The Sandman Page 37

“Yes,” her dad sighs. “Your mom used to force you to call. She would call, too, all night long, thirty times, maybe more.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Where are you? Just tell me where you are. Let me come and get you.”

  “Thanks, Dad, but…I can’t right now.”

  “Please,” he says. “When—when you’re ready.”

  “I’ll call.”

  “Please, Saga. Please do,” he says.

  She hangs up, then walks to Horns Street and hails a taxi.

  * * *

  —

  Saga is in the lobby at karolinska hospital. Joona is no longer in intensive care and has been moved to a smaller room. As she walks toward the elevators, she thinks of the look on Joona’s face after Disa’s death.

  The only thing he asked of her when she last visited him was to find Jurek Walter’s dead body and let him see it.

  She knows she killed Jurek, but she still has to tell Joona that Carlos sent police divers under the ice for several days without finding the body.

  The door to his room on the eighth floor is half open. Saga stops in the corridor when she hears a woman say she’s going to fetch a thermal blanket. A moment later, a smiling nurse steps out but turns back toward the room again.

  “You have very unusual eyes, Joona,” she says, then walks off.

  Saga closes her burning eyelids for a moment before walking over.

  She knocks on the open door, walks into the room, and stops in a patch of sunlight shining through the dirty window.

  Saga stares at the empty bed. The drip is dangling from its support with blood on the needle. The tube is still swaying in the air. There’s a broken wristwatch on the floor, but the room is empty.

  * * *

  —

  Five days later, the police put out an alert. Joona linna has vanished. After six months, the search is called off. The only person who doesn’t stop looking is Saga Bauer, because she knows he isn’t dead.

  A Note About the Author

  Lars Kepler is the pseudonym of the critically acclaimed husband-and-wife author team Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril and Alexander Ahndoril. Their internationally best-selling Joona Linna series has sold more than ten million copies in forty languages. The Ahndorils were both established writers before they adopted the pen name Lars Kepler, and have each published several acclaimed novels. They live in Stockholm, Sweden, with their three daughters.

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