As Red as Blood (The Snow White Trilogy) (10 page)

Browsing the calendar on his phone was Boris’s way of trying to calm his nerves. Usually it worked. Now it gave him an idea.

“I think Natalia is going to send our policeman an invitation to a party soon,” he said with a smile.

The Estonians looked at him in astonishment.
Boneheads.
Boris felt like he had the only brain in their troika. Luckily, it was a good one. Leaving the rest of the swill in his glass, he went to the bar to order a double whiskey. He had earned it.

Lumikki almost turned around and walked out when she saw the two extra pairs of shoes by the door. Men’s sizes 9 and 11. She didn’t remember agreeing to come to any Huey, Dewey, and Louie club meeting.

“Let’s go over what exactly I’m doing here one more time, since apparently Tuukka and Kasper are here too,” Lumikki said to Elisa, who stared at her feet in embarrassment.

Feet wearing pink-and-black striped socks, of course.

“Well, see . . . You’re the only one who knows how to fix this. Since you’re so smart,” Elisa said.

The boot-licking, unctuous voice and accompanying sickly sweet smile backfired. Lumikki started pulling her combat boots back on.

“I only came because you were scared and alone. No, because you demanded that I come. Because you can’t deal with being alone. Well. You clearly aren’t alone anymore. Problem solved. So I can go.”

Elisa slipped between Lumikki and the door.

“You can’t go now. Tuukka and Kasper forced their way in after they realized I wasn’t at school. They didn’t believe me when I said I had a migraine. I can’t get through this without you,” Elisa pleaded.

Lumikki’s fingers fiddled with her bootlaces for a few seconds.

She’d promised herself she wasn’t going to be afraid anymore. She’d only been thinking of herself then, though. She hadn’t realized that she could be afraid for someone else. If she left now and closed the door behind her, she might get herself out of all of this. She wouldn’t be getting away from the fear, though. She could ignore Elisa’s calls and text messages. She could even get an unlisted number. She could avoid seeing Elisa at school. She could treat her like she was invisible.

But she couldn’t stop herself from thinking. She couldn’t stop herself from contemplating what could happen to Elisa and whether the men who’d chased Lumikki might get their hands on her eventually. She would be afraid on Elisa’s behalf. She didn’t want that.

Lumikki knew she was already in too deep, in over her combat boots. It was all the same now whether she sank in up to her knees or her waist or her neck.

In hot water. Up shit creek. Not free. Lumikki hated that. But she couldn’t do anything about it.

Sighing deeply, she began pulling off her boots.

“I’ll stay. But just so you know, if Tuukka tries his tough-guy routine again, I’m calling the police that very second and throwing you all to the wolves.”

Elisa clapped her hands enthusiastically. Lumikki might as well have been listening to her own death knell.

“Did you find anything out from your dad last night?” Tuukka asked Elisa as she brought them large glasses of Coke in the living room.

Kasper had asked for his with a kick, but Elisa’s expression wiped the grin off his face.

Lumikki glanced at Tuukka.
Elisa must have told the boys everything. Blabbermouth.
But maybe it was best this way. Talking would be easier if they were all looking at the same map.

“My brain was barely functioning I was so hysterical about those men chasing Lumikki. I mean, chasing her thinking she was me. In the state I was in, I was lucky I could keep my mouth shut, let alone pull off some sort of cunning secret interrogation.”

Elisa set down the serving tray with the Coke glasses on the living room table. Ice cubes clinked against each other. She looked even more tired than she had the day before. The circles under her eyes were darker, her hair hadn’t been washed, and she didn’t have any makeup on. She was like a smudge on the pure linen fabric of the stylish living room, a stain on the furnishings that oozed high design. From the ceiling hung a large, bulbous lamp made of thin strips of wood laminate. Scandinavian lines, elegant artlessness, all for a price.

Lumikki found herself wondering again how they could pay for all of this on the salaries of a police officer and cosmetics sales agent. No one on the police force was making bank, and Elisa’s mom’s salary couldn’t be all that amazing either. An inheritance? Possible.

Or maybe it had something to do with a trash bag full of bloody money.

“Okay. So then let’s check your mom and dad’s computers,” Kasper said with the self-assurance of an up-and-coming small-time hood.

“Mom took her laptop with her on her trip, but Dad’s computer is in his office over there. But I don’t know—”

Elisa didn’t manage to complete her sentence before Kasper was already marching to the office door.

“I’ll check the computer. You guys check the files and stuff,” Kasper said.

Lumikki, Tuukka, and Elisa followed him into the office.

“Isn’t this sort of illegal?” Elisa asked as she riffled through her father’s desk drawers.

“I don’t remember legality really being much of an obstacle for you before,” Tuukka said with a laugh.

Elisa sighed. “Maybe it should be.”

Lumikki agreed, but she didn’t say so. Instead, she voiced another concern.

“We aren’t going to find anything about your dad’s work here. He’s got to have super strict rules about what papers he can bring home. Probably none. And the computer is a home computer. All of his work stuff is going to be on his work computer.”

“You’re right. Why didn’t I remember that?”

“Let’s look anyway,” Tuukka insisted. “There’s no way he would store anything about crimes he’s committing at the police station. That place is crawling with snitches.”

Elisa’s scowl limited Tuukka’s smile to that faint curl at the corner of his mouth. They searched in silence, without results. The office didn’t reveal anything but a meticulous father who kept his tax returns, insurance policies, and bills organized, and the folders on his computer clean.

“He hasn’t even been looking at any porn sites,” Kasper grumbled impatiently.

“Gross! Of course he hasn’t.” Elisa shuddered.

“But you have,” Tuukka snickered. “I’ve done enough snooping around your computer to know that.”

“Once, maybe, when a friend sent a link, and I clicked on it without thinking,” Elisa insisted.

Lumikki couldn’t stand listening to the trio’s pointless blather. What irritated her the most was Elisa’s voice, which around the boys had turned mousy, and her comments,
which were growing increasingly stupid. Lumikki knew the phenomenon. All through middle school, she had watched in bewilderment as it took hold. After the summer between sixth and seventh grade, some of the girls came back to school acting like they’d dropped half of their brains in a lake somewhere. Girls who used to be really smart suddenly couldn’t even do simple math or run a hundred-yard dash without complaining that they were “gonna die.”

“Seriously, I’m gonna die!” they would squeal over and over throughout the day, sometimes thrilled, sometimes feigning helplessness. They painted their eyes and snapped bubble gum. It had taken Lumikki some time to figure out that the girls’ stupid act was meant for the boys. That their pathetic behavior was a signal that they were small, cute, and harmless. And sexy in just the right way for certain boys.

They shrank and dumbed themselves down so the best-looking boys in class could feel smarter and stronger. Lumikki had always wondered why the boys couldn’t see through the act. Didn’t they find it humiliating that the girls thought they had to pretend so the boys could feel superior? Of course, some boys did see through it, but the show wasn’t for their benefit anyway. They were too smart to be sexy.

For some reason, intelligence wasn’t sexy in middle school. If you wanted to be sexy, you had to avoid intelligence like the plague. Smart meant the same thing as boring, annoying, irritating, and, if not actually ugly, at least nothing much to look at.

Lumikki had thought things would change after middle school. Partly they did, but partly not. Now she could see
that even some really accomplished adult women still dumbed themselves down in male company. It was embarrassing to watch. She hoped Elisa just had one foot still stuck in junior high, and that the behavior was a result of that, rather than some deeper issue or ingrained pattern.

“Let me take a look at the computer for a sec too,” Lumikki said to Kasper.

The boy looked at her dubiously.

“There isn’t anything there,” Kasper said.

“Just let me look anyway,” Lumikki insisted calmly. “Sometimes there’s a lot more on a machine than it looks like on the surface.”

“Ooo, so our super detective is also some kind of fucking computer genius,” Tuukka said mockingly.

“Yeah. I’m the secret love child of Hercule Poirot and Lisbeth Salander,” Lumikki replied without the slightest wavering in her expression, and sat down in the rolling chair Kasper had just vacated dramatically.

The trio stood behind her, watching. Lumikki hated that.

“So you’re Lumikki Poisander then?” Kasper asked, trying to keep up the joke.

No one laughed.

“Lumikki . . . Lumikki.”

Kasper seemed to be savoring the name, drawing out each syllable.

“You must have a nickname,” he said finally.

“No, I don’t,” Lumikki replied without turning around.

“Lumi?”

“No.”

“Mikki?”

“You think?”

“Okay, maybe not. What about Snow White then? That is your—”

Lumikki pushed the chair back so suddenly that it banged into Kasper, and then she spun around.

“Ouch! Watch it.”

Kasper massaged his knee irritably.

“Chill. Out. This could take a while,” Lumikki said, throwing Elisa a meaningful look.

Fortunately, the girl still knew how to use her brain sometimes.

“Let’s go finish our Cokes in the living room,” Elisa said. “Shout if you find anything.”

Lumikki nodded and turned back to the monitor. After a moment, she heard the door close behind her. Blessed quiet.

She had to act quickly. No way would the quiet last.

Terho Väisänen turned up his collar and pulled the green scarf his daughter had knitted him over his mouth. The cold sank its sharp claws into any bare patch of skin as soon as he stepped outside. He considered running home from the police station to Pyynikki in his car, but he decided to walk after all. Maybe the cold would stimulate his brain, which had been unacceptably sluggish.

Two questions were bothering Terho.

Where was his money?

Where was Natalia?

And was that the order of importance of those questions? Of course not, but sometimes Natalia went quiet for several days on end, sometimes even weeks. She didn’t always have time to answer Terho’s calls and texts and e-mails. He was used to that. So Natalia’s disappearance didn’t really mean
anything yet. In contrast, it definitely did mean something that Boris Sokolov had practically reached through the cell phone to throttle Terho when he called to ask about the money. Sokolov said the money had already been delivered.

But it hadn’t.

Either Sokolov was lying or the Estonians were lying to Sokolov. The latter was more likely. Terho had actually been surprised that they had gone so long without one of them trying to stick his hand in the cookie jar and make some quick cash. He chalked this discipline up to the Estonians having seen how Sokolov dealt with disloyalty. No one wanted to experience Sokolov’s brand of justice. And of course, Sokolov took his orders from higher up just like everyone else. The hierarchy of power and fear kept everyone in line.

Except for now. Now, someone had decided to take a little extra for himself.

Terho hated the thought that a system that had worked so well up until now might be falling apart. He had done his own part without asking any questions. From the beginning, he was in this for the money, and he still needed it. If the cash stopped coming, his options would be limited. He hadn’t built himself a safety net for the future, even though he knew he should have. The amount he had in savings was pathetic. Of course, he could always burn Sokolov and company in revenge, but that was impossible without implicating himself with them. All that would be left was smoking wreckage.