The Fire Witness

121

Vicky Bennet is still in the front seat of Joona Linna’s car. She’s biting her dry lips and staring at the reddish-brown building. She’s holding on to the steering wheel so that her handcuffed wrist won’t chafe.

After every time she gets angry or afraid, she has trouble remembering what happened. Her memory bounces around and glances off one detail or another then disappears for good.

Vicky shakes her head and closes her eyes. Then she looks back at the building. She doesn’t know how long ago the detective with the pleasant voice went into the building, his coat fluttering behind him in the wind.

Perhaps Dante is already lost for good. He’s gone down the black hole, which sucks in children of all ages.

She tries to keep calm, but she’s frantic to get out of the car.

She sees a rat scurry along the edge of a damp concrete foundation and run down a drainpipe.

The man who had been driving the forklift has stopped working. He’s shutting the high doors to the hangar and locking them. Then he leaves.

Vicky stares at her hand and the shiny metal keeping her prisoner.

Tobias had promised to take Dante to his mother.

Vicky wails. How could she have believed Tobias again? If Dante disappears, it’s her own fault.

She twists as far as she can to look out the back window. All the doors to the building are closed and there’s no one in sight. The yellow cloth of a ripped awning flaps in the wind.

She pulls against the steering wheel with both hands in an attempt to break it off. It’s no use.

“Damn it!”

She’s breathing hard as she slams her head against the neck support.

She glimpses a poster advertising fresh meat and Swedish goods. Someone has drawn a pair of eyes and a downturned mouth in the dust.

The detective should have been back by now.

She hears a sudden bang as loud as an explosion. The echo reverberates and then dies away.

She tries to see anything at all and cranes her head in all directions. The area is deserted.

What are they doing?

Her heart beats against her chest. Who knows what can happen in this place?

She breathes harder as she pictures a lonely child, crying from fear in a room with strange men. The image just came to her mind-she doesn’t know what it’s about.

Vicky feels panic rising and tries to wrench her wrist out of the handcuff. She can’t. She pulls harder and the pain makes her catch her breath. The metal glides up the back of her hand but sticks. Vicky is breathing through her nose as she leans back, braces herself with one foot on the steering wheel and the other on the handcuff, and then she pushes her legs with all her strength.

Vicky screams as flesh rips away from the back of her hand and her thumb breaks. Her hand has slipped free from the cuff.