A Full Cold Moon

by Lissa Marie Redmond

  The wind had picked up, throwing snow across their windshield and battering the car as they made their way through the remote countryside. ‘Take the wheel,’ Berg told her and once again, Lauren found herself crammed between Berg and the dashboard, steering while he flipped through his files.

  ‘Ragnar owns a farm only a few kilometers from here.’ He looked up, almost smacking his head into Lauren’s. Straightening himself, he tossed the file across Lauren’s lap. ‘We should be able to see it soon.’

  The sparse patches of birch trees became thicker the farther inland they got. Lauren noticed areas on the ground roped off with bright red string, with white steam rising from them. Berg noticed Lauren noticing. ‘Those are hot springs. Don’t walk through them, you’ll burn yourself.’

  ‘Like the famous Blue Lagoon?’

  ‘A little, but you don’t know how hot any single one is, that’s why they have to be roped off. If there’s been geothermal activity, it could be scalding hot. You just don’t have any idea.’

  The land of fire and ice, Lauren thought. Instead of just snow and ice, like Buffalo.

  On Lauren’s right, she could see a farm complex up ahead: two houses, a collection of out buildings, and one of those long, low barns, all surrounded by trees. Ragnar’s car turned into the main driveway to the complex, which looked well maintained, though didn’t look to Lauren like it was a working farm anymore. There was no sign of the famous Icelandic horses or sheep that seemed to populate the countryside. Smoke rose from a stone chimney in the main house. Someone was home.

  Berg pulled over, still a quarter-mile down the road, taking what cover they could from a copse of skinny, barren birch trees that looked more like overgrown scrubs. He reached across Lauren into the glove box and extracted a pair of binoculars.

  ‘What do you see?’ Lauren asked as he scanned the property.

  ‘I see the green Rav4. I see Ragnar jumping out with a duffel bag. He just went inside that house.’ He paused, turning his head with the binoculars ever so slightly. ‘There’s the white Skoda. Ragnar and Freyja are both here.’

  He passed the binoculars to Lauren. She studied the property in front of her. The white Skoda was parked near the barn-like structure. Ragnar had pulled the Rav4 right up to the front door of the house.

  Lauren’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She’d set Matt to vibrate; everyone else was set to go straight to voicemail. Against her better judgment, she pulled it out as Berg inched his way cautiously up toward the main driveway. She needed to focus on the situation at hand, but it was a text from Matt. And he was typing in all caps.

  WE JUST GOT THE TRANSLATIONS OF GUNNAR’S EMAILS. WE WERE WRONG!!!

  Three dots glowed on the screen indicating another message was coming. Lauren looked up from her cell in confusion. ‘Berg, I just got a text from Matt—’

  BOOM!

  ‘Was that a gunshot?’ Lauren asked, scanning the front of the house for movement.

  ‘It certainly sounded like one.’ Berg’s voice was tight as he slipped his Glock out of its holster and rested it on the seat next to him.

  ‘We can’t wait.’ Lauren dropped the binoculars on the floor of the car. ‘We need to grab him now. What if he just hurt Freyja?’

  ‘Agreed.’ Berg hit the gas. ‘Let’s do this.’

  A bullet hit the front grill of the car. Berg slammed on the brakes as two more shots rang out. ‘Get down!’ Lauren screamed, pulling him from behind the wheel, across the seat just as a bullet pierced the windshield. He managed to yank the gear shift into park, so they didn’t roll closer to the shooter.

  Lying on top of each other in the front seat, Lauren reached for her door handle. ‘We can’t stay here like sitting ducks. Can you see something to cover us?’ she asked.

  He raised his head up and quickly brought it back down as another shot rang out. ‘On your side, there’s a small shed. I’ll cover you. Then I’ll come.’

  Thunk.

  Another round hit the car. ‘On three.’ Berg grabbed his Glock with both hands, rolling onto his back as best he could.

  Lauren pulled up on the passenger side door handle, cracking the door ajar. ‘OK.’

  Berg popped up and released a barrage of bullets toward the main house where the shots seemed to be coming from. Lauren leaped from the car and ran in a crouch toward the large, windowless wooden shed. A shot hit the shed and pinged against something metal inside. Lauren ducked low beside the door and motioned to Berg, who was sprawled across the front seat, gun in hand.

  Ragnar’s Rav4 was parked directly in front of the main entrance, slightly crooked, like he had made a hasty exit into the house.

  Another shot rang out, followed by the sound of a bullet hitting their vehicle. The front windshield was spiderwebbed by least three gunshots. It sounded like rifle fire to her. Maybe a .22, maybe a .410 shotgun. But Lauren was no expert in long guns. She hoped whatever it was wasn’t powerful enough to go through the shed, or at least there was enough heavy-duty equipment inside to shield her.

  Berg held up a finger, signaling for her to get ready then hurled himself out of the truck and scuttled over, keeping his head low, as more shots rang out. ‘That son of a bitch,’ he breathed hard, trying to peek around the corner to see the main house. ‘I think it’s coming from that window there.’

  ‘How many bullets do you have left?’ she asked. The front door of the main house had another of those cheery Icelandic wreaths on it. The house itself was two stories, the wood painted a pale bluish-gray color and trimmed in a darker navy. Heavy curtains hung in every window blocking their view of the interior.

  ‘I have these.’ He slipped two extra magazines out of his coat pocket, then let them drop back in. ‘I shot eight rounds. I should have ten rounds left. Who knows what kind of arsenal he has inside the house.’

  ‘If you can distract him, I can sneak that way and go in the back,’ Lauren motioned to another small building off to their right. From there she could make her way around the side of the house and try to get in the rear door. ‘No one locks their doors in Iceland. You said so, right?’

  ‘Let’s hope. I can try to get back behind the Santa Fe,’ he said, peeking again and getting a shot that ricocheted off the shed in response. ‘I’ll have a better angle on that window and the truck is better cover than this shed.’

  ‘OK,’ she agreed.

  ‘Wait until you hear me call out to Ragnar. I want his full attention on me.’

  She nodded and they both got into position. She was bent over and pointed toward the next building. He was in a runner’s crouch, with fingers spread on one hand, steadying himself and the other with his gun in it. ‘On three,’ he said. ‘One … two … three!’

  Berg raced for the rear of the Hyundai, firing at the house as he went. He positioned himself as best he could, trying to put the engine block between him and the shooter. He popped his head up, let off two more rounds, then dropped back down. ‘Ragnar! Stop this! Come out with your hands up!’

  Lauren waited until she heard Berg getting fired on before she ran for the next building. She could hear Berg yelling in Icelandic now. He was trying to get Ragnar to waste his bullets. She peered around the corner of her new position. This shed was made of corrugated metal and a bullet would pass through it like a hot knife through butter. She had to get around to the side of the house.

  Berg yelled something that sounded particularly nasty. The curtains in the front left window next to the door rustled, and a round hit the Hyundai, going straight through the front of the windshield and out the back. Lauren sprinted for the side of the house.

  As she turned the corner, she tripped over a red string and landed on her stomach, knocking the wind out of her. Two inches in front of her face, a small stream bubbled and fizzed with steam, stinging her cheeks. Thankfully, her scratched glasses shielded her eyes. The smell of sulfur burned her nose. She struggled to her feet, ignoring the pain in her hands from where they’d had to break her fall. Hurriedly,
she brushed the snow and rocky black pebbles from the front of her, and backtracked until she was hugging the house.

  Trying to keep the crunching of snow under her feet to a minimum, she rounded the corner to the back of the house. The missing blue Toyota Land Cruiser was parked there. Its front driver side headlight was cracked and there was a nasty dent just above it across the hood, where Matt had hit and spun off. Somehow Ragnar had managed to get the damaged Land Cruiser here and get back to his high-rise in Reykjavik.

  From up front, Lauren could hear Berg trying to negotiate with Ragnar, punctuated every few seconds with another shot from inside the house. As she crept up the steps to the back door, Lauren wondered if Freyja was already dead.

  Berg had been right when he told her no one in Iceland bothered to lock their doors. The knob turned easily, and she eased the door open slowly so as not to alert Ragnar she was in the house.

  Lauren found herself inside a very modern kitchen for a rustic-looking farmhouse. The acrid smell of gunpowder assaulted her nose as soon as she slipped in. She hadn’t thought this far ahead, and she needed to find a weapon. Over by the stainless-steel stove was a wooden block with knives in it. Edging past the center island, she slipped a long-handled blade from the block.

  Ragnar had shot off a lot of rounds. What she needed to do was to get a visual on him, then wait until he needed to reload his weapon. She would make her move then. Berg just had to keep Ragnar firing without getting himself killed.

  She could see a dining room off of the kitchen. At the far end was an open archway. It sounded like the shots were coming from just beyond it. She had to be careful: her heavy boots weren’t made to sneak around. Even the fabric of her parka wanted to give her away, with its nylon whoosh-whoosh every time she moved too fast.

  Slowly, she made her way through the dining room, sticking close to the wall but not hugging it, trying to get past the enormous polished table fully set for a Christmas feast. This place must be where Ragnar and Freyja come to celebrate the holidays when he’s not trying to kill someone, she thought. How cozy of them.

  There was a commotion in the front room. Lauren froze in place. She heard Ragnar and Freyja’s voices. Something smashed to the ground and a door opened, then slammed shut. Footsteps pounded up some stairs. From outside, she could hear Berg yelling commands in Icelandic and more sounds of movement.

  Two things could have happened: either Ragnar gave himself up and was outside with Berg, or Freyja had escaped and Ragnar was now upstairs with a higher vantage point. Lauren had the element of surprise, but she knew if Freyja was safe they needed to retreat and call for backup. She moved as fast as she dared, peeking around the corner into the living room.

  The space had been purposely decorated in rustic farm-chic charm, complete with a huge oil painting of geese in flight over the mantle. A fire was smoldering in the stone fireplace, wood shifting and snapping as it burned down. An overstuffed floral couch and its matching chairs sat poised in front of a glass and wood coffee table with a lace doily on it. Between them and her was the front door. Blood smeared the knob and was streaked onto the wood around it. The window next to the door was wide open and the thick, heavy lace curtains sucked in and out, pulled by the wind.

  Propped next to the front door, across from stairs leading up to the second floor, was a .410 Mossberg pump-action shotgun with a wooden stock. A box of shells lay open on the floor and spent cartridge casings littered the polished hardwood. She needed to get the gun outside.

  As she crossed the living room, a frantic scream came from up the stairs. Freyja flew down the steps like some sort of Nordic banshee, ramming into Lauren and sending them both flying into the coffee table, which smashed into a thousand splintered pieces of wood and glass. The knife went skittering across the floor.

  Lauren hit her head when they crashed through the table. She blinked away stars as she grappled with Freyja.

  ‘You couldn’t just leave us alone!’ Freyja was on top of Lauren, trying to pin her down. She was incredibly strong, a mad, wild look flashed in her eye. The glass had cut a deep gash in her forehead, and blood ran down the side of her face. ‘Why did you have to come here? Why couldn’t you just leave me be?’

  Freyja’s blond hair had unraveled from her fancy bun and hung in limp strings around her enraged, bloody face. She looked old and wretched, a caricature of the former beauty queen she’d presented herself as in the penthouse.

  Freyja grabbed Lauren by the neck and bounced her head twice on the floor, hard. Lauren struggled against the bulk of her thick parka, while Freyja attacked, unencumbered by any heavy outwear.

  Reaching out with her left hand, Lauren brought up a jagged piece of broken table, cracking Freyja on the side of the head with it. She fell off as Lauren scrambled for the front door, but Freyja whipped out her arm and caught her by the ankle, dragging her back. Lauren flipped herself over, kicking at Freyja with her heavy boots, as she scooted away.

  Freyja snatched up the knife. She maneuvered herself between Lauren and the front door, broken glass crunching beneath her expensive-looking fur slippers.

  ‘You killed Gunnar?’ Lauren croaked out as she crab walked backwards toward the fireplace, barely staying out of range of the knife Freyja was brandishing, and trying not to slice herself on the remains of the shattered coffee table.

  ‘Do you want to know what the funny part is – if there is a funny part to a man almost thirty years younger trying to steal my husband?’ she asked and slashed through the air, missing Lauren’s legs by inches. ‘The whole time in the alley Gunnar never fought back. He just kept saying, “Please!” and “I’m sorry” as he tried to get away from me. Even when I was hitting him. Can you believe that?’

  ‘He didn’t want to hurt you,’ Lauren managed. She saw decorative fireplace pokers in a wrought iron stand off to her left. All she needed to do was keep Freyja talking so she could grab one.

  ‘Hurt me? He already hurt me! And you two police people show up, all the way from America to try to arrest Ragnar for killing Gunnar. It’s so ridiculous! Gunnar was ridiculous.’ Then she began to repeat over and over in a mocking sing-song voice the Icelandic words for I’m sorry: Því miður, Því miður.

  The reality of what really happened crashed over Lauren harder than the fall through the coffee table. ‘You called Bjarni and told him to leave the bar. You ran Matt over, not Ragnar.’

  Freyja closed in, knife thrust out in front of her, thumping her chest with her other hand. ‘Ragnar is my husband. Mine.’

  Lauren scrabbled to get back on her feet, lunged toward the hearth, and wrapped her hand around the fire poker. She yanked it out of its holder and wound up, ready to knock Freyja’s blond bloody head out of the park, New York Yankees style.

  ‘Freyja.’

  From the doorway, a man’s voice filled the room. Freyja froze, knife stopping its downward arc in midair.

  ‘Freyja.’ The man Lauren recognized as Ragnar from his photos was standing with one hand wrapped around his belly, blood seeping through his fingers, while Berg supported him on the other side. He said something else to her in Icelandic, his handsome face twisted with pain. Somehow blood had streaked through his graying blond hair. His light blue dress shirt was soaked red across the front.

  ‘Stop this now. It’s gone too far,’ Ragnar continued in English.

  She spun around, knife still at the ready. ‘You did this. I turned a blind eye for over thirty years. I did my best. I tried everything.’

  ‘You did. And you were a wonderful wife. You are a wonderful mother. But I can’t deny who I am any longer. I fell in love,’ his voice broke. ‘I still love you and our children, but I fell in love with Gunnar and you took that away from me.’

  ‘I had to,’ she snapped and motioned around with the knife. ‘You forced me to do all of this.’

  He nodded, grimacing in pain. He slumped forward and Berg shored him up. ‘You’re right. I should have told you. I should have explained. I trie
d to protect you. I’m still trying to protect you. Put the knife down.’

  The last sentence was punctuated with a deep, gurgling cough. A thin trickle of blood ran down his chin from the corner of his mouth. Even with Berg supporting him, Ragnar sank down to his knees. ‘Freyja, please,’ he begged.

  ‘He needs a hospital. I called for backup, they’ll be here any minute,’ Berg told her in his no bullshit Viking way. ‘But we really should be putting pressure on his wound instead of trying to talk you out of killing my American partner.’

  Freyja looked over her shoulder, like she had forgotten Lauren was even there. A look of clarity washed over her face, as if she was really seeing Lauren for the first time. Dragging her arm across her forehead, it came away bloody. She glanced down at it, her perfectly shaped eyebrows pulling together in concern, then at her wounded husband. She dropped the knife on the floor with a clang and rushed toward Ragnar.

  ‘Put him on the couch,’ Freyja said, grabbing his other side. Together, she and Berg managed to lift him up enough to get him to the sofa. Laying him down, she pressed one of the decorative throw pillows to his wound. Lauren let the poker drop to her side but didn’t let go.

  ‘This was an accident,’ Freyja said to Ragnar, now oblivious to Lauren and Berg. She knelt on the floor next to him, ignoring the pieces of wood and glass that were surely digging into her knees. ‘You startled me when you came in the front door. I thought the police were coming for me.’

  ‘Better you shot me than one of them,’ he said weakly, the blood loss starting to take its toll. His face was a ghastly white.

  Freyja laid her beautiful, bloody head against his legs as she continued to apply pressure. ‘I’m sorry. Því miður.’

  Sweat beaded up on Lauren’s upper lip. The bandages on her hands were bloody, either from her own wounds or from Freyja’s. She resisted the urge to put the poker away or sit down. There was still a murderer in the room.