The Forgotten Girls Read Online Free Page A

would be spared any new assignments while she worked on getting the new unit up and running, so she wasn’t really expecting anything.
    “There’s an invitation to the summer barbecue and the phone directory that I printed for you.”
    “And you didn’t bring it along when you were stopping by anyway?”
    “I can’t run around delivering mail to everyone in the department,” Hanne replied pointedly.
    “Oh, but you usually don’t have a problem with that,” Eik chipped in, winking at her.
    “You’re a different story,” Hanne cooed.
    Louise stared at the door for a few seconds after Hanne closed it behind her. Then she shook her head.
    “She’s not used to competition,” Eik said, leaning back in his chair to fish a wrinkled pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. “Hanne is the queen of the department, the one we all court.” He pulled a flattened smoke from the pack and put it in his mouth while he looked around for a light.
    “There’s no smoking in here,” Louise said as he was about to light the cigarette, having found a lighter in the desk drawer.
    He cocked a brow and eyed her for a moment before tossing the lighter back down.
    Louise put the police report on the desk.
    “As far as the lists of missing persons go,” she continued, “I only went back a month at first. But that just gave us the woman from up in northern Jutland and a young guy from Næstved. So I went back a year, but in that time there were no women within the age group. Finally I went back five years.”
    Louise had the lists from the police in a stack in front of her.
    “No one fits the description. The big scar would, without a doubt, be listed under distinctive features. So she’s not listed as missing.”
    Eik still dangled the cigarette from his lips and seemed restless.
    “Give me the lists and I’ll take a look at them,” he said, already on his way out the door, lighter in hand.
    “Just go smoke your damn cigarette so you can focus and we can move on,” she burst out irritably and sat down to wait.
    Seven minutes later he returned. “Send me that picture of the woman’s face, would you?”
    After examining the photograph he declared, “If she’s Danish, someone must recognize her. That scar is so striking that there’d be no mistaking it if you’d seen her before.”
    Louise nodded.
    “Do you want me to write a description and send the picture to the press? I’ve got a list of the contacts we use for missing person alerts.”
    “Please do,” she exclaimed, happy to see him finally come alive a little. She looked at the clock. “I have an appointment down in Roskilde so I’ll be leaving a bit early today.”
    She was still trying to get used to the fact that her dear friend Camilla Lind had moved into her future in-laws’ large manor house in Boserup just outside Roskilde. After his brother died and their sister left her position as chief executive of the family business, Camilla’s boyfriend, Frederik, had decided to leave the United States and move back to Denmark to take over management of Termo-Lux.
    Camilla ending up as “lady of the manor” was something Louise had not seen coming. She knew that her friend’s small apartment right by the Frederiksberg Swimming Baths was on the market, and Markus had changed schools about a month ago because Frederik Sachs-Smith had gotten him into some private school in Roskilde. It had all happened so quickly, and now they were getting married, too. Louise had stopped by a craft store to pick up more pearls for the invitations. Camilla insisted on making them herself; Louise knew how importantall this was to her old friend and confidante, so she promised to bring them down after work, even though she found the whole thing to be a waste of time.
    She sighed at the thought, already weary of being dragged into the wedding preparations. It was as if her friend had gone into romantic overdrive.
    “D ONE !” E IK N ORDSTRØM broke the silence a little later. “The