The Fire Witness

165

Vicky is sitting on the white leather armchair, downloading apps onto her cell phone. Daniel comes into her room and sits down on the bed. He’s quiet for a moment as he looks out at the gray, ancient top of Mount Åreskuta and the dark clouds gathering around it.

“Did it feel wrong yesterday?” Daniel says. “I mean, just sitting and waiting in the car when we got your stuff.”

“No. I knew nobody wanted to see me,” she says, still busy with her phone.

“When I went inside the house, I saw Almira and Lu Chu playing the shut-your-eyes game,” Daniel says. “Miranda taught you that game, didn’t she?”

“Yeah,” Vicky says.

“Do you know where Miranda learned it?” Daniel asks.

Vicky nods as she reaches for the cell-phone charger.

“I use the game in therapy sometimes,” Daniel says. “It’s a game to practice trust.”

“Miranda popped some chocolate in my mouth,” Vicky says. She smiles. “Once, she drew a heart on my stomach.”

Vicky stops talking. She’s remembering her meeting with Tuula. Tuula had told her things when she met her by the lilac bushes.

“Have you told anyone about the game?” Daniel asks.

“No,” she says.

“I was just wondering.”

Vicky looks back down at her phone. She thinks about Tuula, standing in the darkness with a baseball bat in her hand. She was saying that the murderer only kills whores. Only whores need to be afraid. Typical Tuula, trying to scare her with her crazy stories. Vicky had tried to smile, but Tuula said that she’d found a pregnancy test in Miranda’s purse when she took her necklace. Yesterday, the only thing Vicky had thought about that was Miranda must have been sleeping with some guy she’d met through the All Day Living program.

Now she realizes that it has to be Daniel.

Vicky had the feeling that something was wrong when Miranda was trying to explain the game. It struck her that Miranda was only pretending that the game was fun. She was giggling and giving her chocolate, but the real reason she was doing it seemed to be to find out what Vicky knew about the game.

She remembers how unconcerned Miranda tried to look when she asked if Daniel had ever come into her room and played with her.

“Miranda didn’t say anything,” Vicky says. “She didn’t tell me anything about what you guys did in therapy.”

Vicky blushes as she realizes how everything fits together. Daniel had killed Miranda and Elisabet. The killings had nothing to do with Miranda being a whore. Daniel killed Miranda because she was pregnant.

Perhaps Miranda had told Elisabet everything.

Vicky tries to breathe calmly. She doesn’t know what she is supposed to say. She pulls at the frayed edge of her cast.

“It was-”

Daniel leans forward and takes her cell phone out of her hand.

“The therapy… It was about trusting one another,” Vicky says. She feels sure that Daniel has seen through her, that he’s aware she knows he killed Miranda and Elisabet with the hammer and tried to pin the murders on her.

“Yes, it’s an important step in therapy,” Daniel says. He’s watching her closely.

“I know,” she whispers.

“We can play the game now. You and me. Just for fun,” he says.

Vicky nods and realizes with panic that he’s already decided to kill her. He helped her avoid jail so that he could find out what she knew. He wanted to be absolutely sure that he was safe.

“Shut your eyes,” he says with a smile.

“Right now?”

“It’s a fun game.”

“But I-”

“Just do it,” he orders.

She shuts her eyes and puts her hands in front of her face. Her heart is pounding. He’s doing something. It feels as if he’s pulling the sheet off her bed beneath her.

“I have to pee,” she says.

“You’ll have a chance soon,” he says.

She sits with her hands over her face and flinches when she hears the scrape of the chair being moved. But she keeps her hands over her face.