Frode opened his mouth to ask more questions, but Nikolai spoke over him."Are you okay?You feel okay being here alone?"
Aww, how sweet."Had there been any danger, Hjalmar wouldn't have left."He hoped it was true.
"Okay.Call me if you feel unsafe."He got to his feet."I'll check in tomorrow.I assume the composite drawing will be in--"
"There are two."Frode stood too.
"Two?"
"Yeah.The guy I think is the killer, and a man who touched the rug right before he touched it the first time."
"The first time?You can tell how many times someone's touched something?"
"No.I only see them several times if someone touches it in between.If you'd have touched my remote ten times in a row, I'd only see you once, but if you touched it, and then Hjalmar touched it, and then you touched it again, I'd see those times."
Nikolai nodded slowly."And you had Yeager draw the man who touched the rug before the man you believe is the killer."
"Yeah.He might be the one who sold it to the killer.If the man who touched the rug before and after the victim but before the forensic team is the killer and not someone who only visited the crime scene."
Nikolai studied him."Can you come in tomorrow?To talk about the drawings, not to touch anything."
Frode wanted to object.He didn't work cases.He touched things, then pointed at photos or worked with Yeager.It was all.He didn't speculate, didn't investigate, didn't hypothesize.But then again, he normally didn't have his neighbors killed."Sure.What time?"
"I'll call you when Yeager forwards the drawings."
Frode nodded, and Nikolai took a step closer."Thanks for the food."He reached out and caught a strand of hair between his fingers.Frode held his breath as he placed it behind his ear."I like the hair up."
Then he stepped away, and Frode let out the breath he'd been holding.What the fuck?
* * * *
Chapter 13
Nikolai was pleased to find a folder with the composite drawings waiting for him on his desk when he came in the next day.He'd believed Yeager would send them electronically, but maybe they worked differently here than in his former department.He texted Frode, not wanting to wake him if he was asleep.He wouldn't have minded hearing his voice as he spoke the first words of the day, but last night had been...He didn't want to fuck up their tentative truce by annoying him first thing.
Prickly bastard.
When his phone buzzed moments later, he grinned.
"Wow, were you body-snatched?"Isaac was watching him from the doorway.
Nikolai gave him the finger as he read Frode's:Be there in a bit.
"Are you sexting?"
"No.I'm texting with Frode.He's on his way here."
"You're fucking the Maiden?"
Nikolai stared at him."The Maiden?You want to rethink the name?"
"Sun-Maid, the raisins."
Yeah, Nikolai didn't know what was up with the raisins, quick sugar most likely, or something sweet to mask the taste of vomit maybe, or maybe it helped against the trembling.
"You're calling a thirty-seven-year-old man the Maiden."
Isaac shrugged."Everyone calls him the Sun-Maid or some version thereof."
