Free As Red as Blood (The Snow White Trilogy) by Salla Simukka Page A

the phone.
    “Okay. Where are you now?”
    “I locked myself in the bathroom.”
    Lumikki had surmised as much from the sounds. Apparently, Elisa did not know how to move silently. She had never needed to learn. If a professional killer had forced his way into the house, the noise she was making would lead him to her instantly. And besides, a locked bathroom was probably the worst possible hiding place. She would be like a microwavable TV dinner in there. All you had to do was use enough force to open the packaging and then devour the contents. You didn’t even really have to heat it up.
    “Did whoever it is break down the door?” Lumikki had asked.
    “No, they used a key.”
    Lumikki had felt like hanging up right then and there instead of waiting for Elisa’s next sentence, which was beyond predictable even before she opened her mouth.
    “Huh. Maybe it’s my dad. Yeah, he’s calling me from downstairs,” Elisa had whispered into the phone.
    No shit, Sherlock.
    “Good. I’m hanging up now,” Lumikki had said firmly.
    “Don’t go! Or, I mean, not before you promise to come back tomorrow. I can’t be here alone, and I can’t go out.”
    Elisa’s voice had a surprising strength.
    Lumikki had wanted to refuse. She had wanted to be done with the whole mess while it was still possible to get out. Her pursuers hadn’t gotten a good look at her. She could still wash her hands of this. They weren’t really even dirty yet. She wasn’t the one who dove into a bag of bloody money with both hands.
    Lumikki felt like banging her head against the wall after ending the call. She had gone and promised Elisa she’d come. Again.
    Boris Sokolov drummed his fingers against the side of his beer glass. The beer was flat and foul tasting. An excellent fit for his mood. The first beer-hungry bar maggots had crawled out of their holes and were already sitting in the dimly lit room at their regular tables. Boris had reserved a booth for himself and the Estonians. By all appearances, no one had botheredto wipe down the table at the end of last night’s shift. And why should they bother? That fit his mood perfectly too.
    They had botched it. Pulled a Russkie, the Finns sitting at their usual tables would have said, and this time, Boris wouldn’t have been able to argue. They had to abandon the kidnapping plan. They’d had one chance, one try, and now they’d wasted it. Boris had received a short text message simply saying that he needed to handle the job. He was personally responsible.
    He had to come up with some other way to scare this guy back into line.
    “What if he doesn’t realize Natalia is dead?” Viivo Tamm suggested, following the question with a long pull from his glass.
    “He has to know. Who else’s blood would he think was on the money?” Boris asked.
    Viivo shrugged. Linnart Kask said nothing. Sometimes Boris suspected Linnart was even simpler than he let on.
    Boris considered Viivo’s words. Could there be something to that? What if the cop really didn’t understand that his beloved Natalia was a corpse? Natalia might not have told him about her plan to escape with the money. Right now, the cop might just be irritated that he had to deal with a bunch of stained cash. Maybe that was why he was claiming he hadn’t received it at all.
    Boris had thought the cop and Natalia genuinely cared about each other. He had been certain that they’d planned her getaway together. Perhaps he had underestimated Natalia’s ability to make her own decisions. Natalia might have finallyrealized that it didn’t pay to trust anyone too much and that no one was going to save her. On some level, Boris understood Natalia’s decision.
    He had never said it to Natalia, but at times, he had thought of her as the daughter he never had. A small part of Boris would have liked to let Natalia escape. But a larger part of him had understood the world of trouble he would have brought on himself if he had. That was why he’d had to