CH 7

After a long day with no traces from the other places visited, a train crossing in the middle of nowhere and a hill overlooking a small village, where nobody never saw Russians, Saga was reading on her tablet. Henrik was able to sleep after endless turns in bed.
Another suite, another hotel, another place in her seemingly endless travel.
Her phone rang so she got up and closed the bathroom door behind her. Mads. She wanted news, it had been a wasted day and Henrik started doubting the idea, while Astrid was getting visibly uncomfortable.
Mads' voice seemed to fill the narrow tiled room.
"We've got a girl that could match your search."
"Where?"
"In Burmol. She's already at the local police station."
"It's close to Virnel, we were there yesterday."
Mads explained briefly the main facts regarding the girl's escape.
"I'm heading there with my son now. The station is in full alert. You should come with the sister."
"I'll wake Henrik and Astrid."
"See you soon."
The line went off and Saga sat on the edge of the tub.
Was it really Anna? What if Henrik got another delusion?
Astrid had a difficult day, her leg hurt and Henrik insisted she took a painkiller, she later complained her stomach wasn't well and refused dinner. The strain for her was harder than for Henrik, more used to cope with pain and grief.
Was it really Anna?
Would Henrik be able to deal with a different kind of abduction?
Mads had talked about kidnapping, sexual abuses, slaver; Anna should be still undeveloped, unless it was paedophilia.
This could be worse than Astrid, indeed worse. Jennifer's memories sprung to her mind from a place too deep to be comfortable.
What if Anna was another Jennifer with a dark past? Frank didn't abused sexually of Astrid. Could Henrik cope with that kind of trauma?
And if he'd ask Saga's help, could she do for Anna what for Jennifer had been impossible?
Henrik was showing a protective side with Astrid that Saga barely imagined, compared to the collected info about his previous family life.
Saga has enjoyed the days together, the way he was again the caring man after they first met, not the messed up detective during the Thormon case.
She needed him and she had to accept to share him.
She went out of the bathroom and the small light over his head was already on.
"Who called?"
"Mads. We need to go. Call Astrid and get dressed, there is a girl to verify."

Burmol police station never had such an important case to deal with in half a century, says Jorgen, the oldest of the duo, he tells me to wait until he make some calls.
Then he reports me and the other man, Nicholas, as I have learned he is named, that the big boss will arrive as fast as he could and that they have called a female colleague because I'm very young.
Nicholas and Jorgen offers me tea and biscuits and make me sit near a heater, so my clothes will get dry faster.
They all fuss around me, until Ulla, the colleague, arrives without uniform; she kneels beside me and offers me a slice of chocolate cake she made for her own daughter.
Three people are looking at me with huge eyes. I'm not used to be the centre of attention.
I tell them my sister is in danger and Jorgen goes on repeating everything will be ok, then he welcomes his wife with a bag of clean and warm clothes for me, I have to roll the sleeves up because their daughter is older than me.
The big boss calls and his orders are clear: the station is in red code and all doors and windows must be locked to protect me until he arrives, nobody is allowed to enter. Jorgen is professional, but I see the looks between Nicholas and Ulla, they are unsure of what to do. Ulla changes into her uniform so she can wear the gun belt.

Two more people in this room makes a crowd. I cannot breathe, it is too much. It was better in the cabin with nobody around, only the forest. A man with a big bear and red hair and a younger version, I imagine father and son.
The father sits near me, says his name is Mads and asks me if I'm really Anna Sabroe. I show him the bracelet, turning the plate so he reads my surname and birth date.
"You've got a sister, haven't you?"
"Yes, Astrid, she is far from here, I saw a map."
"How old is she?"
"Twenty months older than me."
"And your parents?"
"Dead, a long time ago."
"Was your dad a detective?"
"I think so. Why questions about dad? He's dead."
Mads don't answer me and simply nods to Jorgen.
"Astid is coming here." He tells me.
She is too far, it cannot be!
I stand up, this is too much. Astrid is in Malmo, too far from here.
"She's with Frank! Is Frank coming here? I don't want to see him, he took me away from my sister."
I heard my scream, I see concern over their faces.
I grab my jacket from the chair, wanting to leave. Ulla comes near me, smiling to calm me.
"I don't want to be with Frank, he's dangerous!"
Mads lifts his hand and ask me to listen to him.
"Your sister is free now, Frank is in prison, sure for a very long time. Astrid will come here with the police, she 's looking for you."
His phone receives a text
"They' re here."
A few minutes later the entrance door opens again and I see three new people. A girl, a man and a woman. Astrid! I stared, unbelieving, at my sister.
She runs to me, we look into each other eyes, we embrace tight, never be parted again.
Astrid calls my name over and over.
She's crying but she's so happy, she smiles; I feel she leans onto me a lot, her legs do not support her well, she is thin, fragile.
She clings to my arm and points at the man behind her. I haven't registered how he looks like, too concentrated on my sister.
"Look, Anna, he's alive."
He's tall, dark, older, tired, crying without shame, joy in his face.
He's my father.

Only a few weeks ago Henrik felt he had lost everything, Saga closed the case of his girls and the following day she aborted their child.
That baby had been for a while his biggest dream, his strongest hope for a future with Saga as a new family.
Without it, everything fall apart, like the earth was opening so he could follow into a large grave the rest of his family. He wanted to go numb.
He tried with work, tried with pills, tried with sex, the night he was shot in the leg he believed he was dying to see again his whole family in heaven.
The day after he was embracing Astrid again, a few days later Saga kissed him as a proof of their bond and now he was again in a passenger seat, Saga at the wheel, to go and see if his other daughter was alive.
He prayed God with all his heart during the drive, Astrid was enough, had to be enough, but miracles could happen, sometimes.

Mads and his son drove the Sabroes and Saga back to their hotel.
Saga was quiet during the drive in Mads' car. After two short attempts at conversation, Mads concentrated on the road.
The reunion of Henrik with Anna had been more emotional than the one with Astrid. Henrik hugged his daughters together for a long time, eyes wet with tears.
Anna had difficulties to believe what Astrid was explaining her about Frank and a shooting and what happened during the last month.
When Astrid spoke about Sags's role in finding them, Henrik opened up the embrace.
"Saga, come here and meet Anna."
Saga made two steps forward, Astrid took her hand and she did not refused.
They formed a tight circle, Henrik passing an arm lightly behind Saga's waist.
"You're the world for me.", Henrik said, looking at each of them.
He was now travelling with the girls in their car, Mad's son driving; Saga felt the void, a strange loneliness although she could see the tail lights and knew Henrik was there.
He was a dad. It was what he wanted, what he needed, what he longed for. For two years the big question had stood between them only in theoretical terms, especially after Alice body was found and he become officially a widow. An available man.
What if the girls were back?
They'd be no more a couple, they'd become a family, if she wanted, given that he'd ask her so.
Could Saga cope with the idea of sharing him?
Her trial and prison stopped that musing, then she found out the protection failed. Her first thought was incredulity, then came the awareness it would be Henrik's child.
The easiest way to avoid the topic was to think he'd see it as a substitute for his girls, not something existing in its own rights.
And she made the offer, out of nowhere, because she felt it was good. Her doctor tried later to dissect that idea, to make her see the reasons behind that. Saga admitted it was mainly fear to loose him. Better to be considered only the incubator for a baby than to return to the loneliness before Henrik.
He could find and marry another woman easily, he was charming, polite, good in bed, excellent in kitchen; a woman young enough to give him offspring without making a big fuss on it.
Love sent her off rails for real, more than at the train tracks, sent her to Malmo to abort.
After she saw him with his daughters Saga understood he couldn't help wanting their baby.
Fatherhood was glued to him, he could be both, father and lover, at the same time. His heart could contain all of them, her jealousy was futile, he still loved her, wanted her, needed her.
The night porter was at first worried to see the police, then he joined the collective jubil when he heard the big news.
Mads and his son decided to surveil the place until daylight, sleeping in turn on the lounge couch.
"So you're four now." The porter told Henrik.
"I can get another room." Saga impulsively proposed, ready to give up their shared bed for the sake of the girls.
Henrik turned to her, immediate reactions in his face. Surprise, delusion, fear.
"Why?"
"So you can stay with the girls ton ..."
Astrid stopped her.
"I want Anna with me, my bed is big enough for two."
"There's no need to hide, Saga. I've already told Anna about us."
He had decided to be completely honest with Anna, about the presence of a woman in his life; he told Astrid a white lie, delaying the truth.
No more.

Later the same night, much later, quite early in the morning, after talks and more hugs and fatherly good night kisses, Saga and Henrik remained alone in a silent room.
Saga took off trousers and cardigan, hoping to get a few hours of sleep. She just brushed her teeth and washed her face.
Henrik was wide awake, too many emotions running into him.
He was under the sheets, waiting for Saga to finishe in the bathroom..
"The girls are ok, I've checked them again. I bet they won't sleep tonight."
"You too."
"I know, I m too happy. It 's the real end of this nightmare since the grave was opened."
"You deserve to have both."
He closed his eyes, feeling in every cell of his body a rush of love and happiness he never imagined. And because Saga never gave up. His soul mate, his lover. How much he needed her by his side. But she had surprised him when they had arrived at the hotel, suggesting to rent another room.
That request left a bad taste in his mouth, like she was ready to leave him again.
"I did so family stays together." She explained.
"I want to use every chance to be with you. I adore my girls, I want to be a real father for them but I need you. You're so important for me. The room was for you or for me?"
"What do you mean?"
"You said you can't live with children, but this week with Astrid was good, wasn't it?"
"Yes."
"Do you fear Anna now? So much you cannot make us last?"
Saga remained silent, the days spent in three weren't bad as she imagined, although she was so concentrated on the case to neglect the importance of everyday interactions they do shared.
Anna and Astrid were sisters, who thought to have lost each other and were found again. A great luck. Not like herself and Jennifer.
"Seeing them together I remembered my sister."
"I'm sorry, Saga."
"I miss her. Her death was not my fault, but she deserved to live."
"I know, it' s so easy to loose somebody without realising it."
"Lillian told me. Now I know what it means. You have to fight for those you care."
Nenrik nodded.
"Probably I didn't fight enough for my marriage and my family."
Saga had no resolutive answers to offer him; he could be right, although the circumstances of the disappearance were so imprevedible that an expert of statistic would have the result of his life if able to find the percentage.
"Yours was a situation extremely complicated. Lise said that Alice hoped you'd open up and talk."
"I imagined things would settle somehow, I was thinking to propose a counsellor then all happened so fast. Like with us."
"I wanted to take care of you and I nearly lost you."
"We overcome our break up."
"Because I find Astrid, what if I failed?"
He had thought a lot about what could he do in that scenario. Without Saga, daughters and baby.
Self destruction again? Unconscious suicide attempt? Overdose, this time definitive?
A chill run through his body. It would have been so easy to drawn once and forever.
He erased those thoughts simply taking her hand, feeling it real and alive.
"You didn't fail and it's the only important thing. Beside, how hard for me to manage two daughters and a toddler all alone."
"Maybe not so alone. I'm learning to live with children."
"I put too much pressure on you."
He had revisited often those moments before going to bed, realising how he focused all his expectations on their baby, forgetting his girls' fate, like his life depended only on who was growing inside Saga.
Selfish, cruel, not considering Saga's needs.
"Can you forgive me? Our baby was all I had then."
"I know now. If it should happen again, I'll handle it much better."
He caressed her hand, slowly. A long breath. Maybe. Who could know God's project for them?
"We'll have our hands so full with two teens, it will already a big challenge."