One, Two ... He Is Coming for You (19 page)

“So why did you?”

“Because maybe I saw something in you, maybe I saw that Peter I used to
know, that sweet husband and amazing father, who I used to love.”

I ran up the stairs. When I reached the bedroom I opened the door and was
at once relieved. In her old bedroom Julie was asleep in her childhood bed. My
heart stopped pounding for the first time in many hours. There she was. Safe
and sound asleep.

I went to her and put my ear to her chest. I wanted to hear her little
heart, and feel that she was alive and well. But as I did I knew right away
something was very wrong. It was beating too slowly. I checked her pulse on the
throat. It was weak. Had Peter given her a sleeping pill for adults? I knew he
used to take pills like that when he had problems sleeping. But they were way
too strong. That was too much for such a small body.

I was scared and took her in my arms to carry her out of the room.

Then I heard turmoil in the hall and when I got to the stairs I saw
Peter and Sune fighting on the marble floor.

“Are you kidding me?” I yelled. ”Call for an ambulance immediately!”

Both of them stopped and got up from the floor.

“What’s wrong?” Peter asked.

I walked down the stairs carefully with Julie in my arms. I heard Sune
call for an ambulance. His voice sounded desperate and that made me even more
scared.

“You gave her too much,” I said, almost crying but trying to hold it
back. I had to keep my head clear and not let the emotions run away with me.

I saw Peter’s expression change at once. He was scared now too.

I gently put Julie down on the floor while talking to her and caressing
her head. Trying to wake her up.

“Please don’t die on me,” I cried. “Please God, save her.”

35

It seemed like it took forever to pump my baby’s stomach. Peter sat with
us in the waiting room at the ER at Skejby Hospital. He hid his face in his
hands.

“I just wanted to spend a little time with her,” he constantly mumbled.
His hands kept dancing around his face and hair. He definitely wasn’t well, I
thought. Maybe this could be a wake-up call for him. Maybe now he would realize
he needed help. Whatever happened to him during his time in Iraq, he had to do
something about it now.

Either that or he would lose everything. I had recently read in a
newspaper that several men, all former soldiers, were now living in the forest
in Denmark. They didn’t want to be a part of society any longer. They didn’t
know how. A lot of others became criminals and drug addicts because they missed
the excitement, the thrill of being in a war zone. The adrenaline was like a
drug for them. And they had a hard time functioning without it.

And they were too proud to ask for help. Soldiers fight and kill. They’re
not supposed to be running back home having problems. They are heroes.

Peter was just like that.

“Rebekka Franck?” The voice belonged to a doctor in a white coat. She
was tall and serious looking.

I got up from my chair. “Yes?”

The doctor cleared her throat. “Your daughter is stable now but we have
to keep her for observation.”

The weight of the world fell off my shoulders.

“Oh, my God. Thank you,” I said.

The doctor kept her serious look. It made me a scared. Julie’s condition
was life-threatening, she said.

“We pumped a lot of Demerol out of her stomach. It is a strong sleeping
drug that is known to have serious side effects. I must say it’s very dangerous
to give to a little child as small as Julie.”

“What kind of side effects?”

“They are very addictive and if used for a longer period of time they
can cause psychosis a strong mental disorder.”

I looked at Peter. He’d been taking these pills as long as I could
remember. With both the pills and his mental problems from the war it was a
dangerous cocktail. I began to understand his condition.

“So what about Julie? Has it caused her any damage?”

“I don’t think so.”

Once again I felt relieved, but worried.

“Will she have any withdrawal symptoms from having the drug even when it
was only this one time?”

The doctor nodded and that made my heart jump.

“Probably a little bit for a day or two. But then she will be fine. She
might be a little cranky and have trouble sleeping, but after a couple of days
she will be back to her own self.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

“But I have to say that I have contacted Social Services and told them
about Julie’s condition. They will be in touch with you soon. . It’s very
serious to drug your kids.”

I looked at Peter again. I could tell he was listening to the
conversation. He had started crying. I saw no need for me to tell that it was
him. In some ways I had a responsibility for this too. I had seen him take
these pills for years and not stopping him. How could I have been so blind?

”I know,” I said. “It won’t happen again.”

“I sure hope it won’t,” The doctor disappeared down the hall again.

Julie looked so small and weak when I went into her room a few hours
later. She was pale and exhausted.

“Can we go home now?” she asked with her tiny voice she always had
whenever she was sick.

“Soon sweetheart.” I kissed her forehead and looked into her bright blue
eyes.

“Daddy didn’t mean to drug me. It was an accident, Mom,” she said.

I kissed her again. “Of course it was.”

“So I get to see him again, right?”

“Of course. He’s waiting outside. He wants to say hello to you.”

She smiled and showed where the two front teeth had fallen out.

“Is it okay with you, Mom?”

“Of course it is. But be gentle with him. He’s very sad about what
happened.” I kissed her again and went outside.

“She’s all yours,” I said to Peter.

He got up from the chair. Then he stopped and took a step backwards.
I  saw it in his expression but couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe what
he was about to do.

“Peter?”

“I’m sorry.”

He held his coat between his hands and took another step away from me.

“Peter, damn it. She is waiting for you!” I pleaded and begged him not
to do this, but he had already made up his mind. He was going to abandon us.

“I can’t face her,” he said backing even more up.

I felt desperate. There had to be something I could do to stop him from
breaking Julie’s fragile heart.

”Peter, you can’t just leave her. At least say goodbye before you go.”

“Tell her I’m sorry.”

I felt like I could explode. Who the hell did a thing like that? I
wanted to scream at him, yell that he was being so selfish and his daughter
would cry her heart out after this. I wanted to beat some sense into him, tell
him Julie already had forgiven him, and tell him that as long as he got
professional help everyone would forgive him. If that didn’t work I wanted to
ask him if this was really the way he wanted Julie to remember him, as the dad who
took her without my knowledge and then sedated her so she almost died. That was
all she would remember of him. That and the fact that he later abandoned her
while she was waiting for him in the hospital bed he put her in. I wanted her
to know the dad I used to know. Because he was awesome. And it wasn’t too late
if he really wanted to. He could change.

Those were the things I was thinking about. Those were the things I
wanted to have said. But I never did. Peter was already on his way. He just
shook his head, then turned around and walked away.

Gone. Out of our lives. Out of Julie’s life. As I watched his back
disappear down the hall I wondered if we would ever see him again.

36

A couple of days later I finally got to take my baby with me back home to
my dad’s house in Karrebaeksminde. She had gotten the color back in her cheeks
and smiled widely when she saw my dad standing outside his house. She almost
jumped out of the car while it was still moving and jumped into his arms.

I was glad to see her smiling again. She had been crying a lot when I
told her that her dad was very sorry but he wouldn’t come and see her in the
hospital.

“Will he come another day, then? Will he come and visit me at Grandpa’s
again?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart.”

I never was much of a liar and had a hard time keeping her from the
truth that he had left and I wasn’t sure we would see him again.

I wasn’t sure I even understood why Peter had reacted the way he did, so
how could I explain it to her? Should I say that it was guilt? That he couldn’t
face her because he was so afraid because it was his fault that she almost
died? That he was embarrassed? That he was a soldier and they don’t make mistakes,
they don’t endanger other people’s lives? They protect people. He was supposed
to be able to protect his own family. And he failed.

I couldn’t explain that to a six-year-old. But I sensed she somehow
understood anyway.

“Did you tell him I’m not mad at him for giving me those pills?”

“Yes I did, and he was very happy to hear that. But he just needed to
take a little time to think about what happened. He told me to tell you that he
loves you very much.”

My heart had almost broken. She had forgiven him. But he couldn’t
forgive himself. Of all of us, she was the adult one.

Sune and Tobias came over later that same day. Tobias had made a whole
bunch of drawings for Julie and brought her a box of chocolates. The kids ran
screaming upstairs and I sat down in the kitchen with Sune and opened the
chocolates. Julie wasn’t much of a chocolate eater, but I was.

“So how are you?” Sune asked.

”Heartbroken. But otherwise just hanging in there. And you?”

He smiled. ”Loving every day of my freedom.”

“Any news about your case?”

“Nope. My lawyer called me yesterday and said the police had another
suspect now, but they didn’t have anything concrete on this guy yet.”

“How does she get all that information?”

“She told me she has a contact in the National Police.”

“I see. Did you get a name?”

“Of the suspect or the contact?”

“The suspect, naturally.”

“No, but I have a way of finding it out if you want me to.”

I smiled and took another piece of chocolate. “Of course you do.”

I poured myself a glass of red wine while Sune had a beer. We were
pensive for couple of minutes while enjoying the noise of two happy kids playing
together upstairs.

“So … do you want me to find that name for you right now?” He read my
mind. I was so curious.

“Yes! Let’s do it now,” I said and cleared the table of stuff like my
dad’s word puzzles, old radio, and letters. All except my wine and Sune’s beer.

Meanwhile Sune got his laptop from his car.

The old cat stared at us over her bowl of food while we hacked into the
National Police server one more time. Sune had gotten good at this, I thought.
But that was when it got dangerous. When hackers thought they had done it so
many times it was a piece of cake, then they got sloppy and left a trace. Sune
told me that in the beginning. Now I told him to remember it.

“I know, I know,” he muttered.

I drank a sip of my wine and waited. Even if I tried to focus, I didn’t
get what it was he did on that computer. I could never do it. He was a
magician, I thought.

And a pretty good one. A few minutes later he had the name.

“Ulrik Gyldenlove,” I read out loud.

“I knew it,” Sune said.

“You and me both,” I said and wondered what they could have on him that
made him a suspect.

“What does it say about him? Why is he a suspect?”

Sune clicked the mouse and read,  “He used to be friends with all
four of the deceased. He went to the same boarding school and he was the last
in a gang of rich boys from the school who used to hang out together and was
accused of raping a local girl in 1985.”

“All things we already know.” I leaned back in the chair. Didn’t they
have anything besides what we had already figured out?

“It also says they have all this information from the rape-victim Irene
Hansen.” Sune continued.

“So they talked to her, just like we did, and now they know about the gang
and the game they played.”

“A Gentleman Hunt?”

“Yes. But they must have something else on the guy. Look some more.”

Sune’s eyes returned to the screen. “They brought him in for
questioning.”

“Okay. What did that give them?”

Sune read again. ”It seems as though he was open and honest with them.
Just like he was with us. He told them everything in detail about what the
group did and to whom. It’s not pretty.”

”They must have broken him during the interrogation,” I said as I got up
from the chair. I felt like we were close to the answer right now. Ulrik
Gyldenlove had killed the rest of the gang. Why? Because they each witnessed
something that would harm him if it got out in public? No, then he would have
done it long before. And he wouldn’t tell the police all these details. Then
what? What was it? I could only come up with one motive. It had to be revenge.
I looked at Sune.

”What was it Gyldenlove said to me? Do you remember? I told you about it
in the car on our way back,” I said to him.

He looked up.

“Which part?”

“The part when I asked him if the gang had ever picked on him?”

“Oh yeah. Something like you only pick on someone who won’t fight back.
Is that it?”

“That is exactly it. He is fighting back for something. Something they
did to him back then.”

“Like what?”

I shook my head. I didn’t know. But it must have been something really
bad. Enough for him to plan this type of revenge over the years and then
execute his old friends one by one.