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She flinched. “I don’t have it.”
He clawed his fingers up in her hair and brought her forehead to his. “That is my child you’re carrying.”
“You care more about the money,” Ronja snarled, yanking herself from him. “You always have. That’s what this charade is all about, isn’t it? You want the horse because you have some debt you owe the mob?”
Ulla crumpled to the floor. The horse. Beskyddaren. “Peter, I know where it is.”
Her mother shot warning eyes at her and jerked a headshake.
Ulla watched the tears drip onto her lap. “Will you promise to leave us alone if I give it to you?” she said to Peter.
“Ulla,” Ronja spoke quietly, “Ulla, don’t—” but she stopped herself when their eyes met, and through a blurry haze she saw her mother capitulate. Ulla cried harder, licked her lips, and mouthed, Linnea.
Chapter Sixty
Ulla
Once the shock had left Ronja’s eyes at the truth of Beskyddaren, she raised her chin, resuming her icy posture, and instructed Ulla with a determined edge, “All right then, take Peter to Curlers. I’ll meet you there with the Dalahäst.” To Peter, she said, “We’d planned to visit Curlers this evening before you came home, but it’s getting late, and she’ll wonder where we are.” And then to Ulla, “Curlers will want to see Lexie all finished. All the work you did—inside—of it, too.” She patted Peter’s shoulder but still aimed her words at Ulla, as if she were passing a code, “Hopefully she’ll recognize Peter’s car because she likes Mercurys. She knows them inside out.”
Ulla scoured through the possibilities of what her mother was scheming.
“Go,” said Ronja, smiling unscrupulously at Peter. “I’ll get you the horse. And if you try to follow us, you know what I’ll do.”
She’d never seen this look on her mother. Or Peter. Like two people sizing each other up in a battle of wits.
Ronja went for her coat and keys and grabbed the tin of German teacakes as if nothing earth-shattering had just taken place.
Ulla followed Peter with shaky legs and shallow breaths to his car as her mother peeled away in the T-bird. Tina’s tires spun on the salt and gravel, and the red taillights turned the street corner. Ulla puzzled over her mother’s words: All the work you did inside of it, too.
She climbed into Peter’s Mercury. And she knew. The passports and airline tickets were hidden inside the Galaxie. Ronja had never wanted Peter to find them in the house. Ulla gripped her knees, struck by the realization of what her mother was trying to pull off. She wants to escape tonight.
Peter’s face remained impassive, and, even now in the car, he was silent. Ulla stole furtive glances at his square jawline, the thick, blonde tufts that squirted out the sides of his stocking hat. “Peter, why is the horse so important? How do you know about it?”
Peter looked at her with a guarded expression as if thinking through his answer. He finally said, “She stole it from Livrustkammaren and ran away to America. She’s a hypocrite and a thief. That Dalahäst is worth millions. Probably more than that now. She owes me.”
“Livrustkammaren?” Ulla repeated.
“The Swedish Royal Armory.”
Ulla shook her head and tried to slow the onset of questions pummeling through her, but the shock was rapidly closing her throat, preventing her from asking.
They arrived at the junkyard. The headlights beamed through the chain-link fence onto a young German Shepherd charging toward them, baring her teeth—the replacement for Sugar, who had died the year before. Ulla exited the car and crouched down, hushing the dog. She glanced up when the door to Curlers’ mobile home cracked open. She called out in her throaty rasp, “Who’s there!”
“It’s me, Ulla!”
“Ulla?”
“Sorry we’re late!” she hollered back, “I have Peter with me!”
Curlers disappeared inside for a moment and re-emerged with her bare legs stuck into snow boots and a heavy men’s coat slung around her thin, nightgown-clad body. Her hair was set in pink sponge rollers. She shuffled through the dirt and snow, cursing. When she arrived at the gate, she peered suspiciously at the Lynx. “Where’s your Momma?” She clicked the key in the padlock, her words dissipating into white puffs.
Ulla took a hand out of her mitten and stilled Curlers’ fingers, making sure their eyes connected. “She had to run a quick errand but will be here soon. Peter came home early from work.”
Curlers squinted her eyes.
Peter exited the car and walked to the fence. “Merry Christmas! Sorry to barge in on you, but I guess the girls were planning on stopping by? Ronja’s meeting us here.”
Curlers passed her gaze between Ulla and Peter. She cranked the lock open and grabbed the dog’s collar who was gnashing furiously. “Lady’ll snap your leg right off if you don’t hurry back into that car.” Peter did as he was told.
