Free Bubble: A Thriller by Anders de La Motte

possible.
    Suddenly the footsteps stopped. Rebecca huddled up even more and held her breath.
    Then the person carried on walking, but much slower now. It took her a couple of seconds to realize where the person was going. Down the passageway she was in!
    She pressed against the side of the large box on the pallet. There were still several shelves between her and the far end of the passageway. If the person was heading toward one of them, she was bound to be seen.
    Shit, it had been a really stupid idea to try to hide. She should have just brazened it out, saying hello and pretending everything was fine.
    What the hell was she supposed to say now?
    Hello, yes, I just crawled in to see what things look like from down here.
    The steps were getting closer, just a few meters left now.
    She would have to climb out, that would be slightly more normal than being found crouching at the back of one of the shelves. Her heart was pounding in her chest.
    She took a deep breath and shifted her bodyweight forward. She had to play this calm, as natural as possible.
    The steps suddenly stopped. She heard boxes moving, then someone clearing his throat.
    A man, no doubt about that, and just a meter or so away.
    Rebecca tilted her head, leaned forward, and cautiously peeped around the edge of the box.
    Shit!
    She pulled her head back quick as a flash. A pair of dark trousers belonging to a suit, matching black shoes; that was pretty much all she had seen. Yet she was still quite sure. The man standing in the passageway was Stigsson. He was standing in front of the boxes she had just been looking at.
    She heard him lift one of them, then the thud as he put it on the floor.
    The lid came off with a dry rustle, then muffled noises, as if he was rooting around in the box.
    A sudden pain in her left calf made her flinch involuntarily. Damn, the uncomfortable position had made her leg start to cramp. The pain was getting worse and spreading upward. When it reached her thigh she had to bite her lip to stop herself from groaning. Stigsson was still rummaging about in the box.
    She tried to shift her weight to let some blood through to her tormented muscles, but lost her balance instead and fell against the side of the box.
    The noises from the passageway stopped.
    The pain in her leg was getting worse and she bit her lip so hard that she could taste blood.
    Stigsson cleared his throat again.
    Her back was slowly slipping down the cardboard box and she pressed her working leg against the floor to stay upright. But it was impossible to keep her balance. Her body was slowly sliding toward the edge of the box, closer and closer to the passageway.
    In just a few seconds she would tumble out and land at his feet.
    Suddenly she heard the sound of a box being shoved back onto the shelf. The footsteps like the crack of a whip, and for a moment she thought her heart had stopped.
    Then she realized that the noise was getting quieter, and she spent the last of her strength trying to stay upright. Just as the storeroom door slammed shut she fell flat onto the concrete floor.

6
HEAD GAMES
    HE HAD SPENT three mornings in a row with his ass parked on that fucking bench. Starting half an hour before the time of the first sighting, and continuing for an hour afterward. He had his hood up, his cap pulled down over his face, and, just to be on the safe side, a cheap pair of sunglasses perched on his nose. All to make sure he couldn’t be seen.
    But, just like the previous two days, he’d failed to see anything, and now the whole project was starting to feel more stupid than was strictly reasonable. As his ass slowly went numb, he realized how ridiculously he was behaving. He had considerably more important problems than a possible doppelgänger wandering about Södermalmstorg, and—just like his PlayStation, or jerking off—this whole project was yet another way of avoiding coming to grips with the real issue.
    Erman was dead; he had died in the fire in his cottage