As Red as Blood (The Snow White Trilogy) (15 page)

Lumikki counted the seconds. With a quick glance down, she had made sure to enter a stall next to Väisänen. He’d been struggling with something, and based on the noises, it must have been the toilet tank. After finishing the job, he’d washed his hands and left.

She heard the pursuer flush. For the sake of appearances, presumably. Then he left the restroom too, but without washing his hands. Lumikki detested it when people didn’t wash their hands after using the bathroom. She wasn’t a clean freak by any means, but that was just basic hygiene.

Five, six, seven, eight . . .

At ten seconds, Lumikki opened the stall door, washed her hands, and rushed out. She made it just in time to see
Terho Väisänen walk out of the building with the other man trailing behind. Lumikki had to hurry.

The park and duck pond outside looked enchanted. Every trunk and branch was either covered in thick rime or snow frozen in delicate crystalline formations. Sunlight reflected off every facet. Glittering, glimmering, glistening, sparkling, scintillating. The Snow Queen had ridden her sleigh through the park with hair and gown streaming, leaving behind infinitesimal ice crystals suspended in the air. She had made everything white and magical.

The breath of the Snow Queen. Ice and wind.

Lumikki’s breath. Water vapor that quickly formed frost on her scarf and the delicate, almost imperceptible hair of her cheeks.

Stopping at some exercise equipment along the jogging path, she did a few pull-ups, eavesdropping carefully. Terho Väisänen had removed a cell phone from his pocket, fiddling with it for a few seconds before walking toward the pond with it pressed to his ear.

His pursuer stood behind a nearby tree pretending to light a cigarette. It seemed like Väisänen still hadn’t noticed him. He’d probably notice Lumikki doing her pull-ups, but he wouldn’t think some kid out for a jog would be interested in his telephone conversation. He also probably thought he was far enough away that no one could hear. However, in the perfectly still winter air, sound waves carried a long way.

Three, four, five.

Lumikki counted pull-ups while she waited for Elisa’s dad to start his call.

“Hello? This is . . . okay, you know who this is.”

The English made understanding harder. Väisänen spoke in a low voice facing the pond, which meant some of the words got lost along the way. Filling in the gaps would have been easier in Finnish.

Lumikki’s arms began to tire. She obviously hadn’t been doing enough pull-ups lately. She didn’t give up, though.

The pursuer was clearly listening too.

Twelve, thirteen.

“Polar Bear . . . So soon . . . ? Eight p.m. tomorrow. Right. Black tie. If you could just—”

The last sentence was cut off. Someone had clearly hung up on Terho Väisänen. Lumikki had heard enough, though. So Elisa’s dad was going to Polar Bear’s party after all.

Lumikki’s arms suddenly failed her, sending her thudding to the ground, muscles trembling and sore from the exertion.

Crap. So much for staying invisible.

Väisänen and his pursuer both turned to look in her direction. There was no way she could continue following them. Now the most important thing was to suck it up and finish playing her role as the innocent athlete.

Lumikki started jogging around the duck pond, trying to maintain her masculine posture. Her combat boots slipped on the icy walking path, breaking the illusion. But they weren’t going to turn into cleated running shoes simply because she willed them to. She just had to keep her chin up.

Nothing to see here, folks, just a kid out for a run.

If she could only get around the pond, she would have a straight shot home to a cup of something warm and a chance to report back to Elisa.

Lumikki knew her hope was in vain when she heard heavy footfalls approaching from behind.

Boris Sokolov tried to call Viivo Tamm, but he didn’t pick up. He’d probably put his phone on silent to focus on the stakeout. That was sensible, but the whole job was pointless now. Boris had just received a message from Polar Bear saying that Terho Väisänen had gotten in contact with him, and that Polar Bear’s men had delivered an invitation to the party by rather unorthodox means. Boris didn’t always understand Polar Bear’s methods. Sometimes he wondered whether Polar Bear was really so cautious or just liked running people around. The latter possibility felt just as plausible as the first. Sometimes following Polar Bear’s orders could be exhausting. Boris knew he was in a privileged position, even a favorite of sorts, but that could be taken away at any moment. He lived in constant fear, an invisible noose around his neck. He didn’t have room for even a single mistake.

So he needed to stay focused on the job at hand. And now there was no reason to risk someone connecting the Estonian to their police informant. Or of Tamm going and doing something stupid. Viivo was a good man, a professional, but occasionally he lost his cool. When that happened, he could become unpredictable and difficult to control.

Boris sent him a text message. It said:
“Stop. Abort mission.”

Viivo Tamm sped up. This time the little bitch wasn’t going to get away from him. This time he would show her. The first time had been a fluke. Now it was personal. His cell phone buzzed in his pocket. Someone was trying to call, but Viivo couldn’t stop to answer just now. He had business to attend to.

At first, Viivo hadn’t been able to put his finger on what was so familiar about the boy at the pull-up bar. Then he looked closer. The coat. He had seen it somewhere before. When the boy started running, Tamm remembered. The boy wasn’t a boy, he was a girl. A girl running a little differently somehow, but similarly enough that he recognized her.

But why hadn’t Terho Väisänen recognized her? His own daughter?

Processing this took Tamm a few seconds, but when the insight came, it hit him like a ton of bricks. The girl wasn’t the cop’s daughter. This girl was someone else entirely who was somehow mixed up in all of this. And Viivo was going to find out how.

When the girl sped up, Viivo filled with rage. No teenage bitch was going to cross him. Because of her, he had
frozen his fingers and toes, using up precious time he could have used dealing product skulking around in the bushes in Pyynikki and filling in sudoku puzzles in the bus depot. The girl in the red hat had made a fool of him.

He was going to catch her and lean on her until she told him what her connection was.

She was going to learn not to play grown-up games when she didn’t know the rules.

Up along a narrow path flanking the convention center, uphill toward Kaleva Street and over it. Ice, slippery, completely the wrong shoes for running. Lung-rending cold and a bulky coat. Winter running clearly wasn’t her sport.

Lumikki glanced back.

The man had nearly caught up with her.

Lumikki tried to breathe through a gap in her teeth. Hissing as she ran, like she was messing up a tongue twister.
She sells seashells on the seashore.
The frigid air was merciless.

Across Kaleva Street to the other side.

Cold, cold, cold, cold. Cold hands, cold heart. Cold hands, cold heart.
Words pounded in Lumikki’s head as she tried to think rationally. Should she continue along Kaleva Street? Pluses: other people, cars. Minuses: patches of black ice and the possibility that the pursuer’s accomplices could be lurking somewhere with their van, ready to nab her at any second. Would they dare? In broad daylight?

Lumikki made a quick decision as she reached the next cross street. The walking path was less icy there. Turning, she ran toward the graveyard.

The man followed. Fortunately, he seemed to be having trouble with the slippery spots too.

Cold hands, cold heart . . .

Stop it.

Lumikki tried to get something else stuck in her head.

Sheryl Crow came to the rescue.

Lumikki’s combat boots kept slipping. She swore to herself. From now on, she would have to start wearing ice cleats and running shoes all the time. Just in case someone started chasing her. Which seemed more than a little likely in light of recent events.

She turned into the cemetery, speeding past Väinö Linna’s grave on the right, Juice Leskinen’s on the left. Dead writers and singers might be able to save her from boredom on long winter nights, but they couldn’t do anything for her now. Was she really going to die surrounded by graves? How ironic.

She could hear the steps growing closer all the time. Lumikki knew looking over her shoulder was not a good idea now. If she did, she would lose precious seconds. Could she run to the chapel? Or to the crematorium pick-up door? Would someone be there? Could she get inside?

No running in cemeteries.

Her mother’s voice. Her mother’s rules.
Sorry, Mom. Not even you can know or control everything. Sometimes you just have to run.

The dead don’t care. The dead are dead. Corpses don’t care even if the girl running over their graves is trying not to become a corpse herself. That was why she had to run, even though her feet slipped wildly with each step, even though the
cold seemed to be filling her lungs with tiny puncture holes and sweat was streaming down her back under her heavy coat and sweater.

The tall spruces of the graveyard were frosted with white, softening their sharp lines. Their branches hung down under the weight of the snow, down toward the headstones, down toward any visitors.

The dead and the living. The living and the dead.

Come again to judge
.

The living and the dead.

Lumikki could already hear the man’s breathing. Not long until his hand would grab the back of her coat.

Then something happened. Lumikki heard a thud, a snarled cry, and a string of curses in Estonian. She didn’t understand them, but the meaning was clear. She didn’t turn, but hope lent her legs renewed strength.

Slipping and falling, Viivo Tamm banged his left knee painfully on the ice. Immediately, he knew the game was up. He wasn’t going to be chasing the girl anymore. He would be lucky to be able to limp back home.

Like a whipped dog.

Like a beat-down mongrel.

Again his rage boiled up inside. But now it was bigger, redder, and more blinding. Propped on one knee, he drew his pistol.

He didn’t think, he only felt with every fiber of his being that the girl had to be stopped. At any cost. He raised his weapon and aimed.

Lumikki heard a muffled crack. Then something whizzed past her thigh and struck a gravestone ahead of her, blasting a piece off.

A bullet.

The man was shooting at her.

Lumikki’s pulse suddenly jumped twenty beats higher. Now she flew, no longer noticing the slippery ground or the cold air or the rivulets of sweat running down her spine.

Only after a long, long way did she dare to take a look back. The man’s silhouette was small, but still visible, holding his knee. Some friendly old lady had gone to help him.

There was no sign of the gun. No more bullets whizzed at her.

Lumikki continued running, which suddenly felt easy. She knew she had escaped.

This time.

Cracks ran through the paint on the ceiling, forming strange roads to nowhere. Lumikki lay on her bed, looking at the cracks crisscrossing and letting the anger inside her grow. Against her stomach, she clutched a worn-out, baby-blue stuffed rabbit that was missing an ear. The bunny accepted the hard, desperate grip of her hands.

She had made it home, yanking off her combat boots and hurling her winter coat at the back of a chair. After stripping off her soaked sweater and the even wetter long-sleeved shirt underneath, she’d stood in the shower for half an hour, letting the water wash over her like heavy rain. She washed her
hair with unscented shampoo and used similarly fragrance-free soap. She always used odorless products. Not because she was allergic or had especially sensitive skin, but because she didn’t want to smell like anything in particular.

Recognizing a person from the shampoo, soap, or lotion they used was all too easy, not to mention perfume or aftershave. Just a hint of a fruity soap could be enough to tell even a stuffed-up nose that a certain person had just been in the room. Most people couldn’t identify other people’s characteristic odors in public spaces—that took a more developed sense of smell—but anyone who didn’t have the flu could pick out the cloying, pungent smells of perfumes.

Scents also triggered memories. The smell of pine tar shampoo brought back a summer night and dragonflies flitting over the surface of the water. Musky shower gel traced a sharp picture of wiry, muscular arms and a back with beautiful, prominent shoulder blades. It reminded her of the moments they lay embracing, laughing at some little thing no one else would think was funny at all. It made her think of the sharp, searching gaze of those light blue eyes, before which she always felt bewildered and flushed. Her heart always skipped a beat and her knees went momentarily weak when someone walked past smelling of that shower gel. Even though she saw—and knew even before seeing—that the smell was not coming from the person she longed for. That’s how strongly smells affect memory.