Jacob looked at the time.
Three minutes before ten.
He glanced up into the rearview mirror.
Just a line of cars: blue, red, white, black, al ful of crazy-ass Arctic shoppers.
He pressed the palms of his hands to his forehead.
The doors to the store opened.
People flooded into the hangarlike building.
Jacob felt like he was going to burst out of his skin.
"What the hel is this?" he yel ed suddenly. "Where have they gone?"
Dessie didn't answer.
"They must have taken another road," Jacob said. "They're not coming through Haparanda. That criminal hooligan you cal your cousin was wrong.
Maybe he's in league with them now. Maybe he's fooled us into sitting here so they can get away. They could have bribed him."
"Jacob, calm down! You don't know what you're saying. Stop it."
Jacob turned the key, and the engine coughed into life.
"What are you doing?" Dessie asked.
"I can't wait here any longer," Jacob said. "I'm going completely fucking mad just sit-"
"Hang on," Dessie interrupted. "Just hang on. A red car – there's a red car. I think it's a Volvo."
Jacob looked in the rearview mirror again.
It was a Volvo wagon, an old model, definitely red.
There were two people inside.
A young blond man and a dark-haired woman.
The Rudolphs were here.
Chapter 135
The Volvo crept slowly toward the big rotary with al the bushes and trees in the middle.
Jacob pul ed out into the traffic right behind them. His heart was thumping so hard that he could hardly hear anything going on around him.
The pair in the Volvo stopped in the rotary. The line to the border crossing snaked forward ahead of them.
"They've realized they can't get through this way," Dessie said. "Not in that car. So what do they do about it?"
Jacob pul ed handcuffs from the inside pocket of his jacket and stuffed them under his belt behind his back. Then he leaned forward and took the Glock out of its holster strapped to his ankle. Suddenly he was glad he hadn't turned it over to the authorities as requested but had checked it in an airport locker while he traveled to and from Los Angeles. It looked like he'd need it now.
He heard Dessie's breath catch.
"Jacob, what are you doing? You can't use that gun here. You'l go to jail."
Just then the red Volvo swerved out of the traffic line. The driver wrenched the car to the left and squeezed past a trailer and a smal van with Cyril ic lettering scrawled along the side.
Jacob found first gear and pushed his foot al the way to the floor. A moment later he was forced to brake sharply to avoid a truck that was halfway into the rotary.
"Hel! We're losing them!"
"They're going straight on," Dessie cried, leaning her head out of the window. "Now they're turning right! They're in the IKEA parking lot!"
Jacob drove too fast past the truck. He scraped the side of a Peugeot and 180 forced his way into the lot as the driver of the Peugeot sat angrily on his horn behind them.
The parking lot for IKEA was complete chaos. Cars and buses and trailers were al battling with huge shopping trol eys and children's strol ers and hundreds of people.
Jacob stopped the car and looked around wildly.
"Where the hel have they gone? We've lost them! They got away!"
"I think they were heading for where the buses park," Dessie said, pointing. "There. There! That's Sylvia Rudolph, isn't it?"
The dark-haired woman opened the door and started to run. She was athletic, fast on her feet.
"No!" Jacob cried, trying to drive after her. An entire family – grandma, mother, four kids, and a dog – blocked his way. Then the driver of the Peugeot suddenly appeared, banging furiously on the windshield. Jacob showed him the pistol, and the man backed away, hands up.
"To hel with this!" Jacob said, throwing the door open and racing toward the buses.
Chapter 136
It was the Rudolphs, he was sure of that much. He recognized Malcolm's relaxed movements and the woman's thick head of dark hair.
The kil ers were moving quickly through the parking lot, getting away.
People who saw him running with his pistol drawn screamed and threw themselves out of his way. Someone yel ed, "Madman!" at him. That was correct.
Dessie was coming up behind him. She had her cel phone in one hand.
She was keying in a number as she ran.
The Rudolphs disappeared between two big buildings.
Jacob raised the pistol as he approached the corner. He didn't know what weapons the Rudolphs might have.
No one was there.
He rushed through the passageway and emerged from the far end.
Four buses, with toilets and curtains, were parked there. Even if one of the 181 vehicles was unlocked, they couldn't hide for long, not here.
With his Glock drawn he ran over to the first bus.
No one.
The second one.
No one.
The third…
"Drop the gun!"
The voice came from behind him, a woman's voice, struggling to stay calm and col ected.
He spun around, aiming the Glock, ready to kil.
Chapter 137
Sylvia Rudolph was holding Dessie in front of her as a shield. She had a knife to her throat. It was a carving knife, maybe a butcher's knife.
Jacob's head was spinning. For a moment he imagined it was Kimmy standing there with the knife to her throat. He couldn't let her die.
"Drop the gun," Sylvia Rudolph said. "Put it on the ground – or she dies.
I have no problem with that."
Dessie's face was deathly pale. Her cel phone was stil in her hand.
Malcolm Rudolph was standing some ten feet away, looking bewildered and lost.
Jacob stood stil, his weapon raised.
Al at once the situation was clear to him. Another part of the mystery had just been solved.
It wasn't the brother who was the kil er.
It was the sister, Sylvia. La senorita. The girl who found her parents dead in their beds, or who had kil ed them with her own hands. Why, though? For the sake of art?
"Do as I say," Sylvia said, "or I'l cut her throat! She'l die right here."
Her voice was becoming less control ed, but Jacob believed every word she said.
He tightened his hold on the grip of the pistol. Instinctively he adopted the posture he had practiced so many times back home in New York.
He closed an eye, focusing his aim, slowing his breathing as best he could.
He studied Sylvia's ice-cold expression next to Dessie's terrified face.
There she was, the woman who had kil ed his Kimmy, holding a knife to Dessie's throat. Another knife but the same kil er.
Suddenly he felt his pulse relax.
"Put the gun down!" Sylvia roared. "I'l cut her throat! Put it down! You 182 want her to die?"
So much for al her talk of art and conceptual creation.
When it came down to it, she just wanted to save herself. And maybe her crazy brother, her lover.
He squeezed the trigger: a cautious click, then the explosion and recoil.
Dessie dropped her cel and screamed. She screamed and screamed. Oh god, no, he'd missed!
Dessie must have moved at the last second.
What had he done?
Chapter 138
Dessie was covered in blood, and she was stil screaming. But then Jacob realized it wasn't her blood after al.
It was Sylvia's. It was pieces of Sylvia's brain that were splattered across Dessie's face and Windbreaker. It was Sylvia who sank to the ground, who dropped the knife, as Malcolm came running over to her.
Dessie staggered away and leaned against one of the buses. Jacob rushed at Malcolm with his pistol raised.
"Get on your knees, hands above your head!" he shouted at the top of his voice.
He was screaming to make himself heard above the ringing in his own ears, but Malcolm seemed not to hear him. The man sank down beside his sister's body and took her in his arms. With a wild howl, he rocked Sylvia back and forth, back and forth, completely deaf to the uproar around them.