by Lena Bourne
So, that’s why he’s talking. He thinks I’m the only one who will know, and that no one will believe me. Well, he’s got another thing coming.
“Your brother and Leskovar’s ex-wife survived,” I say. “And Rado did too. We also found enough evidence to tie you to all the cases. All your hard work and sacrifice in getting rid of witnesses was for nothing.”
Sirens are wailing in the distance, growing closer and closer.
“They won’t talk, because they don’t want to go down with me,” he says, but he doesn’t sound at all sure about it.
“That’s precisely why they will talk. Because they won’t want to go down with you,” I say. “And people will believe them.”
I grab his bad arm, making him screech again, then wrap my elbow around his throat and start dragging him to the road, towards the sound of approaching sirens. I don’t want them to miss us in the dark.
Not long after we reach the road, two police cruisers and two plain sedans, stop in a neat line in the middle of the door. I shove Vasko towards the first officer that reaches me, tell them he confessed to the murder of Esma and Anita, and the attempted murder of Rado and Eva.
“Rado probably won’t make it,” Dino informs me which makes the sicko grin.
“Rado Kopanja did all that,” he says in a sickeningly sweet voice. “I came here to stop him after he shot my brother and my friends. I came here to get him arrested.”
“Then my police station should’ve been your first stop,” the portly chief says harshly, then instructs his men to pack Vasko into the back of a cruiser.
The chief turns to me. “I suppose I should thank you for solving a murder I failed to solve.”
“Just don’t mess it up now,” I tell him, still not over how he hindered us all day.
“I’m going to see Eva now,” I tell Dino. “I can leave this with you?”
He nods. “Brina is already on it.”
She is by the police cruiser, insisting they let her ride with the suspect. This arrest is the culmination of eight years of her life. I have no doubt she’ll handle it well.
I run to my car and take off, going as fast as I did to get here. Back to Eva. In the hospital. Again. But alive.
All the painful dread and worry of today is flaking away from my mind like dried mud. Scars will remain. But I can handle scars. As long as Eva is safe, I can handle anything.
27
Eva
A dislocated left shoulder, a hairline fracture of the ulna in the same arm, three cracked ribs, and two black eyes. And a splitting headache caused by the mother of all concussions. That’s the sum total of the beating Vasko gave me. He’s a coward who also punches and kicks like a girl.
I’m in a small room of the local hospital where all the furnishings, including the white metal bed I’m in, make it seem like I’ve been transported back to the 1960s. Mark stayed by my bedside all night. I was the one who woke him in the morning and insisted he take me to the police, so I can tell them everything Rado told me.
“He’s still in critical condition, but they think he’ll make it,” Mark had said. “They airlifted him to a hospital in Sarajevo during the night. He can tell them everything when he wakes up.”
But I insisted. In the end, I told him everything and he went to talk to the police. I told him to hurry back, which made him smile for the first time since he found me in the forest.
My mom and dad are in the room when I wake up next. Mom is sitting by my bed, holding my hand and looking down at it, and Dad is pacing up and down by the window. They both look much older than the last time I saw them, which was less than two weeks ago, despite the soft, forgiving, diffused light streaming in through the curtains on the window.
“Hi,” I say, my voice hoarse and dry.
“Eva,” my mom whispers and Dad rushes to my side.
“How do you feel?” he asks.
I nod and smile, although that really hurts now that the bruises on my face have had all night to mature and grow more painful.
“I’m fine,” I say. “Or I’m going to be. Soon.”
“What were you thinking?” Mom says. “We thought this kind of thing was behind you.”
Dad shushes her, saying this is neither the time nor the place for that conversation.
“I’m sorry I made you worry,” I say anyway. “Again.”
I do feel bad for all the times they thought they would never see me again due to my recklessness and wild ways.
“I really did try to play it safe this time,” I say and grin.
I explain what had happened to me, keeping it brief and low on details. It seems to still be too much for my mom, who is listening to it with her hand over her mouth and her eyes very wide.
“Luckily, Mark realized I might be in danger and came to Bosnia right away,” I conclude. “I was being careful, but I’ll be more careful next time.”
Far from frightening me off, the incident made me even more certain that catching sick psychos like Vasko is what I’m meant to be doing. I’m sure the nightmares will come, but they won’t change that fact.
“How about if there is no next time?” Dad asks, uncharacteristically harshly. Mom is nodding along like this is the wisest thing she’s ever heard him say.
They both look so worried, so haggard with their red-rimmed eyes and pale faces. A strand of my mom’s hair, still the same color as mine, has come loose from the bun at the back of her head, and that’s a good sign of how distraught she is. I’m pretty sure Dad didn’t even comb his before they drove here to be with me.
“I’ll be more careful next time,” I repeat. It’s the best I can promise them and the resigned looks on their faces tell me it’s good enough.
The door opens and Mark walks in, stopping dead in the doorway as he sees my parents. He has eyes only for my dad and he looks a lot younger all of a sudden. Like a teenage kid.
Dad clears his throat and walks to him, extending his hand. “Thank you for saving our daughter. Again.”
The first time Mark met my parents was by my hospital bed in Berlin. It’s always bothered him, always made him think my parents don’t want him in my life, because they think he’s the one putting me in danger. Maybe my dad’s words now will convince him otherwise. I never could.
“She saved herself,” Mark says stiffly. “And we never would’ve solved this case without her.”
How he always knows exactly the right thing to say in any given situation is beyond me. But he does.
Dad clears his throat again and looks back at me over his shoulder. “I don’t doubt her brains. Just her ability to stay safe.”
Mark chuckles. “But we wouldn’t have her any other way.”
And both my parents agree with that, even Mom cracking a little grin.
Then they all gang up on me when I suggest we get me checked out, so we can have some lunch before heading back home. We settle on Dad getting us takeout, which we eat in my room like a family. And that’s great too. Better than great, actually. It’s just perfect.
Epilogue
Eva
Three weeks later, the Bosnian authorities have finally allowed Vasko to be extradited to Slovenia to stand trial for his crimes here.
Mark and I have been at the National Police Bureau headquarters since early morning, giving our statements to three detectives who wanted every little detail explained again.
Renata calls while I’m sitting alone in a waiting area of sorts, waiting for Mark to be done with his interview. I only saw her briefly at the hospital before I left Bosnia.
“Fata is finally coming home today,” she tells me excitedly. “She’s been asking about you.”
“Tell her I’m sorry—”
“Hang on,” Renata says and the next voice I hear is Fata’s, greeting me.
“I tried to stop him,” she says. “But he clobbered me over the head with my own cane.”
“I’m sorry I brought that danger into your house,” I say. “If I’d known—”
She passes the phone before I can say anything else.
“We’ll both testify,” Renata assures me. “Against him, and Rado.”
Her voice sounds very hard and hollow as she mentions Rado.
“I’m sorry he turned out to be involved in the crimes,” I say. “I know you were in love with him.”
“I don’t even know if I was,” she says. “I think I just wanted to be in love, if you know what I mean.”
“Been there, done that,” I say. “But I don’t have that problem anymore, and never will again.”
Mark is standing by the door and I lock eyes and smile at him as I say that. He looks confused for a moment, but then smiles back. It’s all I wanted to see. He stands back from the door, to wait for me to finish my conversation, so he can take me home.
“I should go, our taxi is here,” Renata says. “I’ll call you later.”
I tell her I’d like that then walk out into the hall to join Mark.
He wraps his arm around my shoulders and leads me down the hall and towards the exit.
“I just got a call from the Bosnian detectives who arrested Vasko,” he says. “They’re still very worried he won’t get a fair trial here. And speaking to some of those detectives today, I don’t know, I got the feeling they’d like to sweep most of it under the rug.”
We’ve spoken a lot about this over the last few weeks. Simon is of a similar opinion. Brina is too. There’s evidence that ties Vasko to all the cases, but it’s circumstantial. While his brother and Leskovar’s ex-wife did state that he was the one who shot them, they denied knowing Vasko had killed Leskovar and his wife. Or Anita and Esma, for that matter. Brina and Mark are still hoping they’ll come around. Vasko is denying being involved in any of those deaths, but he will be charged with my abduction and attempted murder, so at least we have that.
Rado is out of the hospital and in jail. He’s told his side of the story. But the consensus among the task force members is that everyone will believe a successful businessman and politician over a poor Bosnian handyman with connections to the mafia. They are probably right.
Which is why I’ve hatched a plan.
News crews were already gathering in the parking lot of this building when we arrived this morning, and there are so many of them here now that they’re covering half the parking lot with their vans and cars and cameras. They’re here to cover Vasko arriving, but since that hasn’t happened yet, they rush toward us as we exit the building.
“Follow my lead,” I whisper to Mark as I lean against him as though I need him to support my weight. Truth is, my injuries have largely healed and I can pretty much walk without any pain now. Not how I’m making it look for the cameras.
The first of the journalists reach us, a young, perky blonde I know from the evening news.
“Can I ask a few questions?” she asks and the question is then joined by many other, similar ones. Camera flashes are going off, causing red spots to appear before my eyes, but I don’t look away.
Instead, I tell them all about how Vasko abducted me, how he beat me up just like he beat up poor Anita Rajić. And how, afterward, he kept me in the trunk of his car all day, until at twilight, he finally took me to a secluded spot in the woods to kill and bury me. I tell it much more eloquently and in greater detail than I’ve ever told it before, and more than once even Mark gasps and holds me tighter.
I have their complete attention, and they’re hanging on my every word. Soon they’re not even interrupting me with questions anymore. And after I conclude with telling them how I fought Vasko off and how Mark chased him down and got his full confession, they just stand there, open-mouthed for a couple of moments, even the camera flashes no longer going off. Mark recounts the actual confession for them, emphasizing the part where Vasko was sure he wouldn’t be prosecuted because he had so many powerful people in his pocket. They lap that up too.
They have many questions for Mark and me after that and we answer them all very graciously.
Eventually, he tells them he must take me home now, because I need rest and they let us pass without argument.
I walk to the car leaning on his side and limping exaggeratedly the whole way, even though there’s no reason to.
“You practiced that whole story, didn’t you?” he asks once we’re in the car.
He’s grinning at me, and the look in his eyes can only really be described as admiration. With a huge side helping of love.
I nod and grin too. “You, Simon, and Brina were all so worried he wouldn’t get a fair trial since he’s so well connected, and that no one would know what he did, so I decided to get my colleagues involved. What we told them today will be broadcast everywhere for days now. I’d like to see those who want to protect him dodge that.”
“Leveraging the power of the media. That’s brilliant. You’re brilliant.”
He leans over and kisses me before I can say anything. And it’s still a careful, gentle kiss, mindful of my injuries. Injuries that have healed. And I show him that by kissing him harder.
“I think you should take me home now,” I tell him. “As fast as you can.”
He grins at me. “Is that a dare?”
And while I’m not a huge fan of his fast driving, I nod anyway.
“Just keep us safe,” I add.
“Always,” he promises and I feel more than hear the word. In my heart and in my mind.
It echoes as we drive off, back towards our cottage, our home. And our future.
THE END
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this story. The next book in the E&M Investigations series is COMING SOON! Click here to receive an alert the moment it becomes available!
Also by Lena Bourne
E&M Investigations Series:
The Fall (Prequel #1)
The Fairytale Killer (Prequel #2)
Pretty Places (E&M Investigations, Book 1)
Bad Roads (E&M Investigations, Book 2)
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About the Author
Lena Bourne is a USA Today Bestselling author of many romantic suspense and mystery novels. When she’s not coming up with a (often steamy) romance story or plotting the next perfect crime mystery, you can usually find her drinking coffee and catering to her elderly cat’s every whim.
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Copyright © 2021 by Lena Bourne
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Contents
A Handy Names and Places Pronunciation Guide
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Epilogue
Also by Lena Bourne
About the Author