by Sara Blaedel
“Frederik’s moving to Los Angeles. And,” she said, before Louise could ask, “I’m staying here.”
“Oh no! Shit!” Louise felt as if someone had just punched her in the face.
“No, it’s okay!” Camilla pushed her coffee aside. “Frederik’s right when he says I could write some great articles if I move over there. But my network is here in Denmark. I don’t want to move, at least not yet. I can fly over and stay with him every winter when Markus finishes boarding school. But I’m not going to live there permanently, hell no.”
“Are you two getting a divorce?” Suddenly, all Louise wanted to do was go home and crawl into bed. She felt the strain of all that had happened since Suhr called her into his office. Joy, worry, good, bad. Her life right now seemed to be all tall peaks and deep valleys, and it was simply too much for her. Especially the day after finishing a major case.
If she accepted the job, Suhr wanted to hold a small, inner-circle reception for her in his office that very afternoon. It wasn’t official yet, but it was felt that the personnel in the Personal Crimes Department deserved to know the leadership’s plans, now that everyone was aware that Michael Stig wouldn’t be returning. She thought about Eik, Steph, and their travel plans. They were talking about being gone for a long time.
“No, we’re not getting a divorce, don’t be silly,” she heard Camilla say.
“That’s why I really haven’t slept. I love my husband, and we’ve been Skyping all night to get our new lives on track. It’s modern for married couples to live separately. Didn’t you know that?”
Epilogue
Incredible how bad they’re screwing us,” Eik said, after they’d been dumped off in front of their small hotel in Tulum. He dug another cigarette out of his jacket pocket. Back at the airport, Louise had asked for a taxi large enough for all their luggage, but she was told they should have ordered one in advance. It was either take two taxis or go back to the end of the line.
Eik lit a cigarette and stood for a moment, breathing in the hot air, while Louise laughed and asked who had suggested Mexico as their first stop.
“Your son, Jonas,” he said. “He’s the one who wanted to see the Mayan ruins, and you heard how convincing he was.”
She nodded. He was absolutely right. Jonas was interested in history, and immediately he had named the Mayans when they sat down to make a list of what they wanted to see.
She thought fondly of Camilla, who had sat her down before she accepted the job as head of Homicide. “Are you really sure you’re making the right decision, letting Eik and Steph travel without you two?” she’d asked. “Why don’t you go with them?”
The wind took hold of Louise’s hair, and she smiled as she thought back to when she closed the door to Suhr’s office and gave him her ultimatum. She would, of course, keep her word; she still wanted the job. But only if he agreed to stay six months longer. Otherwise, unfortunately, she would have to say no. In which case he risked having to stay even longer; he and the police leadership would have to find another successor who might have to give notice to his or her employer. He mulled that over before agreeing to her condition.
Their trip had been delayed by Nigel Parker. Not that he had anything against his stepdaughter moving to Denmark to live with her biological father. In fact, he thought it was an excellent idea. He had been honest with himself and realized it wouldn’t work between the two of them without Sofie as a buffer. But he had dug his heels in when Eik asked him to pack Steph’s things and send them to Denmark. He really had no time to do that, now that his wife wasn’t around to help him in the vision center and office. And besides, he wasn’t especially eager to help Eik after the fraught confrontations they’d had.
Steph and Eik had returned to Nailsea to pack, and while there she chose what she wanted of her mother’s belongings. Only after everything had been sent off to Denmark did Steph react. All the shock was gone, and she’d cried because she missed her mother. Because of her murder and the shock, because she had lost the only person in the world she’d ever felt connected to.
She and Eik had moved into the South Harbor place, but even though he and Louise lived separately, they almost always ate together. Either there or at Louise’s apartment. And slowly Steph began to come to terms with her life. Eik let her move things along at her own pace. But it wasn’t just for Steph’s sake, Louise came to realize. It was just who he was.
“Why don’t we find a bar and have a cold Corona before we check in?” Eik began pulling Louise toward the small bar on the beach. She felt sweaty all over after the flight and the almost-two-hour taxi ride, and she needed a dip in the ocean badly, but she nodded when Eik asked if they should order two plates of nachos as well.
Steph had taken off her leather jacket and heavy Dr. Martens, and she surrendered to the Mexican sun. She was still healing from the shooting, but after determining her inner organs hadn’t been damaged, the doctors had been most concerned about a concussion. She’d taken a heavy blow to the temple, and she’d had a blinding headache and blurred vision in the days following the events in the forest. There’d even been talk of a skull fracture. Fortunately it wasn’t that bad, but she’d still had to be checked at the hospital right before they left.
Jonas stood at the water’s edge with his pants rolled up. He and Steph began checking out some rock formations several meters high, from which two young boys dove into the ocean. Louise’s stomach knotted, but she lay out on an old, peeling beach chair anyway. She leaned back after Eik stuck a beer in her hand and pulled her close to him.
The waves broke against the jutting cliffs; white foam spouted high into the air as she pressed the slice of lime stuck in the bottle down into the beer.
She breathed in the smell of the ocean. Lime. Corona. And Eik.
Acknowledgments
The Lost Woman is fiction, and any resemblance to actual people or events is coincidental. The characters and plot are products of my imagination, though they were inspired by actual events that awoke my curiosity and prodded me to investigate.
In this connection, I would like to express my special and heartfelt gratitude to Rikke Kimie Andersen and Kim Frank Hoffmann, who opened up to me about their experiences at Dignitas, a suicide clinic in Switzerland, where they recently said their good-byes to Jane Hoffman.
Special thanks go out to Brian and Conny Doktor, for always being willing to share their medical expertise and helping me with diseases and diagnoses that fit the plots of my books.
Thank you, Lisbeth Møller-Madsen, for being such a talented editor; it’s a great pleasure to work with you. Thanks also go out to Rasmus Funder. Your book covers always convey the mood I hope for but never can express in words. Thank you, everyone at People’s Press, my publisher. I’m very happy working and spending time together with you.
Malene Kirkegaard Nielsen of the Plot Workshop has been an invaluable help to me. Thanks so much for sparring with me on the crime plot.
Thank you, Lotte Thorsen, for reading the manuscript and your wise and astute comments.
Thanks so much, Trine Busch—you are fantastic! Without you I would be burdened by so much more. Thank you for your wholehearted support of me and Louise Rick.
Thanks go out to my agent, Victoria Sanders, and to Bernadette and Chris. You give me energy and the urge to do so much more.
My greatest thanks go out to my son, Adam. Thank you for your support, your help, and your confidence that everything will work out. I love you more than anything in the world.
—Sara Blaedel
About the Author
Sara Blaedel’s interest in stories, writing, and especially crime fiction was nurtured from a young age, long before Scandinavian crime fiction took the world by storm. Today, she is Denmark’s “Queen of Crime,” and her series featuring police detective Louise Rick is adored the world over.
The daughter of a renowned Danish journalist and an actress whose career included roles in theater, radio, TV, and movies, Sara gre
w up surrounded by a constant flow of professional writers and performers visiting the Blaedel home. Despite a struggle with dyslexia, books gave Sara a world in which to escape when her introverted nature demanded an exit from the hustle and bustle of life.
Sara tried a number of careers, from a restaurant apprenticeship to graphic design, before she started a publishing company called Sara B, where she published Danish translations of American crime fiction.
Publishing ultimately led Sara to journalism, and she covered a wide range of stories, from criminal trials to the premiere of Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace. It was during this time—and while skiing in Norway—that Sara started brewing the ideas for her first novel. In 2004 Louise and Camilla were introduced in Grønt Støv [Green Dust], and Sara won the Danish Crime Academy’s Fiction debut prize.
Today, Sara lives north of Copenhagen with her family. She has always loved animals; she still enjoys horse riding and shares her home with her cat and golden retriever. When she isn’t busy committing brutal murders on the page, she is an ambassador with Save the Children and serves on the jury of a documentary film competition.
Also by Sara Blaedel
The Forgotten Girls
The Killing Forest
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