Chapter 4
Tom glanced over to the woman who’d just snapped at him. He’d been so lost in thought that he hadn’t heard what she said, just noticed she was angry. From where he was now sitting, he could study her from behind, and with his back to the wall he had the best possible view of the restaurant. His eyes quickly swept the room before he looked at the woman again. All he could see, beneath the layers of clothing, the scarf, and hat, were a few dark curls. He’d automatically noticed her pale skin when she snapped at him, her dark brows and almost glowing green eyes.
She wasn’t from Kiruna, that much was clear from both her clothing and her attitude. And from something more difficult to define, in the way she held herself and the way she moved. Kiruna natives were rarely in a hurry, and they moved at a different tempo, never with that intense efficiency. She was a big-city girl, he was almost sure of that. Typing away on her computer, constantly checking her phone. Every now and then, she would scan the room and take a quick sip of her coffee. Everything she did was quick, as though she were surrounded by some kind of high-voltage energy.
Tom took a drink. They had good coffee here at the hotel, and he liked how big the restaurant was. Ever since his time as a prisoner, he struggled with feeling confined. The hotel was one of the central meeting places in Kiruna. A lunch and coffee spot during the day, a bar at night; sooner or later, the majority of Kiruna residents came here.
He scanned the room again. It was automatic, taking in his surroundings. Making a note of who was waiting for someone, who might represent a threat. He did it without thinking. Read faces to see whether they meant anyone harm, checked hands for weapons. Men and women alike.
The restaurant was pretty busy, just two days before Christmas. On weekdays the hotel held conferences, but now the guests were mostly tourists and vacationers. Kiruna was a popular destination. People went dogsledding, tried to hunt down the Northern Lights, went skiing. Or else they took a night trip on snowmobiles, across the frozen Torne River, stopping for coffee by a roaring fire. The huge car manufacturers sent people north to test-drive their new models in wintry conditions, and many car ads had been filmed in and around Kiruna. And then there was Esrange, the rocket range and research center, not far away. Scientists, both Swedish and international, were drawn to it. But the dark-haired woman with the intense eyes was neither a test driver nor a space scientist; Tom was sure of that.
He found his gaze being constantly drawn to her, and he didn’t know why. She was so hostile and thorny that somehow her presence forced its way through the haze he was stuck in, and now he couldn’t ignore her. Judging from her back, she was currently hammering away at the keyboard. Did that mean she was a writer? No, they weren’t usually so ill-disposed. The few writers Tom knew were pretty quiet; they spent most of their time daydreaming. There was no real reason for him to care. It was just that he couldn’t work out why she was so angry. Her fury seemed to be aimed at him in particular. Like he had done something, personally, to her. But he had a good eye for faces, and he was sure they had never met before.
He saw her check her phone again, and then it struck him: She was a journalist. Not a local reporter, but from one of the big-city papers. It all fit. But why was she here? What could be so important that a reporter from the capital—he was almost certain she was from Stockholm—would travel all the way up here a few days before Christmas?
Maybe she had relatives in Kiruna and was just getting some work done between family gatherings? Stockholm journalists often had roots in smaller towns or villages, Tom knew. He’d met so many journalists over the years. Educated and instructed them in safety. Flash points and the edges of war zones were always crawling with reporters, crazy thrill seekers. He’d argued with many of them, because journalists argued constantly. Been annoyed at them and their meddlesome belief that they were the only ones really standing up for democracy. Been interviewed and misquoted. Seen them leave people high and dry in pursuit of high reader numbers. Twist the facts and start crusades. No, he didn’t like journalists.
Tom looked down at the table. He could still feel the aftereffects of that morning’s panic attack. This was one of his bad days. It was incredible that it could vary like that, completely without logic. He never knew when the panic would well up, when a sound might make him overreact. The firecrackers the kids were running around with didn’t make it any better. It was still a week until New Year’s, and firecrackers were forbidden, but they were still going off everywhere.
A few days earlier he had found himself jumping into a snowdrift, entirely involuntarily, when one went off behind him. His heart was racing, he had tunnel vision, and it was only when he came to his senses that he realized he had thrown himself onto a child, as though to protect it with his body, and that the child was now beneath him, its hysterical mother to one side, pounding him on the back. The kid howled, the mother shouted, and Tom mumbled an apology and hurried away.
The journalist got up. She was talking on her cell phone and took a moment to stretch, to roll her neck and shoulders. She pulled a face, as though the movement was painful. She had long legs, but otherwise none of her body was visible beneath all her layers. Not that he was checking her out. It was just something he noticed. While she talked, her eyes were constantly on her computer, like a hawk.
And then everything changed.
Tom forgot the journalist and everything else.
Because she came into the restaurant, and he almost stopped breathing.
Ellinor.
Jesus, it was really her.
Did he come here to the hotel because, sooner or later, everyone came here, and he knew maybe Ellinor would too? Honestly, he didn’t even know anymore. His brain wasn’t working like normal. Sometimes, he wondered whether he was going crazy. But he was in Kiruna because of Ellinor, hoping that despite everything she still needed him, that she missed him the way he missed her.
He followed her movements at the counter. She was blond and straight-backed. Healthy and happy, a sporty woman who loved skiing and swimming, who loved children and animals—the entire world, apparently, other than him, Tom Lexington.
She placed her order and then glanced around the room. Her eyes scanned over the guests.
Tom was perfectly still.
And then she spotted him.
She froze midmovement. Tom simply stared. Ellinor stared back. All other sounds disappeared. It was as if a corridor formed between them. Tom held his breath, didn’t dare move. Please, don’t go was all he could think.
He had made so many mistakes where Ellinor was concerned.
If she stays, I’ll take it as a sign. Please, don’t go.
Give me one more chance.
She paused.
He continued to hold his breath as the memories washed over him.
* * *
He’d first met Ellinor Bergman in Kiruna when he was twenty-one. Ellinor was eighteen, with soft blond hair and a mouth that was almost always smiling. They met in a bar. She was at a table with a couple of friends, and he was at another with his.
“Do you live here?” he asked when they bumped into one another by the bar.
“Yeah. You?”
“I’m studying to become an officer. I’m here on an exercise with my old battalion.”
“Ranger?” She smiled.
Tom nodded. Might have expected her to seem impressed. Most girls were when you told them you were a ranger and an officer.
“My dad’s in the military,” she explained.
“What do you do?”
“I’m in school. Today’s my eighteenth birthday. We’re out celebrating.”
“So maybe I can buy you a birthday drink?” Tom said, feeling incredibly worldly.
She let him.
They talked all evening. Ellinor got both drunk and flirtatious, and Tom tried to keep up, though he had never been the flirting type.
They didn’t sleep together that evening. He knew right away that Ellinor was more than j
ust a quick lay, and so he wanted things to move slowly. Plus, she still lived at home. He chased her over the weeks that followed. Took her to the movies and to dinner. It didn’t take long before he was in love. And it wasn’t surprising at all: Ellinor was easy to spend time with. Happy and positive, easygoing and bright natured. A kind, uncomplicated girl. And pretty, too.
They had sex for the first time at her house one evening, when her parents were away. He wasn’t a virgin, and nor was she. It was good, and he knew she was The One. Nothing felt complicated with Ellinor. When he had to study, she found things to do on her own. She had plenty of friends, had lots of activities, and was full of energy. His studies and his education sent him across the country, but he would travel back to Kiruna to be with her as often as he could.
“I don’t want to live in Kiruna forever,” Ellinor said when she graduated high school.
He kissed the tip of her nose. “So where do you want to live?”
“In Stockholm. With you.”
And so when Tom graduated, they moved to Stockholm together. They bought a flat and felt like adults. Ellinor went to college and worked extra from time to time. Tom worked a lot. Weeks could pass and they would barely see each other.
They had their downs, of course, but what couple doesn’t? Once they had been together four years, they bought engagement rings.
“It feels so right, Tom,” she said as he pushed the ring onto her finger. For him, it was a sign that they would be together forever.
Life went on. Ellinor got a job as a teacher at an inner-city school, took different courses and enrolled in further education, changed jobs. Tom worked hard. The years passed, and though he spent a lot of time abroad on secret operations, they were like any other big-city couple. Or so he thought.
Until one June day earlier that year when Ellinor was standing with her head against the door frame into the kitchen, which they had just renovated. She looked at him and sighed. “Tom, we need to talk.”
At first, he barely noticed her strange tone; his thoughts were elsewhere. He looked up from his paper and asked, “Can we do it later? Work’s been pretty intense.”
She crossed her arms.
“Work’s always intense. I want to talk. Now.” It seemed as if she was psyching herself up, and he sensed catastrophe. “I slept with someone else.”
The shock felt like a physical blow. “Who?” he asked as he fought back the feeling of unreality.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters a lot to me. Is it serious?”
“That I slept with someone else? Yeah, it’s pretty serious.”
And then she started to cry. Tom felt remarkably shut off. Work really was incredibly intense at that moment. His company, Lodestar Security Group, was expanding at record speed. They specialized in complicated transactions, and one of their clients in Baghdad had just lost staff in a suicide attack. “I don’t know what to say,” he said impotently.
“You aren’t angry? Don’t you feel anything? Nothing?”
“I love you, Ellinor. What more can I say?”
She shook her head. “So don’t say anything. It was never your strong point. I want to leave you, Tom. This isn’t working anymore.”
“What isn’t working? Tell me. Please. I’ll do anything.”
“But it doesn’t matter now.”
He couldn’t understand how it had happened. It really did come out of the blue for him. At that point, his strongest feeling was still one of unreality. “I know I’ve been working a lot.”
“It’s not just that. I’ve made up my mind.”
“Please, Ellinor. You can wait, can’t you? We can talk?”
“I don’t know if there’s any point.”
His cell phone started to ring. It was from Iraq. “I need to take this,” he said automatically.
She gave him a look but said nothing, just let him go.
He worked like a machine for two days straight. Ellinor sent him a message to say she was going to her parents’ house to think. Ellinor’s parents liked him, he liked them, and Tom thought it was a good idea; maybe they could talk to her. But it was actually the last time he and Ellinor spoke in months. Would he have acted differently if he had known what would happen?
The very next day, Tom got a call from a friend that led to his going to Chad, which led to an armed operation, a helicopter crash in the desert, and being taken prisoner. Back home, everyone thought he was dead. The trip, which should have taken only a few days, which should have been a diversion from the crisis Ellinor and he were going through, changed everything. It was four months before he finally returned to Sweden, in October. By then, Ellinor had already rented out their apartment, moved back to Kiruna, and moved on.
What a fucking expression.
Moved on.
They hadn’t seen one another since that day in June, he realized, as they continued to stare at each other across the hotel restaurant.
He’d called her the minute he was free and back home in Sweden. She was glad he was alive. But he hadn’t wanted her to visit him in the hospital, and then she hadn’t come down to Stockholm at all, said it would be better if they didn’t see each other.
But now Ellinor took her tea from the counter and started to slowly, almost hesitantly, walk toward him. Tom barely dared breathe. He searched her face for a sign of . . . anything. She looked like she always did. It had to mean something that she was here, that she was on her way over to his table, that they were finally going to see each other.
If Ellinor would just give him one more chance, he would fix everything he had destroyed, become the man she wanted, the man she deserved. Seeing her again . . . He almost held his breath.
She reached his table, cocked her head, studied his chest, and said, “That shirt, Tom. I would never have thought that of you.” She raised an eyebrow, and at first he had no idea what she was talking about. Then he connected the dots and looked down. Apparently he was wearing a plaid shirt, though he had no memory of having put it on. And beneath that, a black T-shirt that he’d pulled on without giving it a second thought. Upside down, he read the white text on what he had assumed was one of his usual black T-shirts. FBI, it said in huge letters. Female Body Inspector beneath it.
Ahh. That explained a lot. Both Ellinor’s amazed look and the prickly journalist’s response. He quickly glanced over to her table, but she seemed to be absorbed by her laptop.
“It’s not mine,” he explained, though they shouldn’t be talking about T-shirts. “The woman who cleans and does the washing for me has a son. It must be his. I guess she washed our things together.”
Ellinor studied him.
“You look tired,” she eventually said. She was still on her feet. He wished she would sit down, drink her tea opposite him like she used to, say she had changed her mind, that she hadn’t moved on at all.
But she remained standing, continued to inspect him. “And you’ve lost weight,” she added.
Tom ran a hand over his forehead. “I’m okay,” he lied.
“You’re drinking too much.”
He gave her a bewildered look. How could she know that?
She smiled again, that soft smile which Tom had practically etched into the inside of his skull when his jailers did unbearable things to him. “Can’t keep anything a secret around here,” she said with an apologetic shrug. “One of the girls who works at the liquor store is in my book group. You’ve met her. She said you came in and bought a load of liquor, repeatedly. You never had a problem with alcohol before.”
“No,” he agreed. But that was, of course, before those months in which he had been abused on a daily basis by men who hated him and everything he stood for. Back home, he had been given scripts for all kinds of pills, but that was where he drew the line, the psychopharmaceuticals. He self-medicated with alcohol instead. Very smart.
“You have to stop calling me,” she said quietly.
It was so embarrassing, that he had been reduced to som
eone who called his ex when he was drunk. But that was also the problem. He didn’t see her as his ex.
“What do you see in him?” The words came from nowhere, and he regretted them immediately.
Her shoulders slumped. “Tom . . .”
“Sorry. Can you sit down for a while?”
She glanced around, then slinked into one of the chairs and put her cup down on the table.
“I’m so sorry, I know it’s my fault you feel this way.”
“It’s not your fault.” Or not just yours anyway.
“You know what I mean.” She blew on her tea.
“You ended things before I left. You couldn’t have known what would happen.”
“I thought you were dead. That’s what they told us.”
“So you moved back up here?”
“Yeah.”
“How long had you been seeing him, before you told me?” Days? Weeks? Months? He had no idea. Did he even want to know? She’d ended things, he’d left, and while he languished in Chad, she’d built a new life for herself.
Ellinor’s fingers moved along the edge of the cup. “What does it matter?”
“It doesn’t, I guess.”
“I’m sorry. The last thing I wanted was to hurt you. And it was awful to think you’d died. Especially after . . .” She trailed off and stared down at her tea.
“After you broke my heart?” Tom attempted to sound lighthearted but suspected he failed miserably.
Ellinor looked pained. “Sorry,” she said. “That was never my intention. But things were bad between us for so long. You have to agree about that.”
Tom didn’t agree at all. To him, everything had been fine, and the fact that she was unhappy had come like a lightning bolt from the heavens. “Are you really happy with him?” It felt completely impossible. How could she be happy with someone else?
High Risk Page 3
