looked out across the ice field, taking in the snow-topped mountains in the background and the bright blue sky. ‘I think I’m going to stop looking for something to be there. I think I’ll just wait and see how things turn out, instead of trying to wish things into reality.’
Berg handed Elin more bread. She happily began feeding it to a smaller horse that could barely get its nose over the barbed wire. He turned his face to Lauren’s, his cheeks blazing ruddy red from the wind. ‘Follow your heart, my friend. And if it gets broken, you can always run back here to Iceland.’
Her heart. Where was her heart?
Lauren looked at the happy family and suddenly had an ache to see her own daughters. They’d be home from college when she flew in, probably lying around her living room, arguing about politics or YouTubers or the best way to use contour makeup. They were her heart. And if there was a piece or two missing, she’d have to live with that. ‘I’m done running from things,’ she said. ‘I think I need to be happy where I’m at.’
Berg fed the horse in front of him another slice of bread. Lauren watched the horse’s jaw work from side to side, eyes locked on Berg, already anticipating more.
The wind made the plastic bag he was holding ripple and snap. He reached over and squeezed Lauren’s shoulder with his free hand. ‘Then be happy, sister.’
FORTY-FIVE
Lauren didn’t get back to her hotel room until late that night. She’d showered in the dressing rooms at the Blue Lagoon, changed into the bathing suit Anna had lent her again and then had rushed through the twenty-three-degree weather into the blue-green waters of the enormous hot spring. Berg was waiting for her, soaking himself along one of the walls, with goop smeared all over his face. ‘It’s a mud mask,’ he told her and pointed to a stand where workers were scooping tan and green mud from buckets into the palms of waiting bathers. ‘There’s a silica mud mask or an algae mask. Both are wonderful for your skin. Go try it.’
Elin and Anna came with her and the three of them painted designs all over each other’s faces in the creamy mud. Just like in Berg’s hot tub, the steam from the hot water warmed the air, so it felt like they were in a tropical pool instead of an icy island in the North Sea. There were even drink kiosks set up serving beer, wine, and mixed drinks. A group of ladies in their sixties lounged a few feet away from them, laughing and sipping champagne.
Lauren could feel every muscle in her body unknot and relax.
When they were done bathing, Berg sprung for an expensive dinner at the restaurant inside the hotel attached to the Lagoon complex. Lauren ate fresh baked fish with root vegetables, while Berg ordered them all malt og appelsín, a traditional Icelandic Christmas drink, with which they all toasted the holidays. Elin giggled, feeling so grown up because the waiter poured hers into a wine glass. For dessert, Lauren ordered the skyr with fruit. She’d seen it on almost every menu since she got there, but hadn’t yet sampled the creamy yogurt-like dish.
‘We’ll make a Viking out of you yet!’ Berg announced as she took a bite of the sugar-topped treat.
Back in her room, her whole body felt like jelly, ready to collapse into sleep. She could feel the heat she’d soaked in radiating out of her as she changed into her bed clothes. It had been a good day, but she was ready to go home. She wanted to see her daughters and her parents. Berg told her to buy gifts at the airport so she didn’t have to drag things around, but she wanted to buy both the girls heavy Icelandic wool sweaters she had seen in one of the stores downtown. She’d already bought her mother a mud mask from the Blue Lagoon’s Spa shop along with some lava soap. Her dad was getting a bottle of liquor that was lovingly referred to by the locals as ‘black death’. She knew he’d appreciate the dark humor in that. Reese would be harder to buy for. He loved baseball hats and she wasn’t sure if that was a thing over here. She’d have to ask Berg if any of their national teams had that kind of merchandise for sale.
She was just about to climb into bed when her phone on the nightstand began to buzz. She picked it up and looked at the screen.
It was Reese.
She had talked to him right before they left the Blue Lagoon, checking in and letting him know she was going to try to get a flight into Toronto the next day. It seemed odd he would call her now.
‘Hello?’
‘Are you sitting down, Riley?’ There was a note of excitement in his voice that scared her. It was five o’clock in Buffalo. She didn’t like surprises anymore. They were almost always bad news. Her gut twisted in knots as she got up from the bed and went to the window.
‘Is everything OK?’ she asked, pulling the cord to lift the blind. ‘Are Lindsey and Erin home? Are they all right?’
‘Riley, shut up. Everyone is home and fine. Just listen.’ She could hear him taking a deep breath on the other end of the line. ‘The woman from CODIS just phoned the office. Doug Sheehan took the call and got ahold of me. They got a hit on the DNA found on Billy Munzert’s bike. A guy who molested his stepson just got convicted and processed, including giving a swab of his DNA. His name is Steven Harrott and he’s never been arrested before. He lived three blocks away from Billy at the time of his abduction, then moved to Rochester three weeks later.’
For a few seconds Lauren forgot how to breathe.
‘Are you there?’
‘They’re sure? It’s a match?’ she whispered.
‘It’s one in 575 trillion. It’s a match. It’s him. And he didn’t want to give his DNA. He fought with the jail personnel when they came to get the court-ordered swab. I’m going to wait until you get back and then I’m coming out of injured reserve. You and I are going to take a ride to Attica to talk to his cellmate – you know the cellmate always has information, those guys love to blab – and then Steven Harrott.’
She swallowed hard, fighting the swirl of emotions that threatened to overwhelm her. Reese knew what her silence meant and knew what she needed to hear from him most at that moment. ‘Congratulations. You found that evidence and had it retested and didn’t give up. You got your killer. I never doubted you. Not for a minute. Ever.’
Tears ran silently down her cheeks. She tried to keep her voice even. ‘Do Billy’s parents know?’
‘No one knows. Not yet.
I figured you’d want to talk to Harrott first. If anyone can get him to tell where Billy’s body is, it’s you.’
‘They shouldn’t have to wait another minute,’ she said.
‘What do you always tell me? We can do it fast, or we can do it right. We’re going to do this one right. And that’s for you to do; tell the parents. That’s all you.’
She put a bandaged hand to her forehead and stifled a sob. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she whispered. Now his family would know for sure Billy was dead. Maybe she and Reese actually could be able to convince Harrott to tell them where the body was. Maybe Billy’s family would have an ounce of closure after all these years.
‘Believe it. You didn’t stop working the case and you found the bad guy. If you hadn’t come along, that bike would still be sitting in evidence, gathering dust, and Steven Harrott would have gotten out in three years to victimize more kids.’
‘But he did victimize one more,’ she choked out.
‘Lauren Riley is a badass detective who doesn’t quit and is going to make sure he never lays his hand on another kid as long as he lives. Everyone forgot about Billy Munzert and his family. Everybody. Everyone but you.’
‘I have to get back to Buffalo,’ she said, turning her eyes to the clear, cloudless sky.
‘I’ll take care of all the preliminary stuff that has to be done. Just finish up over there, do everything by the book, and then get your ass back to Buffalo so we can tell the Munzert family by Christmas Day.’
‘Thank you,’ she breathed, putting her hand to the cold glass of her window, touching her fingertips to the stars that seemed to fill the skyline over the harbor.
‘Don’t thank me. Just get back home.’ There was a long pause and she heard Watson bark in the background before Reese spoke again. ‘And I’ll be waiting here for you when you do.’
At that moment, the Northern Lights flared up and danced across the night sky.
A Full Cold Moon Page 24
