The Cup Read Online Free PDF

model. I used to kid him about it, it was pretty beat up."
    "If he drove out of town, that narrows it down some," Nick said.
    Forsberg shrugged. "There are lots of places in the country where a car could be hidden. A barn, a shed, lots of places. We don't have the manpower to search everything along that highway."
    "Are there houses along the road?" Selena asked. "Maybe someone saw him drive by."
    "We thought about that. We asked everybody we could find but nobody recalled seeing him."
    "You talked to everyone?"
    "Everyone we could find."
    "What about the ones you couldn't?"
    Forsberg looked annoyed. "Damn it, you're right. I don't think anyone has followed up on that. There were places where no one was home. We made a second pass and still came up with nobody. It got lost in the shuffle. I should have thought of it."
    "Don't feel too bad," Nick said. "It's an easy thing to do, a detail like that."
    "I should've thought of it," Forsberg said again. "It's something we can do today. Better than sitting around here waiting for somebody to yell at me for shooting that bastard."
    Selena looked out the window. The sky was overcast, filling with gray clouds.
    "That looks like something's coming in."
    "It's supposed to snow later," Forsberg said, "but not until tonight. We'll be back before it hits."

CHAPTER 8
     
     
    Forsberg drove the Volvo. He had a list of the places where no one had been at home. At the first one, the door was opened by a middle-aged farmer eating a sandwich. He spoke with a thick accent that Selena couldn't understand. Forsberg spoke with him for a few minutes. The door closed.
    "He didn't see anything."
    "Where is he from?" Selena asked. "I didn't understand what he said except for a few words."
    "Up north, near Kruna. It's near the Norwegian border. The dialect is hard to understand for most Swedes, much less a foreigner."
    The next farm was a few miles farther down the road. The main house was two stories high, a long single building with whitewashed walls and a pitched roof. Behind it was a smaller, stone building that might've once been a guesthouse. There was a barn. The farm had a forlorn, abandoned feeling to it. Everyone had walked away one day and left it behind.
    The day was cold and clear. Fresh snow had fallen the night before. The drive leading in showed no tracks. No vehicles were visible. As they drove up to the house, Selena thought a curtain moved on the second floor.
    Forsberg knocked on the door. There was no response. He knocked again, louder. The sound rolled across flat, empty fields marked by stubble sticking out through the snow. The silence was overwhelming.
    "Nobody home," Forsberg said.
    "I thought I saw a curtain move upstairs," Selena said.
    "There are no tracks, no vehicles. Nobody's going to walk all the way out here."
    "I could've been mistaken."
    She looked again at the window. There was nobody there.
    They drove on to the third farm on the list. They found the farmer in his barn, mending harness. He was a man who might've been eighty years old or more, with a face grizzled by hard work and hard weather. His arms were knotted with muscles. A faded naval tattoo graced one of them.
    He hadn't seen anything either. No, no blue car. Yes, he was usually here. He'd probably been out in the fields when they'd been here before. If a blue car had gone by, he would've noticed it. He knew all the cars that came this way. There wasn't any reason to go this way except to visit neighbors a mile up the road. The weather was going to act up and they might get a lot of snow.
    The man went on for five minutes before Forsberg finally cut him off. He thanked him and they went back to their car.
    "I thought he'd never stop talking," Forsberg said. "Some of these old farmers get lonely."
    "It seems desolate," Selena said. "I can see how living out here could get you down."
    "It looks that way now," Forsberg said, "but in the spring and summer it's beautiful. All this is green. There are flowers