Easy as One Two Three (Emma Frost) (19 page)

"I even came to you at your house, remember? I told you I wanted you to find Signe for me, that I wanted to help her. But you told me I was insane. I told you it was easy to forget your past. Easy as one, two, three. You remember that? Huh? I held a gun to your face and told you it was so easy and that I wanted to save the both of you, but you overpowered me and grabbed the gun. You told me to stay away from you and never contact you again. But I couldn't, how could I? Oh Mads, I was awake every night. Me and Misty lay awake and talked about how we could get you two to join the program. That was when I came up with the idea of the party. I found Signe on Facebook and realized she was active there. I invited the both of you and many others to a murder party and knew she would want to come. With the way you described her, I knew she couldn't resist. I got the idea from an old Miss Marple mystery. You're probably too young to know it. But it's quite a good book. I knew if I invited Signe she would come. I knew her murderous nature would make her want to come and make a real murder out of it. It was the perfect setting, wasn't it? She could sweep right in and kill someone there just for the fun of it. Just like you told me during our sessions that she liked to do. She liked the excitement. No one would ever suspect her; everyone would look for the one who arranged the party and find nothing, only anonymous. But I had her figured out. It was all just to lure her out of hiding. Oh well. I guess it all went a little haywire, huh? Silly me. I had planned to give you the injection once the lights went out, then as soon as you became lifeless, I would simply carry you out the back door with me. Piece of cake, really. Signe, I had already taken once she approached the theater. It was really simple. She is already in my treatment program. And she is making such great progress, Mads. You should see her. She's already completely forgotten her murderous nature. She is completely new. See, the thing is, Mads. I’ve been to prison. I know what it’s like in there. It was such a terrifying experience and I'm trying to save you all from having to go there. All of you. But you wouldn't listen, Mads, and now it's too late. I can't save all of you. I just have to face that fact."

The numerologist sighed and looked at the clock on the wall. It was six minutes to eight. Six plus eight was fourteen. One plus four was five. The number of the day was also five. Five was believed to be the number of death. She understood what the universe was telling her.

It was time.

The numerologist leaned over and whispered in Mads' ear while putting a finger on the button on the monitor next to him. "I told you it would be easy," she said. "As easy as one, two…"

Beep
.

51

April 2014

I
STORMED INTO THE
hotel room and found Morten on the phone with his daughter. I signaled wildly that I was excited then ran to my laptop and opened it. I found my notepad and looked at what I had written down.

Morten told his daughter he had to go and hung up. "What's going on?" he asked.

"Mads Schou told me something," I said, and opened the Internet on my computer.

Morten came closer. "He was awake? He spoke to you?"

"Well not exactly. More of signaled me…with his pinky."

Morten looked disappointed. "The pinky again? Do you really think that is a signal? It sounds a little out there."

I turned and looked at him. I lifted my notepad and showed him the things I had written. He looked confused.

"What's that?"

"My dad used to sail as a child. He tried to teach me all kinds of things about sailing when I was a child, but I never listened much. I did, however, learn about Morse code."

"Morse code? You think he was using Morse code?" Morten asked.

"Yes. I'm certain he was. I remembered in our research about him that he went to Svendborg to go to school after high school for six months, following a tradition in his family. Right before he got married. His parents probably thought he would forget all about Signe while he was there. But guess what kind of school it was? It was a Maritime College. I figured he would have learned Morse code there, right?"

"I guess he could have," Morten said.

It annoyed me that he wasn't as excited as I was, but I shook the feeling. This was a breakthrough for me and I wanted to focus on that.

"All I have to do is translate this," I mumbled and found a web-page to help me. I started translating one sign after another. It wasn't as easy as I thought, but I quickly got the hang of it. Soon letters appeared, and not long after, a sentence grew out of it. Once I was done, I took my notepad and looked at it.

"Well, I'll be damned," I said.

"What does it say?" Morten asked.

"I'm not quite sure if I got everything right, but as far as I can see, it says
WERDQ has your daughter
."

I gasped and looked up at Morten. Could this really be? Had I gotten a real breakthrough in finding Maya? But what did it mean? Who was WERDQ?

"Ww…," Morten looked confused. "I can't believe it. You got all that out of that?" he said and pointed at the dots and dashes on my pad.

I shrugged. "Well, I guess. I just hope it’s right, but it sounds right, don't you think?"

"Yes. I'm just wondering, who is WERDQ? It doesn't sound like the name of a person, does it?"

"Not really. I'm wondering about it as well," I said with a profound exhale. "What can it be? A nickname maybe?"

"That's a possibility. But a strange one, right?"

"Right. But do you have a better suggestion?"

"A town?" Morten asked.

"How can an entire town have my daughter?"

Morten shook his head. "No you're right. Could it be a street name?"

I looked at it again, while rubbing my temples in frustration. It felt so bad to be this close and still not have the answer. "I don't know. Maybe. I just can't see which one. Maybe if I Google it."

"Try that." Morten grabbed a chair and pulled up next to me. I was so happy to have him here with me and not be alone in all this. So what if I didn't feel like he was my passionate soul mate? He made me feel good.

I typed the name and hit enter. A lot of strange sites came up, all in English. I tried to search Danish sites only. Twenty results. But nothing I could use showed up. I went through all of them, but still nothing. I leaned back in the chair with a frustrated snort. This was extremely maddening…to be this close and still not be able to find her. There had to be a way to figure this out, there simply had to be.

Morten kissed my neck. "Maybe we should get some sleep. If we look at it with fresh eyes tomorrow, then maybe we’ll be able to solve it."

"You go ahead. I don't think I can sleep at all," I said.

52

April 2012

S
IGNE WAS LYING ON
the floor when they came to get her. The door opened to her cell, but she hardly reacted. All she could think about was the blood that kept coming after her and drowning her again and again. Every time she opened her eyes, she saw it. It would run down the walls of her cell or it would come up from the floor, just slowly flooding her cell while she hammered on the door for them to let her out.

Feet came closer and she spotted a set of black shoes next to her. They were stained with blood. A hand grabbed her by the neck and she was lifted up from the cold floor.

"Someone is here to take you home," a voice said. The man who spoke had blood on his face.

Signe didn't care. She tried to keep her eyes closed so she wouldn't see all the blood while they carried her outside and she was put in the back of a black limousine. Signe didn't open her eyes until she heard the door being closed and the car started moving. In front of her in the darkness, she saw her mother-in-law. She was wearing a big hat that covered most of her face until she took it off and Signe could see the black eyes staring at her.

"I have paid a lot of money to get you out, Signe," she said. "You don't have to say anything. Mads told me all I need to know. See, my first instinct told me to leave you in this prison, leave you in your misery, but the thing is, they started asking a lot of questions and threatened to go to the Danish police and talk to them about my son. I can't have that. I can't have my family name smothered in dirt like this. Now, as I understand it, you both had taken a lot of drugs and in that rush killed someone, a mother of two children. Now you have to live with yourself and what you have done and I am not going to help you with that. I will, however, turn you over to your mother and she has promised me that she’ll keep you as far away from my family as possible. I expect to never see you again, do you understand? I won't have you contact my son ever again. Now, you'll remain married, but you’ll never see each other again. If anyone ever asks us, we'll say you ran off, do you understand? I don't care what happens to you as long as you never contact us again. Do you understand?"

Signe swallowed hard then nodded. "I understand."

The car stopped and the woman looked at Signe once again. "And remember one thing, dearie. I will have you put back in that prison if you ever break your promise."

Then she put on her hat and left the car in such a hurry, Signe never even got to say anything. The car quickly started moving again and drove for almost twenty hours. When it finally came to a halt again, the door was opened and Signe walked outside. Waiting for her on the curb, was her mother.

Signe almost burst into tears when she saw her. For the first time in many weeks, she finally managed to keep her thoughts clear of all the blood.

"Mother…I…"

"Save it," her mother said. "Get inside now."

Signe obeyed and walked inside her mother's new home with a small gasp. It was the sight of a painting on the wall that her mother had taken from the old house and hung in the hallway of the new one, that made her remember. Remembering everything that had taken place in her early years made her shiver in anxiety. Listening to her mother's harsh voice again made her remember everything at once. The footsteps at night, the squeaking door when it opened, the shadows on the wall. The men, the many men, that were brought to see her. Her mother standing outside her room taking their money…her father cheering them on, helping them by holding Signe down. It all came back to her now and she fell to the ground inside the hallway and cried.

"I'm so sorry, mother. I'm so sorry."

Her mother walked up behind her holding a belt in her hand. "It's a little too late for that, dearie," she said, then lifted the belt and swung it and whipped Signe till she couldn't scream anymore. Then she carried Signe down the stairs to the basement and locked the door behind her. Signe cried and screamed helplessly into the night, but just like when she was a child, no one heard her. No one cared. She couldn't blame them, she told herself the same thing she had always told herself as a child—She deserved everything she got.

5
3

April 2014

I
T WAS EARLY IN
the morning when I woke Morten up. I was shaking his arm when he growled and looked at me.

"It's not an ‘e’," I said.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"I think I know what it says," I said and showed him the notepad with my scribbles.

"What what said?" he asked and sat up straight.

"The message that Mads gave to me. I got one of the letters wrong. It's not an ‘e’."

Morten looked like he needed a minute to remember what it was all about. He looked cute with his hair all messy like that. I liked it when he wasn't too neat and didn't look too much like a policeman.

"Didn't you sleep at all?" he asked and blinked his eyes.

"Nope. Not one bit. But my head feels clearer than ever. Morten, I know what it said."

"So what is it?"

"It's an ‘a’. The ‘e’ is an ‘a’." I showed him the Morse alphabet on my laptop. "See how close the two letters are? An ‘a’ is one dot and a dash, and an ‘e’ is simply one dot. I think I got it wrong. So that means it says WARDQ instead of WERDQ."

"Yeah, alright. But what does that mean?" Morten asked. "It still doesn't make sense."

"That's what I thought at first, but if you separate the Q from the rest, then it makes complete sense."

"Let me see. WARD Q?"

I nodded eagerly. "Yes. Ward Q."

"As in prison ward Q?" he asked.

"I haven't figured that part out just yet, but I was thinking more in terms of hospital ward Q."

Morten exhaled. It was getting brighter outside and the day was about to begin. "I think I'm a little too tired for this," he groaned.

"You slept all night," I said, as I threw a pair of pants in his face. "Put these on. We're leaving soon."

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"First, we're getting some breakfast. I'm starving. Then we're going to visit Ward Q in Naestved Hospital. I looked it up online. It's a psychiatric ward. I have a feeling they know where Maya is. If they don't, then we visit the prison."

Morten frowned. "How on earth should they know where Maya is? It makes no sense whatsoever. You don't even know that it is in Naestved Hospital or that it is at any hospital. Why don't we take a time-out here Emma and think this through. After all, it was just a man in a coma moving his finger and you interpreted it to be this message about the psychiatric ward having your daughter. It's getting a little far out there."

I stared at him, not believing my own ears.

After all we’ve been through, this is when he decided to doubt me and my intuition?

"Just trust me on this, Morten," I said and threw a T-shirt at him as well.

"I wore this yesterday," he grumbled.

"Then pick another one," I said, annoyed. "Just get dressed. I have a feeling today is a great day."

Morten got dressed, even if it was slightly reluctantly. I didn't care. I had found what could be a sign of Emma and I wasn't going to let go of it…not this one…even if it seemed crazy to think the psychiatric ward would know anything about where she could be.