The Nightmare: A Novel by Lars Kepler

Author:Lars Kepler [Kepler, Lars]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Adult
ISBN: 0374115338
Amazon: B007RN0IU0
Publisher: Sarah Crichton Books
Published: 2012-07-03T05:00:00+00:00

56

the helicopter

Penelope stands at the window. The skies flash bright from lightning and thunder rolls over the sea. The rain pours down. Björn has disappeared into the wheelhouse of the police launch. She watches Ossian limp down toward the water, a yellow umbrella over his head. The metal door of the wheelhouse opens and a uniformed police officer steps out onto the foredeck, hops onto the dock, and ties up the boat.

Not until the policeman begins to walk up the gravel path does Penelope see who it is.

Her pursuer does not bother to answer Ossian’s greeting. His left hand snakes out to clutch Ossian under the chin.

Penelope’s phone drops from her hand unnoticed.

With professional ease, the man in uniform turns Ossian’s face to one side, slides a dagger into his own right hand, turns Ossian’s face farther awry, and then, in seconds, sends the dagger into Ossian’s neck right above the atlas vertebra and directly into the brain stem. The yellow umbrella falls to the ground and rolls down the slope. Ossian is dead before his body touches the earth.

The man strides closer. A pale flicker of lightning illuminates his face and Penelope meets his eyes. Before the darkness falls again, she can see the worried expression on his face, his exhausted, sad eyes, and his mouth, disfigured by a deep scar. The thunder rolls. The man never pauses. Penelope stands by the window, absolutely paralyzed. Her breaths come quick, but she can’t flee.

The rain batters the window frames and the glass panes. The world outside seems far away. Suddenly the man is silhouetted by a bright yellow light that seems to brighten the dock, the water, even the sky. As if a massive oak tree had sprouted from the boat behind him, a column of fire shoots up with a bellow. Metal scraps fly into the air. The cloud of fire grows and pulsates with an eerie, internal flickering. Its heat sets nearby brush, even the dock, afire. The explosion pounds against the house.

With shattered glass falling around her, Penelope is finally able to act. She whirls around, running so fast she just races up and over the sofa and down the hallway with all its signed portraits. Out the back door and over the ragged lawn. She slips but keeps going, through the pounding rain along the trampled path, around the grove of birches, and out onto a meadow. A family with children—all dressed in bright yellow rain gear, life vests, and carrying fishing poles—is braving the downpour. Penelope runs straight between them and down to the sandy beach. She’s out of breath and feels she might faint. She has to stop, and yet she can’t. Instead, she drops down behind a small wheelbarrow and vomits into the nettles. She whispers the Lord’s Prayer. Thunder rumbles from far away. Shakily she rises to a crouch, wiping the rain from her face with her sleeve, to peer back across the meadow. The man is rounding the birch grove. He pauses next to the family group and they immediately point in her direction.

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