There's no place like HOME (Emma Frost Book 8)

by Willow Rose

  “Guess not,” I said, and held all of my little family tight.

  32

  July 2014

  I SERVED COFFEE and freshly baked buns for everyone as soon as we came inside. I made hot chocolate for Victor and Maya, who both were shaken badly by this incident. Neither of them spoke a word. Victor seemed to shake it first. He ate his bun, then got up and said he would go play in the yard. Then he grabbed his bag of stones that he had collected at the beach and left us. My mind was spinning with all of this, and I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

  I should have seen it coming. I should have known somehow.

  I couldn’t believe I didn’t realize what Michael was capable of. I had been married to the guy for ten years. I knew he had anger issues. He could sometimes yell at me for hours. He was a perfectionistic, and could never accept the fact that people had flaws. Especially not me. He thought I was lazy and sloppy and that I needed to get my act together.

  “So, did he also hit you when you were married?” Sophia asked, like had she read my thoughts.

  “He would push me, or maybe slap me now and then. But it wasn’t anything like this.” I removed the icepack and showed Sophia the bruise Michael had left on my cheek.

  “That’s how it begins,” Sophia said. “No guy ever starts out beating the crap out of you. He needs to know that you’re not going to run anywhere first. Once he gets comfortable with you, that’s when he shows his true colors. And if you don’t leave him when the first slaps fall, then he’ll continue, and it will get worse and worse. That’s my experience, anyway.”

  I looked at Maya, who was listening in on the conversation. Usually, I wouldn’t want her to listen to stuff like this, but I had a feeling it would be good for her to hear. She was old enough to know. She had to have so many questions, the poor thing…so much confusion in her life. Was she ever going to come out of this as a whole person? Or was she damaged for life?

  Sophia looked at her and smiled. “You hear me, honey. If he treats you bad…if he hits you, or even abuses you mentally, you know…tells you you’re no good, that you’re wrong and need to change. That’s when you leave him. You run and never look back. No matter how much you love him. You understand?”

  Maya nodded while biting her lip.

  “You don’t just stay and take it because you think you have to or that he’s right to do so. You run, alright?” Sophia continued.

  “Alright,” Maya said, and sipped her hot chocolate.

  “Otherwise, he’ll peel you like an onion. He’ll remove every layer of you till there’s nothing left.”

  I felt terrible. That was exactly what Michael had done to me. He had started by criticizing me. Criticizing my every move. Everything I did or said. If we had guests, he would correct me afterwards, telling me I was stupid for saying something that I had no idea what I was talking about. He would criticize everything I wore, tell me I looked chubby, and that I was lucky that he loved me because no one else would. And he hadn’t done it all at once. No, it had come little by little over the years. It had been sneaking up on me, slowly diminishing my self-confidence, making me feel bad about myself, and making me think I was worthless.

  How had I been so blind?

  Now, he was doing the same to Victoria, and Maya had seen it. She had seen him beat her with his fist. That was why she had been angry. That was why she decided to run away.

  I smiled at her and stroked her hair gently. My beautiful smart girl. She knew she had to get away and not just take the abuse.

  “What?” she asked.

  “That has to have been the hardest decision in your life to make,” I said. “To leave your dad. You had just moved there. You were angry with me for not telling you about your real dad. You wanted to move to be with the person who had been your father for all of your childhood, and then that happened. He turned out to be a bastard, treating your stepmother awfully, and then doing the same to you. So, you left. But where were you going? Do you remember?”

  Maya shook her head. I could tell her brain was working overtime to try and figure it out. “I…I was going to see someone, when I hit…”

  “You hit the man with your car. Do you remember it, or is it just because I’ve told you about it?”

  Maya looked pensive. “I think…I think I do remember some of it. I remember the road, then flashes of light and…something hitting the car. But that’s all.”

  “At least it’s something,” I said. “But you still don’t remember where you were going, do you?”

  Maya shook her head. She had tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be, honey,” I said. “It’ll come back to you. Maybe it isn’t even important.”

  “No, I’m sorry for causing all this,” she said.

  “Are you kidding me? This is not your fault. You hear me? Nothing of this is your fault. Never ever think that it is!”

  Maya didn’t look like she was convinced. Her eyes hit the table and she seemed burdened by guilt. “What if I hadn’t run out on dad like that? Maybe if I hadn’t tried to stop him from hurting Victoria…what if I had never moved there? None of this would have happened.”

  “Still, not your fault,” I said.

  “Honey, there are bastards everywhere,” Sophia said. “And they will always be bastards, no matter what you do and what you think you could’ve done different. You didn’t make him a bastard. You didn’t make him beat his wife…or you. That was his choice. It’s his choice to be a freaking bastard.”

  Sophia’s words seemed to do the job in Maya. She smiled and nodded. “Thanks,” she said.

  “Any time, sweetheart,” Sophia continued. “But, remember, not all men are pigs. Take Jack here. He’s a find. You find yourself a man like him, and you’ve lucked out. They don’t grow on trees, but they’re out there if you look carefully.”

  Jack blushed while Sophia put her arm around him. I noticed something between them I hadn’t seen before…a look in their eyes when they looked at each other.

  My phone vibrated on the table and I checked the display. It was Morten. He had called several times the past half hour, but I hadn’t picked up. I didn’t feel like fighting, and I was angry with him for not calling or anything at all yesterday.

  “Aren’t you going to take that?” Sophia asked. “It’s the third time today. Maybe it’s important.”

  I exhaled. “Okay.” I grabbed the phone and took it.

  “Emma?” Morten sounded agitated.

  “You won’t believe what happened here,” I said.

  “You won’t believe what happened here either.”

  I froze. Something bad had happened? I could tell it was urgent by the tone of his voice.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “There has been another one. Another double homicide. Husband and wife killed on the first night in their new home.”

  33

  June 2009

  “YOU HAVE LOST your mind!”

  Louise’s mom looked at her and shook her head. “What have we done to make you do this to us? Have we been such bad parents?”

  It was two days after the wedding. Unfortunately, Louise’s parents hadn’t kept their promise to stay away from her. As a matter of fact, they hadn’t gotten off her back ever since the news spread that she was now Mrs. Lund. They kept calling her, and now they had come to her apartment. Louise had let them come in, but now she regretted it.

  On the table in front of her lay the newspaper. Louise’s picture was on the front cover.

  WHO MARRIES A MURDERER?

  Louise didn’t care what they wrote about her. She didn’t care what her parents thought, or if they were embarrassed by what she had done.

  “I love him, Mom,” she simply said, over and over again.

  “Nonsense,” her mother replied. “You are obviously going through a phase of some sort. I talked to Dr. Wognsen. He thinks you’re being rebellious against us. You’re doing this to make us angry.”

  Louise
scoffed. She didn’t care what that stupid doctor thought. He was just an old fool. She wondered how a man like him could call himself a psychiatrist. She had seen him when she was in her late teens. All he did was prescribe new medicine for her. He never listened to what she told him. He would let her talk, but then tell her she needed her dose adjusted. It was his answer to everything.

  At one point in time, Louise suspected that her mother paid him to just drug her and make her more manageable. Her mother always found it hard to control Louise.

  Well here you go, Mom. Try to control this. Ha!

  “Why aren’t you saying anything, Hans?” her mother asked, looking at Louise’s dad.

  Her father shook his head. “Maybe we should just…” He exhaled when he saw the look on his wife’s face. Louise knew that look. He didn’t want the bother.

  “Just what?” she asked. “Maybe we should just what, Hans?”

  “Nothing. It was nothing.”

  “I truly hope it was,” she said, and corrected her skirt. “I don’t know what has gotten in to you lately. Both of you. It’s like I hardly know you anymore.”

  Louise’s mom leaned over on the couch, where she and Louise were both sitting. Then she pinched Louise on the arm, like she had always done when she had no idea how to make Louise behave.

  “Ouch!” Louise screamed.

  Her mother then slapped her. “Behave child. Behave.”

  Louise rose to her feet. “That really hurt, Mom.”

  Her mother snorted. “Well, it’s your own fault for being so rebellious. I can’t believe you married that guy. Now I have to clean up your mess for you, don’t I? Just like I always have. You’re such a mess, Louise. Can’t you do anything right?”

  Louise felt the anger rise in her again. Bjarke had told her she shouldn’t let her mom talk to her like this. Not anymore. But it was hard…so hard for her to talk back to her mother. She had never dared to before.

  “I have done something right. For once in my life, I have done something that makes me happy,” Louise said, and stomped her feet on the carpet.

  “Don’t raise your voice at me,” her mother snorted. “And stomping your feet like that on top of it. What is happening to you? It must be that disease of yours. I’ll have to have Dr. Wognsen prescribe some new medicine for you. Yes, that’s just what you need. Do sit back down, dear. You can’t take being upset like this. It’s too much for you.” She patted the seat next to her. “Sit here, sweetheart. Let Mommy take care of you. I know it’s been a rough time for you. You need your mommy here. I’m not leaving anymore. I’ll stay the night, if that’s what it takes to make you feel better.”

  “I’m not sick, Mom. Look at the ring on my finger. That means I’m married. I’m a grown woman. I can take care of myself from now on. My husband will help me if I need anything.”

  Her mother burst into a loud and very high-pitched laughter. The sound cut through Louise’s bones.

  “Your husband, ha! Listen to her, Hans. Her husband. As if someone could ever love you. You have no idea what love is. And no one in his right mind would ever be able to love someone with your illness, someone crazy like you. You need to understand one thing, Louise. You’re not like everybody else. There is something seriously wrong with your head. Am I right, Hans?”

  She looked at Louise’s dad, who nodded.

  “Isn’t that what the doctors have always told us?” she asked.

  Hans nodded again.

  “Well, there you go. Your dad agrees. You can never live a normal life, and frankly, marrying that guy proves to me that you are not at all right in your mind. To think you had to seduce a murderer, the scum of the earth, in order to get someone to marry you. Well, it’s just plain pathetic, isn’t it? Isn’t it, Hans? Tell her. Tell her how pathetic she is.”

  34

  July 2014

  THERE WAS ANOTHER one? I sat down in a chair in my kitchen, completely paralyzed. The others were staring at me. I had put the phone down after Morten said goodbye.

  “What’s wrong, Mom?” Maya asked.

  Sophia and Jack both watched me intensely. “Yeah, you look awful, no offense,” Sophia said.

  “There was another one,” I said.

  “Another what?” Jack asked.

  Sophia understood. She went quiet. “I think I’ll get the whiskey,” she finally said, and stood up.

  “It’s eleven o’clock,” Jack said. “Don’t you think it’s a little early for that?”

  Sophia found three glasses and put them on the table. Then she poured some whiskey for all of us. “So, where was it this time?” she asked. “Don’t tell me it was another one on our street?”

  I shook my head. “It was downtown. On the small street behind the church. I guess that’s why it was blocked this morning when Michael was driving here.”

  Jack stared at me. I guessed he had finally figured out what we were talking about. Maya was curious.

  “Was it like the neighbors?” she asked.

  I nodded. “A couple. Killed in their new home on their first night there.”

  I’d decided it was okay for her to know about this. But I still wanted to protect her, since she’d been going through quite a lot lately.

  “Maya, go check on your brother, will you?” I said. There was no reason for her to hear all this in detail. She had enough on her plate.

  Maya sighed. “Really, Mom?”

  “Yes, really. I want to make sure he’s all right. Someone was killed on our island last night, and it scares me.”

  “I’m not a baby, you know. I can hear this stuff without getting scared,” Maya protested.

  It didn’t help. I was about to share details about this killing that I didn’t want her to hear.

  “Please?” I said.

  “Okay,” Maya sighed demonstratively and left. I knew she wanted to be one of the adults, but there had to be a limit.

  “So, what did Morten tell you?” Sophia asked.

  I tasted the whiskey. It was strong. Just what I needed right now, even if it was a little early. It calmed me. “They were killed last night, they assume. There’s no sign of breaking and entering; the killer didn’t force his way in.”

  “Who found them?”

  “Believe it or not,” I said. “It was Peter, the curtain guy again. This time, he didn’t walk in. They had ordered new curtains. The wife had already chosen the fabric, but Peter had just gotten a new shipment from Thailand and wanted to show it to her, in case she wanted to change her mind. The door to the house was slightly ajar, and when he realized that, he didn’t dare to enter. Not after what happened the other day. He called the police right away, and Morten was first man on the scene. It was ugly, he said. Blood smeared on the walls and in the bed. Lots of blood. Both had been stabbed to death. The guy’s throat was sliced.”

  “Was she wearing shoes?” Sophia asked.

  I nodded. “Exact same type of shoes. Red ruby slippers.”

  “Like the movie,” Jack said.

  I stared at him, while my thoughts wandered. I kept thinking about Victor’s nightmare last night. It made sense. This killer had some sort of weird obsession with the classic movie The Wizard of Oz. It wasn’t a groundbreaking discovery, but it was something. It was a start.

  35

  July 2014

  SUNDAY, MORTEN CAME over for breakfast. I hadn’t told him about the incident with my ex-husband, but was planning to do it once he got there. He didn’t notice the bruise on my cheek. I felt as if he hardly looked at me at all. He was exhausted from yesterday, he told me, and sat down with a deep sigh. I served freshly baked bread with cheese and butter.

  “Do you have jam?” he asked.

  He loved my homemade raspberry jam, and I still had one jar left in my cabinet. I pulled it out and gave it to him. “Last one,” I said with a smile.

  “Ah, I love this stuff,” he said, and threw a big scoop on his bread.

  “I know you do.”

  “Is everything okay
?” he asked. The jam was stuck in several of his teeth.

  “I had a couple of tough days,” I said. I didn’t feel like talking about my encounter with Michael after all. Morten didn’t seem genuinely interested in my answer anyway.

  “Tell me about it,” he said, and took another bite. “I’m exhausted. Yesterday was rough.” He stopped chewing and washed the food down with coffee.

  “Why didn’t you call me?” I asked, hearing how every word I said was loaded with disappointment and hurt.

  He looked confused. “What? Call you when?”

  “Friday. I didn’t hear anything from you until Saturday morning.”

  Morten looked like he was trying to think back. “I’m not following you.”

  “I wanted you to call, or at least text me and say goodnight, on Friday after the party. You knew I was at home waiting. You knew I was upset about that party and not being invited.”

  Morten rolled his head back and massaged his neck. “I’m really not up for this,” he said with a deep exhale. “Between you and Jytte, it’s getting quite exhausting. There’s always someone nagging me about something. I can never do right by the both of you, even by any of you anymore. I’m getting sick of it, to be frank. On top of it, this case is killing me. This killer leaves no traces and no clues. Just a bloody scene of true devastation. It’s unbearable. I have no energy to be fighting with any of you.”

  I looked at him. I could tell he was upset. But it wasn’t because of me or Jytte, was it? It was something else. Something deeper.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  Morten looked at me. He was crying. “I…I…”

  I put my arm around him. He pushed it away. “Morten. Talk to me. Is everything alright?”

  “I…she…she was pregnant, Emma. He killed her in cold blood, undressed her and put on those awful shoes. She was carrying a little life inside of her. Who would do something like this?”