MemoRandom: A Thriller Read Online Free

looked down. Stenberg breathed out. The match was over, he had won. All of a sudden he felt almost sorry for her.
    “Smart decision, Sophie,” he said. “It would have been a shame if you’d had to spend Christmas in the clinic again.”
    He regretted saying it the moment he heard the words leave his mouth. Bloody hell! The glass missed his head by a whisker, hitting the wall behind him and sending a shower of crystal shards across the oak floor.
    “You fucking bastard!” She took a couple of quick strides toward him, her fingernails reaching toward his face. Her knee missed his crotch by a matter of a fraction of an inch.
    “For God’s sake, Sophie.” Stenberg twisted aside and grabbed hold of her wrists.
    She went on trying to kick him, wriggling frantically in an effort to break free. He dumped her on the sofa, but Sophie bounced up instantly and attacked him again. She was growling like a dog, and her eyes were black. Her lips were pulled back, as if she were planning to bite him.
    The blow was a purely instinctive reaction. Right-handed, with an open palm, but still hard enough to make her head snap back and her body crumple onto the sofa. Shit, he’d never hit a woman before. Not like that, anyway.
    Sophie lay motionless on the sofa. Her arms and legs were hanging limp. Something wet was running down one of Stenberg’s earlobes and he felt his ear without really thinking about it. Not blood, as he suspected, but a golden-brown drop of whiskey that must have flown out of the glass.
    “Sophie,” he said in a tremulous voice. She still wasn’t moving.
    In the oppressive silence he could hear his own pulse thundering on his eardrums. He glanced quickly toward the elevator, then at the inert body. Sophie’s eyelids fluttered a couple of times and Stenberg breathed out.
    He turned around and was about to go into the kitchen to get some water. But the floor was covered with broken glass. So he went to the bathroom instead and moistened a towel. On the way back he picked up her white terry-cloth robe from the floor.
    She was sitting up when he got back, and he passed her both the towel and the dressing gown.
    “Sophie, I’m—”
    “Get out!” She snatched the towel and pressed it to her cheek. He stood motionless for a few seconds, unsure of what to do. “Didn’t you hear me, get the fuck out of here!” Sophie hissed, covering herself with the dressing gown.
    He backed away a couple of steps and tried to think of something to say.
    “Sophie, I mean—”
    Sudden pain interrupted him. A sliver of glass had cut into his left heel and he swore as he hopped on the other leg and tried to pull it out.
    Her laughter was shrill and far too loud.
    “God, you’re so fucking pathetic, Jesper, can’t you see it? Pathetic . . .”
    He straightened up, tossing the sliver of glass toward the sink. He gave her one last glance before limping toward the elevator, without saying another word.
    “I’ll do it!” she screamed after him. “I’ll kill myself!”
    He pressed the elevator button, resisting the impulse to turn around.
    “I’ll go to the media, do you hear me, little Jeppe!” She carried on yelling as the elevator doors opened. “I’ll tell themeverything! Everything, yeah? You’re finished, your whole fucking family’s finished! I’m going to—”
    Her voice rose to a falsetto as the doors cut her off midsentence. He heard running footsteps, then the sound of her fists on the elevator doors. He pressed the button for the garage several times, but it wouldn’t light up. The hammering went on, growing louder and echoing off the metal walls of the elevator.
    Boom, boom, boom, boom . . .
    He kept jabbing at the button, until eventually the little light behind it came on. Then he covered his ears with his hands and the elevator slowly nudged its way down toward the basement.
    •  •  •
    Atif took a deep breath and then looked up. The night sky was so different here compared to Sweden.