The Girl Who Played With the Dragon Tattoo's Nest

Chapter 11

Chëpter Eelevoon (Chapter Eleven)

Jooly Sexxen – Agoost Foor (July 6-August 4)

MARTY STU Bonkvist woke up to find himself lying in his own bed with bandages around his throat. The sun glowed in the window, and Elzbeth Salamander sat in front of him, smoking a cigarette. She waved a tuna fish sandwich with pickles on whole wheat in front of his nose to revive him.

"What happened?" he whispered.

She shoved the sandwich in his mouth. "Eat it. It'll give you strength. Murderin Avenger drove into a truck and died. I think he did it on purpose to avoid going to prison."

"He just killed himself? Talk about an anticlimax." He sat up and looked around while chewing on his sandwich. "How did I get back to the cabin?"

"I brought you here."

"How? You're too small to carry me, and you couldn't exactly drag me on your motorcycle."

Elzbeth frowned. "You know, that's a good question. I guess I must have used my computer. Anyway, that's not important. What's important is that Murderin is dead."

"What about his crimes?"

"He can't directly pay for what he's done. But everyone went to Murderin's house after the car accident and they found his basement dungeon, so they know he was doing something horrible down there."

"Good." Marty Stu sat up. "We need to tell them what we found."

"No." She held up her hand. "I don't talk to the police. We can't tell the police we found anything. We can't tell them about his crimes. Let them figure it out themselves. But we need to identify all the women he killed to bring closure to their families."

"I agree. I'm sure there's enough evidence left behind to do the job."

"There was. I found a book he kept of photographs, passports, and documentation on all the women he killed, and his laptop computer had detailed spreadsheets on all the women."

"Oh, great--"

"I burned the binder, and dumped the laptop in the river."

He sat up straighter. "Wait, what? If you're so determined to bring justice to the women, why destroy the best evidence we had on identifying them?"

Elzbeth shrugged. "I'm really complicated."

"No, you're inconsistent." Marty Stu eased his legs off the bed. "I was almost strangled. I should go to the hospital."

"No. Just eat some sandwiches and drink some coffee. You'll be right as rain."

He ate the sandwich, and it magically healed him. He found the strength to think clearly. "Hmm, now that we've solved the Bible Killer murders which had nothing to do with Harried's disappearance, I know exactly where Harried is."

"Wait, how could you have figured out something now that you couldn't figure out months ago?"

"Now that all the red herrings and unnecessary characters are out of the way, I just focused all my brainpower on Harried. I guess I should've done that to begin with. Now I have a plan to find her, but we'll need a little help from your hacker friends."

She shrugged. "Of course. When all else fails, try hacking."

* * *

Plaque and Elzbeth sat in the back of a van, waiting, and trying not to kill each other. Plaque typed on a computer, muttering hacker things under his breath.

"Okay," he growled, "I've hacked into Anita Avenger's telephone. I also hacked into her bank account."

She glared at him. "I didn't ask you to hack into her bank account."