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Niklas looked slightly taken aback, but he said nothing.
“Friends?” Mattie asked.
Niklas shrugged and nodded before asking, “What’s wrong with Frau Frei?”
They were nearing John Lennon Gymnasium. Mattie paused, wondering what to tell him. Then she said: “She’s had a hard and difficult life, one I could not imagine, Niklas. People like that can be delicate. Easy to break.”
“Is that why she’s staying with us?” he pressed.
“Yes,” Mattie said. “And the fact that she was one of Chris’s childhood friends, and so was her sister.”
They reached the corner down the street from the school. Niklas said, “I can walk from here. Okay?”
Mattie could see the school entrance and children streaming into it clearly from where she stood. But she still had a moment’s hesitation before thinking that she had to give him his independence slowly and in small increments.
&n
bsp; “Okay,” she said. “And—”
“Aunt C will be here when practice is over,” he said in a mild grumble. “You sure I can’t walk home alone?”
She shook her head. “Maybe next year.”
“Ahhh,” Niklas groaned. “That’s not until I’m ten.”
“Exactly. Love you, Niklas.”
He pursed his lips and said grudgingly, “I love you too, Mommy.”
Mattie watched her son until he’d disappeared inside his school, and then she felt odd, as if someone were watching her.
But she looked around and saw no one at all.
CHAPTER 95
THE FEELING OF being anonymously scrutinized had fallen away from Mattie by the time she bought the newspapers and returned to the apartment where Aunt Cäcilia and Ilona Frei were finishing up plates of Eggs Burkhart.
“This is very good,” Aunt Cäcilia said. “I’m going to get the recipe.”
Ilona Frei smiled at her, fidgeted, and started scratching at her wrists.
“Here’s yours,” Burkhart said, sliding a plate with an egg dish and toast to her.
“Thanks,” Mattie said. She tossed the papers on the table behind her and took a bite of Burkhart’s egg concoction. It was good. Really good.
“What’s in this?” she asked. “Bacon and…”
“It changes every time,” Burkhart said. “Like stone soup.”
“I need to go to the clinic soon,” Ilona Frei announced in a worried voice.
“As soon as I’m done,” Mattie promised, before looking at Burkhart. “I’ll take her by her apartment to get the things she needs.”
“And me?”
“You’re going to look for proof of Falk’s existence.”
“Where am I supposed to do that?”
