by Lena Bourne
I reach out with my right arm, feeling along the edges of this coffin I’m in. It’s all cool metal and sharp plastic edges. I have no idea which part is the lights and which part something else.
I bang on the spot that should be the back of the lights. It makes a sound like when an empty plastic thing drops to the floor. I punch at it harder, a sickening wave of pain racking through me, starting in my fist, but ending in my face.
I do it again and again, kicking too now. Maybe someone will hear the noise, see the trunk shaking, wonder what it is.
I think I hear a siren over the whooshing. Loud and shrill. I kick harder. Punch harder. Give it all I have. All of what little strength and consciousness I have. It’s not enough.
25
Mark
The sun is starting to set, mockingly golden and beautiful. The chief is giving us push back in every imaginable way, especially since Simon started making calls to get shared jurisdiction on the case. He won’t let us search the Rajić house, is threatening to arrest me for breaking into Rado’s house, and won’t put out a search for him or Renata.
Tarik has checked out of the hotel he was staying in. He could be miles away by now.
The team hasn’t arrived yet.
It’s all a disaster and with every moment that passes my hope gets darker, more faded, every step I take turning into a nightmarish memory I already know I’ll have to relive over and over again for the rest of my life. But that’s the future. I have to stay in the present.
It’s evening now, and Brina should be arriving with the rest of the team. Dino just got a call from his detective friends who assured him they will facilitate a search of the Rajić house. Things are moving. But slowly. Too slowly. And I can’t just sit around waiting.
Dino and I are driving to the village where Rado’s uncle lives. It’s the last thing I can think of. And it’s a long shot.
“That’s it, that’s the village,” Dino says, pointing at a cluster of houses all washed in the golden light of the setting sun. It’s at the end of a long gravel road lined with barren yet tilled fields on both sides.
The houses of the village form a square of sorts between them, a huge oak tree growing in the middle of it. I drive right into the center of the space.
People come out of all the houses, hang out of windows, and lean over balconies as I step out of my car. Ten houses line the square and about three times that many people are outside in one form or another now, some squinting in the sun others just squinting at me and my grand and clearly unwelcome arrival.
“Is Rado Kopanja here?” I yell looking, spinning in a sort of circle to look at all of them.
No one replies. They just start chattering among themselves, while glowering at me even more.
“We’re looking for his uncle,” Dino says. “Is he here?”
The chattering gets louder, but that’s the only change.
“We just need to talk to him,” I say. “Ask a few questions. It’s urgent.”
A man clears his throat to my left and I spin towards the sound.
“I’m Rado’s uncle,” a man around sixty years old, wearing a badly stained white t-shirt, equally stained blue work pants, and a faded flannel shirt says as he steps away from the doorway of a house. “What do you want with him?”
His tone is harsh and unwelcoming, a threat more than a mere question. In the back of my mind I know how reticent, hostile witnesses like this should be handled—with friendliness and a calm voice—but I don’t have it in me.
“Have you seen him today?” I ask as I advance on him. “Perhaps with this woman?”
I take out my phone, find Eva’s picture and shove it in his face. He takes two steps back as he looks down at the phone cross-eyed.
“Haven’t seen him in weeks,” he says. “Never saw that woman before in my life.”
“It’s very important,” I say. “She’s in danger.”
“I said, I’ve never seen her,” he barks. “And why do you always come after Rado first? He’s suffered enough. Leave!”
He spits on the ground as though it’s my fault his nephew is a mafia errand boy scumbag and turns to walk back into his house. As if his departure was the sign all the rest were waiting for, they start disappearing into their houses too.
“Wait! Tell me where I can find him?” I yell after the guy. “Where does he go when he doesn’t want to be found?”
The guy turns sharply and stares me down with pure hate in his eyes. “Why would I tell you that? You damn foreigners always coming here telling us how we should live. And now you want to go after one of our own? One of my kin? A man who has suffered all his life? Son, bring my gun!”
That last was an order for one of the men standing next to him. He nods, looks at me darkly, and disappears through the dark doorway behind him.
Dino grabs my arm and pulls me back towards the car. “They mean business. You know what I told you about the guns they all keep?”
I do remember and I refuse to be scared off without getting the answers I need.
“Live to fight this one another day, Mark,” Dino says. “Eva needs you.”
She needed me yesterday, she needed me this morning, she might have needed me at noon, but I’m afraid she doesn’t need me anymore. And that’s a sickening, deflating thing to fear.
I let Dino guide me back to the car.
I will find the man who is causing all this grief. And I will make sure he never hurts anyone else. And for that, I can’t get shot in this forsaken, golden-colored village. That’s the only reason I get in the car and drive off.
We’re about halfway down the side road that leads to the village when I’m sure I hear my name being called.
Instinctively, I turn to look out the window.
A woman is running through the field there, waving her arms, yelling my name, her long, reddish hair flapping in the wind behind her. I hit the brakes so hard Dino’s head almost hits the dashboard.
“What are you doing?” he asks breathlessly.
And then he sees her. It’s Renata, the woman Eva was staying with, the one we saved back in Berlin, Rado’s girlfriend.
“What the hell is she doing?” Dino says. “Running away, do you think?”
I get out of the car and run towards her. She runs straight into me, clutching hard at my arms as she struggles to catch her breath.
“Where is Eva?” she asks in between trying to do that.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I’m looking for her. Do you know where she could be? She disappeared sometime this morning.”
I should probably tell her that her grandmother was hurt, but I need to know what she knows before I shock her with that. It’s callous, but I’ll feel bad about it later. Dino reaches us, huffing slightly.
“Rado didn’t do anything to her then,” she says sounding relieved. “He was with me all morning. And for the last couple of days. We were hiding at his uncle’s house. Said I wasn’t safe now that Eva and Europol were snooping around and asking questions about Anita’s death and Esma’s disappearance. He wouldn’t tell me more than that.”
All the talking made her breathlessness worse and she has to pause again.
“Where’s Rado now?” I ask. “Back in that town?”
She shakes her head. “He started getting texts and calls last night. At first, he just ignored them, but about an hour ago, he got one that made him fly out of the house. He wouldn’t tell me where he was going. Or take me with him.”
“Do you have any idea where he might have gone?” I ask.
“Back to his farm?” she says, but doesn’t sound convinced.
Dino gets a call and just listens to the person on the other end.
“They found a body at the Rajić house,” he says and it feels like a knife slicing through my chest.
“Eva?” I ask just as Renata breathes, “Rado?”
The moments before Dino shakes his head drag like years, decades even.
“No, neither,” he says.
“They’re thinking it could be Esma.”
“Let’s go,” I say and head back to the car. “We’ll drop her off at the hospital and then go straight there.”
“Why?” Renata asks. “I’m not hurt.”
“Your grandmother was attacked,” Dino says softly. “She will be fine.”
He has no way of knowing that, but I’m glad he chose to tell her that anyway. As it is, she’s suddenly full of panicked, breathless questions. I let Dino answer all of those, as I drive as fast as I dare.
Everyone and their mother, quite literally, are gathered in the street in front of the Rajić house. Some are even standing in the back yard and the officers aren’t doing a very good job of keeping them away.
Simon steps out the back of one of the plain cars parked in the street, his face greenish even in the lingering golden light. “Have you found her?” he asks.
I shake my head since it’s the best I can do. I’m surprised to see him. But that’s a distant thought and I barely acknowledge it.
“What’s inside?” Dino asks.
“Oh, it’s bad. It’s sick, I don’t know…” Simon mutters.
I turn and stride into the house, ignoring the questions both from the crowd and the officers I pass.
A man about my age is coming out a door at the back of the staircase. He has his hand over his mouth, and just waves at the door behind him, shaking his head. Dino stays behind to speak to him, so I assume it’s one of his detective friends. There’s a wide, but not very steep, poorly lit staircase made of five concrete steps leading down and I hear voices coming from a room at the end of it.
The basement is a rectangular room with a low ceiling. One end seems to be filled with bags of concrete, bathroom tiles, and paint while the other is obscured from view by people, one of who is Slava, standing around it. A large pile of rubble, bricks, and mortar by the looks of it, is to their left and the room is dusty and smells like building work went on in here not long ago. Whatever the group of people is looking at is giving off a soft yellow light.
“What did you find?” I ask loudly as I approach and they all turn to me, clearing a path so I can look too. Horrified. That’s what they look like. It seems to be the reason why no one is saying anything too.
They’re standing by a large industrial-sized freezer, which seems to have been hidden behind a false wall. Some of my neighbors have freezers like this to store the fruits, vegetables, and meat they collect during the summer and fall.
This one holds something a lot more sinister.
A woman’s body, wrapped in a clear plastic tarp.
She’s in a sitting position at one end, her knees by her chin, as though she’s been backed into a corner by her attacker. It’s Esma Rajić and there’s not a mark on her that I can see through the plastic. She looks like she could open her eyes at any moment and stand up to greet us. But she won’t.
She also looks almost exactly like Vasko Derganec’s wife, in person even more than in photos.
“And that’s not all,” Slava says in a hoarse voice and points at the other end of the freezer.
What looked like two bags of frozen meat at first glance is actually something incredibly terrifying. Hands. Cut off…no, sawed off at the wrist.
“Anita’s,” I say.
“Most likely,” Slava answers though I wasn’t asking a question. The other three people down there with us, none of who I know, just nod.
“Mark!” Dino’s voice calls from the direction of the stairs. “They found Tarik! They’re bringing him to the station now.”
“Good,” I say and walk towards him. “I need to speak to him first, before that chief gets his hands on him. But he’s not our guy.”
He gives me an incredulous look as he backs up to let me climb the stairs.
“No one who kept his sisters, or parts of his sisters like that would be able to live a normal life,” I say. “I don’t care what kind of psycho he is.”
And I can just sense his doubt in my sanity.
“But maybe Tarik knows where we can find Rado,” I say. “That’s our priority now. And I want everyone on it. Talk to the neighbors, talk to everyone in town. He’s the one who watched over this house. He knows where Eva is. And who killed these women.”
Dino gives me another confused look, but doesn’t say anything, just nods and goes off to give the instructions.
Simon is asking me something. Walter who was in the car with him, but I didn’t see before is saying something too. But I can’t hear them. All I can hear is the loud voice in my head yelling, calling me an idiot and worse for being too slow and too late again. I should’ve trusted my instincts not doubted them. And I should’ve trusted Eva, put more stock in her instincts, because they’re better than mine.
I think this whole thing started here ten years ago with the death of Esma Rajić. And it will end there tonight, one way or another.
“Where’s Brina?” I ask.
“She’s with the Bosnian detective who found Tarik,” Walter says. “What do you need me to do?”
“Come,” I say as I rush to my car. Dino catches up with us when we reach it.
“They’ve agreed to let us talk to Tarik before they bring him in,” he says. “They’re waiting at the gas station at the edge of town. The one we passed coming in.”
I nod, tell him to get in and speed away, hoping Tarik’s memory is good.
Eva
I open my eyes and still see nothing. My legs and the arm I’m lying on have gone numb, but the pain in my head and face isn’t so bad anymore. Far from just an ache, but not pervasive and threatening anymore.
The car isn’t moving.
I can hear birds chirping outside. And raised men’s voices.
“What were you thinking, you degenerate scum?” the old man who abducted me is saying. “Why did you move her to the house? They found her!”
“I put her where she belongs,” Rado says just as angrily. “And away from me.”
The old man laughs harshly. “Her blood is on your hands, wherever you keep her. Her sister’s too.”
“You’re the one who killed them both!” Rado yells. “You!”
“And you cleaned up after me, like a good loyal dog with his tail between his legs,” the old man says. “And now I have something else for you to clean up.”
Me! He means me.
I can’t breathe, my heart is racing, but adrenaline is making all the various pains in my body disappear, replacing them with my whole life flashing before my eyes. Mostly all my mistakes.
Footsteps approach the car and then the trunk opens. I have a split second to pretend I’m still unconscious and I do. Something thunks against the side of the car.
“Renata’s friend?” Rado says. “Is she dead?”
“Should be,” the old man says. “If not, you finish her, like you did Anita. Then get rid of her.”
“No! You killed Anita,” Rado says. “I won’t do your dirty work for you anymore.”
“So you’d rather die?” the man asks mockingly. “Along with that pretty new girlfriend of yours. Anita’s and Esma’s brother is in town and I know him. I bet he’d love to kill you.”
I can hear Rado breathing hard.
Then a hand grabs my arm and yanks me halfway out of the trunk. I stay as limp as I can, somehow manage not to make a sound.
“I won’t do it,” Rado says. “You do your own dirty work from now on.”
I hear him striding away across what sounds like high grass. The air smells of pines, green things, and moist soil. Like a forest.
"Don’t you walk away from me,” the old man says, his voice now farther away from the car than before.
I risk opening my eyes just a crack. The left one is so swollen it won’t open more than that and I only see a green blur through it. But with the right, I see trees all around, daylight barely reaching down to the ground. I can’t see the old man and Rado, just hear their raised voices somewhere to the left and behind me.
; This is my chance. My last chance. My only chance.
I use my good arm to pull myself closer to the edge of the trunk, then, even though I can barely feel my legs, I somehow get them to move over the edge.
To my ears, I’m making a lot of noise. Groaning and huffing. I can’t help it. Every movement I make hurts. But the men are yelling at each other now and it sounds like they’re coming to blows too.
A shot ringing out covers the sound of me plopping out of the trunk, groaning as I land on my bad arm.
One of the men lets out an animal scream.
“You would shoot me? You pussy old man would shoot me?” Rado yells.
He screams again and by the sounds of it, lunges at the other man.
A shovel is lying on the ground next to me. The one meant for burying me.
The surge of adrenaline the thought brings wakes me completely. I grab it and lean against it to stand up.
The two men are on the ground a few meters away from me, groaning as they thrash around on the ground.
I limp towards them, dragging the shovel behind me. Somehow, the old man is getting the upper hand in the fight, pinning a panting Rado down. They’re both covered in blood.
The gun is in the grass about half a meter away from them. The old man is groping for it with his right hand as he kneels on Rado’s chest.
He can’t get that gun!
I move faster to reach them, a sort of shuffle run since I’m dragging my right foot behind me. But I’m in time to bring the edge of the shovel down on his wrist just as his groping fingers reach the gun’s handle. A satisfying crunch is followed by his scream of pain. Which is cut short as I swing the shovel against his head, one-handed, but giving it my all.
The flat end connects with his face with another loud crunch, blood erupting from his nose as he falls back and off Rado.
I grab the gun and point it at him, completely ready to squeeze the trigger if he comes at me. Rado manages to sit up and that’s all he can do. His shirt is soaked in bright red blood.
The old man is looking at me with a dazed look on his face.