She smiled, feeling prepared even for this eventuality. With a scarf around her head and neck and sunglasses to protect her eyes, the shards of glass posed no problem.
Yes, she believed that she had considered every eventuality. Even though she had read about cars involved in collisions with wild animals where the beast had come straight through the windshield, maiming the driver, this situation was different. Deer had a tendency to panic and jump up, but she didn’t anticipate this sort of athletic reaction from Denise or Jazmine. And especially not if she hit them from behind.
She could just picture it.
—
That evening after work, she backed into a parking space opposite the building so she had a clear view up to the apartment and the walkway. Whether the bitches were coming or going made no difference. She would hit them all the same.
She laughed at her wickedness and thought that there was nothing more meaningful at this moment than sitting in this godforsaken place in a stolen car with the radio on the lowest volume while keeping her eyes on the first floor. Because up there were two of the girls Anneli was looking most forward to killing.
There had been activity up on the walkway a few times. And if one of the girls made an appearance, Anneli’s plan was to start the engine and let it run idle. It was such an aesthetic and powerful humming. A sound that promised action. Only the sound of fighter helicopters above a dense jungle could match it. This whirring sound of death had been the pulse of the Vietnam War. Poetic, rhythmic, and also comforting, it could be claimed for those who had been on the right side of the front. She closed her eyes for a moment, calling to mind the well-known scenes, and therefore failed to notice the UPS delivery vehicle until it stopped right in front of her, blocking her way out and, no less important, her view to the girls’ apartment and the sidewalk in front of the main door.
When the deliveryman had walked past their apartment up on the walkway, a figure appeared from the door behind him. Anneli didn’t manage to see whether it was Denise or Jazmine, but it had to be one of them considering the conspicuous outfit.
Damn that delivery van blocking her exit.
Anneli leaned forward over the wheel in frustration, as if that would result in the deliveryman returning quicker.
When he finally showed up, he got in the van and sorted through some paperwork for a few minutes before finally putting the van in gear and driving off.
Anneli gave up on the idea of driving in the direction that the girl from the apartment had gone. Egedal shopping center was only a few minutes away, so she had probably already disappeared into the labyrinth of shops.
Instead, she decided to pull out to the edge of the road so she wouldn’t end up in the same situation as before.
Then she scratched the spot where the radiation therapy had damaged her skin and waited.
—
She first saw the approaching figure with shopping bags at the same time as an elderly woman with a dog crossed the parking lot. Right there, as if on command, the dog stopped on the sidewalk next to Anneli to do its business.
Damn mongrel, she thought. The woman was fumbling for a dog-waste bag just as the young woman was approaching.
“Get the hell out of here and just leave the shit where it is,” she said, sitting back in her seat. The bags the girl was carrying were dangling around her legs as if they weren’t full. She looked grotesque in her ridiculously high heels and a very fake-looking leopard-print jacket.
Tarted up for a night on the town even when she’s doing the shopping, she thought as the girl turned her face in Anneli’s direction.
Anneli gasped. It was Michelle.
She froze. Good God! So Michelle lives there too, she thought as the implications of that possibility dawned on her. If the three girls were living together in the apartment, it could easily be a lethal cocktail.
What had Michelle told the others? Did she still suspect her? And if so, what were the consequences?
Just one word from them to the authorities and she would be under suspicion.
Of course she could deny the accusation, referring to the girls’ dishonesty and aversion to her. But what good would that do when it came to it? Her meddlesome boss could confirm that her behavior had changed lately. They could easily find out that over the years she had been in contact with the girls she had hit. Her so-called friends from work could confirm that she had missed the yoga class last week and would eagerly say how much she hated that type of client. The police experts would probably be able to check her computer and trace her search history no matter how much she tried to delete it. Perhaps they could even find traces of her DNA despite her best efforts to clean the Peugeot.
Those girls could really cause her a lot of problems.
Anneli turned off the engine and considered the situation.
Apparently Michelle had now left her boyfriend, so maybe there were some problems on the home front that could point the finger of suspicion in his direction if anything were to happen to Michelle or one of the other girls.
Could that be the reason why Michelle had left Patrick? Did she suspect her imbecile boyfriend of trying to kill her? Was Anneli even a suspect?
For a moment she imagined all three girls appearing on the street together so she could solve this situation once and for all. A quick acceleration and one determined aim were all that would be needed. Of course the vehicle she had stolen was too light to kill all three of them, so she would have to run them over several times before she could be sure they were dead.
Anneli smiled and began laughing at the thought. It was so amusing to imagine those three stupid girls flattened out on the road. Her laughter rose and rose until her body began to shake.
She caught herself in the rearview mirror: open mouth, bared teeth, and a hysterical look in her eyes. That put a damper on her amusement.
She looked down at herself, noticing that her body seemed to have taken on a life of its own. Her hands were drumming on her thighs, her knees were knocking together like pistons, and her feet were tapping on the mat like drumsticks. It looked completely insane, but it wasn’t unpleasant. Rather, it felt pleasurable, as if she had taken some sort of aphrodisiac.
Have I developed brain metastases? Am I going crazy? she thought and started to laugh again. It was all so comical and fantastic. An old caseworker like her whom no one reckoned with. To think of the power she suddenly wielded. What undeniable and potent power.
Anneli looked up at the roof of the car. The euphoric state she was in demanded action. If it couldn’t be those three damn girls up there in the apartment, she could easily find someone else.
Anneli felt that her intuition was right. In fact, she could not remember ever feeling better.
She looked at her watch. It was very late, but if she drove off now she could make Bertha Lind her next victim.