The Bodyguard Read Online Free PDF Page B

character running away from the cabin. Maija Hakkarainen. She had been startled by the alarm I had hooked up to the motion sensor.
    “Maija!” I called after her as I shut off the alarm. The basket bearing her gifts had toppled over on the cabin steps, egg yolk seeping through the weave. Sweet Maija had decided to bring me some fresh treats. How could I have forgotten that the Hakkarainens set their clock according to their cows? They woke up every morning at five. I shoved the pistol into my pajama pants pocket and started after Maija on bare feet.
    “Hey, Maija! It’s Hilja! Come back!” Maija was in her sixties and had bad feet, so I had no problem catching up to her. I blamed the god-awful sound on the car alarm and hoped that Maija couldn’t see through the lie. I invited her in for coffee. Luckily only one of the eggs she’d brought had broken, and the milk bottle was so tightly sealed it hadn’t leaked at all.
    “Were you away in America again?” Maija asked. My going to New York had been quite an event. I told her that recently I had been focusing on Russia instead, which prompted her to tut-tut about the situation in Georgia and how Hevonpersiinsaari was simply too close to the Russian border. She did have some nicer news, though: my favorite childhood horse Cutey’s foal had had her own baby the week before. I promised to come by as soon as I could. I gave Maija the gifts I had brought. She said Matti would be delighted by the bottle of rum, although she would keep an eye on his drinking.
    Once she left I turned on the TV. It was still weird to see it in the cabin. The news was just starting. A grave-looking anchor turned to the screen and intoned, “A Finnish businesswoman was killed in Moscow. She was found on Tuesday morning near the subway station in Frunzenskaya. Moscow militia is investigating.”

3
    Although the businesswoman’s name wasn’t mentioned, I was sure it was Anita. The pieces came together too conveniently. The coffee I had drunk earlier seemed to be creeping back up; I felt woozy. Killed near the Frunzenskaya subway station. The police didn’t mention how she was murdered or when, but she had been killed before Tuesday morning, when I was still in Moscow. I had absolutely no recollection of even being near that station. Then again, I couldn’t remember anything about what happened between Monday evening and Tuesday afternoon.
    I still had Anita’s scarf in my backpack. How the hell had I gotten it? I took it out and thought about burning it in the sauna stove. If I threw the ashes into the lake, nobody would ever know that I’d had it.
    I turned my phone on and inserted the SIM card for the number I had once given to Anita. She hadn’t tried calling me. I did find ten or so other calls. The most recent call, voice mail, and text message were all from my roommate, Riikka, and they all contained the same basic message.
    “Hey, Hilja, the police were looking for you, but they didn’t say why. I told them you might be out of the country on business, but I didn’t know where. Chief Constable Teppo Laitio from the National Bureau of Investigation asked that you to call him at 071-8787-007 or e-mail him at teppo-dot-laitio at poliisi-dot-fi.”
    The National Bureau of Investigation had representatives in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, but Laitio wasn’t one of them. They wouldn’t find me that easily, but I understood why I was one of their main suspects. How could I even answer their questions when I had no idea where I was at the time of the murder? Chief Constable Laitio had called me twice. He’d left a voice mail and a text message. He probably wouldn’t tell me a thing about the case; instead, he’d try to squeeze information out of me. There was also a voice mail from an unknown number; the call was made before Laitio had tried to reach me. It was in English.
    “You don’t have any idea who is behind your boss’s murder. No ide a . . . if you don’t want to end up