Seven, eight ... Gonna stay up late (Rebekka Franck #4) by Willow Rose Page A

it."
    "It's all over the news agencies," he
said and handed me his phone. I scrolled through the news bulletins and found
several related stories under Breaking .
Apparently they had bought the story after all. They were all quoting Zeeland Times for the story since they
didn't want to get their hands dirty in case it turned out it wasn't true after
all, but the story was too good to ignore. This was good, I thought. The best
development I could think of. Now the police had to take it seriously and the
parents would be informed. There really wasn't much more I could have hoped
for. Pictures of the girls would soon be all over the medias and the public
would be talking about it, looking everywhere for the girls.
    "So we're going back now?"
    I bit my lip. "I guess we have to. Julie is
coming home tomorrow from Aarhus. She has camp next week, Tobias too, right?
That riding camp?"
    Sune nodded. I only paid the nanny for four
days. I can't afford anymore."
    "Okay. Let's go home, then." I grabbed
my backpack and swung it across my shoulder. "We need to go past the
police station first. I have to tell them about the call last night."
     
    This time we were taken a lot more seriously when we
walked into Roskilde police station. An officer showed us into a room and soon
another officer joined us with a stack of papers in his hands. He greeted us
and told us his name was Richard Brandenburg. He was dressed as a civilian and
told us he was with the NEC, the National Investigation Center. He was very
pleasant to talk to. He lifted his fairly bushy eyebrows as he pulled out my
article from the stack of papers and looked at me. "We have contacted the
parents," he said. "Just as you explained in the article, they didn't
know that the girls were at the festival and they were very surprised at all
this, especially since they read about it in their morning paper."
    "Well, that was unfortunate," I said.
"But I felt it was necessary since I had no idea how else to contact
them."
    The officer nodded. "I get it. I think it
was great you did it. The parents have since contacted the captain on the boat
they were supposed to be on and confirmed that they were not there and no one
has any idea as to where they can be. If you hadn't written the article no one
would have discovered their disappearance for several days and that could be
fatal in a case like this where time is of the essence. It has sure awoken some
people up in here. This morning has been a true inferno at the station. Not
something they are used to. They have an entire team of three people just to
handle the press. It's quite the circus. But as long as it helps the girls, right?"
    "Right."
    "Now. I know you have written everything in
your article, is there anything else we should know? Anything about the girls
or maybe something you saw while looking for them? Anything would be a huge
help right now."
    He leaned back and poured a cup of coffee from a
thermos next to us. "Anyone?" he asked and pointed at some empty
cups. We both shook our heads. We just had breakfast at the hotel. Officer
Brandenburg put sugar in his cup and stirred it with the spoon.
    "There is something," I said. "I
think I might have spoken to the kidnapper."
    The officer almost choked on the coffee.
"You spoke with him?" he exclaimed. "How? When?"
    "He called me. Well actually he called
Camilla. See I have Camilla's phone, she gave it to me, so I could charge it for
her in the press area where we have access to electricity since we need it for
our phones and laptops.  You can't get electricity on the campground of
the festival. So as I was charging it, it rang. Since the display said Amalie,
I thought I'd pick it up in case she was looking for her friend. That's when I
spoke to him. He was using Amalie's phone to get to Camilla. That's how I knew
that he was coming for her, but I was too late. I tried to run to warn her and
get her out of there, but she was gone when I arrived."
    The officer nodded as he wrote down