Easy as One Two Three (Emma Frost)

  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

  SIGNE 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.

  53

  April 2014

  IT 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.

  It was all I had and I was clinging to it like my life depended on it.

  54

  April 2014

  THE PARKING LOT IN front of Naestved Hospital was extraordinarily empty. Usually I had to fight to get a space to park my car, but it was so early in the morning that we could pick and choose.

  I parked in front of the main entrance, since I didn't know where Ward Q was and we walked inside to ask a receptionist. She gave us directions and we walked around the main building and found the ward behind it in the farthest corner of the hospital area. It was a small yellow brick building with a black roof.

  We walked to the main door and opened it. The doors leading further in were heavily locked. We walked to reception and met a small lady with a very smiling face.

  "Yes? Can I help you?"

  I looked at Morten. We had decided in the car to use—or misuse—the fact that he was a police officer. He wasn't pleased with it, but I had begged him to do it. Now he showed the woman his badge.

  "My name is Officer Bredballe, this here is my partner. We need to speak to whoever is in charge of this ward."

  The woman stopped smiling and nodded. "Well, of course, Officer, let me just make a call." She picked up the phone and turned her back to us while speaking into it. "…the police…want to talk to you. Uh huh. A man and a woman. What do I tell them? Okay."

  She hung up and looked at us. "The doctor will be able to see you right away. It is early and she hasn't started seeing patients yet, so you're in luck."

  "Thank you," Morten said.

  The small woman handed us two badges. "This is a secure institution. Our patients here can be dangerous, so you need to sign in and wear these in a visible spot all the time while you're here. You can't walk around unattended. These patients are mentally unstable and you never know what they might do. I'll have a guard show you to the doctor's office. Olav?"

  A big guy in a green polo shirt with the hospital's name on it stuck his head out of a door behind her. "Yes?"

  "These two need to be shown to the doctor's office."

  "Of course. Follow me." Olav stepped out and walked in front of us. He pulled out a keycard from his pocket and slid it through. The heavy door buzzed and he opened it. We entered a hallway that smelled heavily of detergents and hospital. I loathed that smell. I always had. Even more since I had started visiting Mads Schou after the accident. It just always reminded me of bad things. Except for the two times in my life when the smell meant giving birth to my two children. But, somehow, I never associated the smell with that…always only with bad things like when Victor had his first big seizure and they kept him for three days examining him and making sure he wasn't epileptic. So many times I had brought him in, wondering if I would ever see him again after they took him out of my arms.

  The big door was closed behind us and Olav started walking down the hallway. I looked at the door and felt slightly claustrophobic. I didn't like the thought of being trapped in here and wondered how it made the patients feel. It was, of course, meant to protect the world from these dangerous patients, but I couldn't escape the feeling of being in a prison.

  Olav stopped at a door and knocked.

  "Come in," a voice said behind it.

  Olav opened it and looked at us. "Go ahead," he said with the voice of a gentle giant.

  "Thank you," I said and stepped inside.

  Morten followed me closely. The woman greeting us on the other side smiled widely and shook Morten's hand. "Doctor R.V. Devulapallianbbhasskar," she said.

  "Officer Bredballe," he said.

  She scrutinized him while wearing a crooked smile. "Bredballe you say, huh? That's thirty-four, three plus four…you're a seven. You know if you removed that last ‘e’ in your name, you'd be an eleven. Eleven would suit you much better, Officer. It's a Master number you see. Just a little piece of advice." The doctor winked at him, then turned her head fast to look at me. I had seen her somewhere before, I remembered when looking into her dissecting eyes. Only I had no idea where. She frightened me a little. Especially the way she looked at me.

  "And who might you be?" she asked.

  I shook her hand. It hurt a little.

  "Officer Frost," I lied.

  "Frost, huh? Where have I he
ard that name before? It's a good name for you. Fits you well being a six. You're very caring and nurturing." She pointed at the couch behind me.

  "Please, take a seat."

  55

  April 2014

  "SO, WHAT CAN I do for the two of you today?" The doctor asked. She tilted her head slightly and looked at me with a weird smile. Something about her was just eerie.

  "We're looking for this girl," Morten said and put a picture of Maya on the table in front of her.

  The doctor looked at it, then picked it up. I watched her closely as she studied the picture. My heart skipped a beat. There was something in her expression that convinced me. She knew Maya. She had seen her before.

  The doctor shook her head, then put the picture down. "I've never seen her before. May I ask why you're asking me about it?"

  "Are you sure?" I asked. "Try looking at it again." I pushed the picture closer to her. The doctor looked again and shook her head even more.