So just pull the trigger.

39. Ne do svidaniya!

Asko had still been at work when Joni had called. That one phone call had put everything else on hold, and though he was terrified, he had to act with reason. He had done everything he could from that distance. He had called Misha; he had called the cops and visited the station. The authorities took it seriously and wasted no time starting the search.

Joni had visited the police station only a couple of days before their trip and reported Chris' harassment. However, Joni hadn't spoken one word to him about it. Asko guessed that Joni hadn't wanted to worry him. The officers contacted the Canadian authorities and they promised to check if they could reach Chris.

He had talked with Ivo. The neighbor whose house Joni had tried to make it to safety, had been found shot to death. Joni had been taken. Moments later, the authorities called to confirm that Chris had indeed left the country after he had requested and been granted a week's unpaid leave by his employer. Chris and his alleged accomplice were then reported wanted.

Asko was sitting in a parked car in front of his house, not remembering anything about the drive. He had just ended the call with the constable. Aki Kuusisto, another suspect, thirty-two-years-old, previously sat in prison for a drug offense. They had been imprisoned with Chris at the same time.

A man had been killed and his son had been abducted. One of his worst fears had come true. Joni's alarmed voice rang again and again in his mind. That feeling of helplessness was nauseating.

He remembered how furious he had been when Joni had run away from his brother with Chris. He remembered his distrust of the man, but something had changed. Chris had seemed so... balanced? Responsible? He had seemed like a man who would calm Joni's longing to go abroad and his sometimes careless and impulsive behavior.

He remembered the drive to the airport with Joni when he had decided to send his son to his parents.

"This is the last time, Dad." Joni had said suddenly, interrupting the silence that had lasted the entire initial journey.

"What?"

"When you can send me to your parents when things go wrong. The Last time."

Joni hadn't looked at him. And Asko didn't immediately know what to say. When Marianna was sick and there was no hope left, she asked Asko to take Joni to Oulu to stay with his parents. Marianna hadn't wanted Joni to remember her that way, dying and incoherent... And he had barely been able to keep himself together, it had seemed impossible to take care of a small child in the middle of it. However, the support network was far away, and his parents and Oulu had felt the best place for the boy.

Joni hadn't seen it that way and he still bore it with bitterness. Had sometimes said he was not allowed to say a proper goodbye to his mother, but in honesty, he had received a more beautiful memory than what it would have been for a five-year-old in those last moments.

"When I turn eighteen in the summer I'm going to go traveling. I will come back for the army, but when it's over I'll move to London or New York. And you can't say anything about that."

Asko had known that he couldn't and it scared him. He had been horrified at that thought! And he had wanted to seize the hope that Chris would get Joni to settle in and stay put, the selfish need to keep his son close had made him blind.

Katja had also spoken of her doubts. "Does Joni really want this?" He remembered his wife pondering after Joni announced he was moving in with Chris. "Joni is so... impulsive and so young... And Chris... I have the feeling that Chris is more in love with Joni than Joni is with him. They haven't known each other for so long..."