Page 31 of Hunt

“Isn’t that enough evidence that this whole thing was a police setup to pin it on Mikael?” I pushed for him to agree with me so I didn’t feel like I was going insane.

“No, it just tells me that whoever killed your father was prepared to do whatever it took to protect themselves,” he replied, shrugging.

It wasn’t until rain poured into my eyes from my hair that I realized I was getting wet. This subject did weird things to my senses, made me distant and unaware of my surroundings.

“I’m just going to talk to the homeowner,” he stated, walking back inside as I stood next to the tree stump, measuring the distance in my mind from my window to the scene, with the tree’s limbs in the way. The more I thought about it, the more I questioned the reliability of my memories.

There were inconsistencies. Mom said she went out for an hour, which I didn’t remember, probably because I was in my room with my earphones on, gaming, I think. So, how did I hear the gunshot, then? Maybe I was wrong.

I combed my fingers through my wet black hair, eager to leave this shitty town and head back to Gothenburg. If I were a good son, I’d visit my mom while I'm here. But I wasn’t a good son, so my plan was to head back to the airport to catch my flight.

Danny emerged from the front door, thanking the homeowner, then pointed to his rental vehicle as if he had something on the tip of his tongue that he wanted to tell me.

“She’s putting the house on the market,” he told me once inside the car. “She hadn’t lived there in months, because she thinks the place has bad juju vibes.”

I chuckled under my breath as he started the motor. “We were happy in this house, mostly, until the end, so there shouldn’t be bad juju vibes like a house where a serial killer lived and buried the bodies under it.”

“I never thought of checking the basement for bodies,” he joked, keeping his tone serious as he went along with the story.

“You’d find nothing,” I mumbled as we approached the end of the street, and he turned left.

“Anyway, she said that the police visited after she bought the house on two occasions,” he started.

“Why?” This wasn't very clear to me. Her only association with my father’s murder was that she bought the house at a bargain. “She had nothing to do with my father’s shooting, did she? She wasn’t there, was she?”

“No. As far as I could tell, she had no involvement in it. He was driving in the opposite direction from the airport. “Where are you going?”

My flight wasn’t for another three hours, so I had plenty of time, but he should have told me if he wanted to take me somewhere else. This sort of shit creeps me out.

Ignoring my second question, I showed her the picture of the woman I believed was the Larsson Police Officer.

“Yeah, the blond cop?” I asked as he drove deeper into the city's heart, and my heart sank further. “What did she say?”

“Correct. Two different groups of officers – plainclothed and uniformed - asked the same questions. Which was whether she had received any threats or seen anyone sniffing around?”

“And had she?”

He shook his head. “No. The only people harassing her were cops.”

“Huh,” I grunted. “Typical. And where the fuck are you taking me?”

“Oh,” he replied, “The club.”

I groaned. “My mother’s club? Fuck, dude why didn’t you tell me.”

“Mr. Kaiser said you’d jump out of a moving vehicle if I told you I was taking you to the club. I guess he was right.”

“Is seeing her part of this investigation?” I snarled at him.

“Yes,” he affirmed. “And don’t worry, we’ll only be an hour or so.”

“An hour?” I balked. “That’s about an hour too long to spend with my mother.”

13

He’s out of town. Gunner Kaiser is out of town, and Ronan Byrne is at work since it was after 4 PM. That allowed me to sneak into the basement under the Science Library to plant a camera. I found it hard to believe that their campus headquarters would be left unlocked, but I’d try anyway to please Bitchtective.

Yet, my backside would not budge from where I was sitting on the edge of my bed. Since I discovered the camera, I was careful not to look at it directly, but I couldn’t pretend I didn’t know it was there. This was a blatant disregard for my boundaries, and it filled me with anger.

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