A Mother's Love

by Sara Blaedel

Genres: General Fiction; Mystery; International Crime & Mystery; Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

Detective Louise Rick uncovers dark secrets swirling around an inn in a seemingly idyllic tourist town in this propulsive new crime novel from #1 Danish bestselling sensation Sara Blaedel.

When innkeeper Dorthe Hyllested is found murdered, the police are surprised and puzzled to discover a concealed nursery in her upstairs apartment. As far as her friends and family knew, the recently widowed Dorthe was childless—so who lived in this secret toy-strewn room? And more importantly, where is the child now?

Detective Louise Rick has just taken on a challenging new job as head of the freshly created Mobile Task Unit, which is charged with solving the most difficult cases all over Denmark. With Dorthe’s murder as her first investigation and the clock ticking to find the missing child, Louise is dismayed to learn that none of her handpicked group of seasoned investigators have been approved for transfer to her new unit. Instead, she must cobble together a brand-new, unproven team from a group of officers she’s never met. Worst of all, the case will necessitate collaborating with the Missing Persons Department—which will mean working closely with Louise’s former fiancé, Eik, who abruptly broke things off last year, leaving her devastated.

Could the mystery of Dorthe’s murder and the hidden child have something to do with the cabin in the woods behind the inn where men are often seen coming and going at all hours? With no witnesses to Dorthe’s murder and no real leads, and an unproven and potentially untrustworthy team behind her, Louise finds herself grasping at unlikely connections—but the twisted story she begins to uncover turns out to be darker and more dangerous than she ever imagined. . . .

Release date: March 11, 2025

Publisher: Dutton

Print pages: 416

Sample

Chapter 1

"I don't recognize a single one of the names on this list," Louise Rick fumed, tossing the piece of paper across the desk at Søren Velin. "We've been discussing this new travel unit for a month and a half. We've been planning for ages. We've agreed. But what the hell was the point of all those preparations if you're just going to scrape together a few of the dregs from different police districts and call them my new team?"

She was so angry that she wanted to storm out, but she pulled herself together and forced herself to explain. Slowly.

"None of us know each other. We haven't worked together before. We have no basis for being able to leverage each other's strengths. These are all the things we agreed couldn't happen."

Her very first partner from the Homicide Department shrugged. Søren Velin had been a bigwig in the Danish National Police for years now, and one of the many projects he'd been put in charge of was establishing a new travel unit to replace the old Mobile Task Force. After a failed investigation into the murder of a young teenager in Korsør-a case that had landed squarely on Velin's shoulders-he received permission to set up a special travel unit, an investigative group that could be ready to help the country's twelve police districts solve violent crime cases on an as-needed basis. That travel unit had come to be known as Police District 13, or simply P13, and Louise had been selected to lead it.

"You know as well as I do that the government has cut the National Police force in half," Velin said. "Things have changed."

"Up yours!" Louise snapped. "I gave up my position as head of Homicide to lead P13, and now that we're at the starting line, you do an about-face and take back everything you promised?"

"Okay, stop," he said, holding his hands out to her pleadingly.

"Find someone else," Louise replied, heading for the door.

"They're waiting for you in Odense."

"Let me tell you something!" She spun on her heel and was right up in his face in a couple of quick steps. "I didn't take this position to fail, or to have an excuse to not be home with my son and the other people I care about. I took this job because I believe I can help make a difference and contribute to increasing the clearance rate. That I can help police districts when they get bogged down in their investigations. But it's not something I can do on my own. That's been the agreement the whole time, that we would put together a small team of the very best. The Mobile Task Force was ten times as big as what you've promised me, with a budget to match. Yes, I agreed to use local crime scene technicians and forensic pathologists and I get that it's still too early to attach a permanent police prosecutor to our unit, but I want the top candidates-the very best investigators-not the sloppy seconds that police districts around the country can't wait to get rid of."

"You're meeting Grube in Odense," Velin said calmly. "I'm sure he'll fill you in on folks' strengths and weaknesses."

Louise shook her head as she stared at him.

"We have been talking about this for a month and a half," she repeated quietly. "We've carefully planned how we can make this work so that P13 can become permanent, so that we create a National Investigation Department we can be proud of. And then you drop the ball when we're this close to the goal."

This time, Louise left his office before Velin could protest.

Logically she knew it wasn't wholly Velin's fault: No one had predicted that the National Police would be hit by a political austerity knife right as they were laying the foundations for the new travel force. When it came to the funding allocations, that was entirely dependent on which way the wind was blowing.

But the fact remained that the travel force hadn't been nixed entirely. And Louise was still in charge, so she went straight from Velin's office down to the police garage to pick up the unmarked police car that had been allocated to her new investigative unit.


Louise was sitting in Velin’s office later that morning when the call came in. The victim was a thirty-eight-year-old innkeeper from Tåsinge who had been found murdered on the floor of the inn’s restaurant twenty-four hours earlier. A local resident had called emergency services at 10:48 a.m.

Louise didn't know much more than that. No witnesses had come forward, and the Funen Police in Odense and Svendborg were working on the assumption that it could be a robbery-murder, though there wasn't yet a report on what, if anything, had been taken from the restaurant.

"Are you home?" Louise asked when Jonas answered his cell phone.

"Not yet," her foster son replied. "But I've arranged with Eik to stay with him while you're gone."

Louise had texted Jonas as soon as she found out that she was going to Tåsinge.

"No," she said simply. "You can't. You're staying in the apartment and taking care of Dina."

She knew how harsh she sounded. Their deaf Labrador was perfectly content to have Melvin look after her, but their downstairs neighbor had his hands full now that his girlfriend, Grete Milling, was in bed with a bad case of pneumonia. The elderly couple had both been seriously impacted by Grete's illness. Her infection numbers were far too high, and she had even been hospitalized for a few days, then sent home again even though it was clear to everyone that she was still extremely sick. Caring for her was taking a toll on Louise's seventy-nine-year-old downstairs neighbor, even though he tried not to let it show.

"Fine, I'll just bring Dina out to Eik's place with me. I've done it before," Jonas protested. "She and Charlie get along great."

Yes, Louise could just imagine. No doubt about it, it would be cozy with Eik's big German shepherd, a retired police dog of a substantial size; Dina and Jonas; Eik's daughter, Steph; and Eik himself in his little studio apartment in Copenhagen's South Harbor neighborhood. A tight reluctance coalesced in Louise's chest. She still hadn't seen Eik since he'd gotten home from his trip.

The six-month-long leave of absence they had set out on together.

The dream trip with their two teenage children that was supposed to bring the small blended family together but had instead broken Louise's heart. She could still feel the sorrow and rage that had struck when Eik told her that he wasn't ready to get married after all, even though he was the one who had proposed to her.

"You're staying home," Louise decided. "Melvin needs your help. He doesn't have the strength to take care of Grete while she's bedridden."

Silence on the line.

"Enjoy the hygge," Louise continued, trying to win him over. "You can do puzzles and read history books. You always have a good time together."

"Mom," he interrupted, "I'm seventeen!"

"Well then you can make some of that music you're so into," she suggested instead. It still melted her heart when he called her Mom. Jonas had been living with her since he was twelve, and they had become a unit. A family. Melvin was also a part of that unit, and she knew that Jonas thought of him as a grandfather, which made her feel slightly less guilty about pressuring Jonas to stay home on the grounds of helping Melvin and Grete.

"I stopped making music a long time ago," he replied quietly.

There was a tense pause, but Louise didn't back down. She couldn't bear that he'd rather go to Eik's place.

"You'll find something to do," she said. "Just spend time with Melvin. He missed you a lot when you were traveling."

"Okay," he finally said. "Maybe I can order food and we can watch a movie or something."

"Exactly," Louise replied, feeling like she had prevailed in some sort of one-sided battle against Eik. "I'm just on my way home to pack some clothes, but I won't have time to take Dina for a walk. They're expecting me in Odense and I'll be stuck in the afternoon traffic, so I have to rush."

"I'll walk her," Jonas said without hesitation. That was one fight they had never needed to have. Back when the yellow Lab came into their lives, Jonas promised that he would take care of her. He always lived up to that promise.


Louise arrived at the police station in Odense to find that she was the only member of Søren Velin’s travel unit who had bothered to show up. Her annoyance made her pull her chair to the desk of Deputy Chief Superintendent Grube with unnecessary roughness.

"You'll get a communications officer from my department," Grube said as Louise took her seat across from him in his utterly nondescript office on Hans Mules Gade. This was the first time Louise had met the man, and her first impression was that he didn't seem particularly impressive. He made it sound like the Funen Police were about to hand P13 a priceless gift in the form of one thirty-one-year-old investigator.

Her first team member was to be a young Swedish woman who would be responsible for all digital information, telecommunications, and surveillance-provided there was even a single camera in Tåsinge. Grube wasn't quite able to confirm or deny that for her.

"How much experience does she have?" Louise asked, looking at his graying temples and tired eyes and attempting to sound neutral.

"Lisa Lindén is one of the best. She comes from the Central Jutland Police. I managed to snag her a year and a half ago. It's not exactly a secret that we're having some gang and drug problems here in the city."

No, no secret about that, Louise thought. This was one of the things Odense was notorious for in police circles.

"Does she speak Danish or only Swedish?" Louise asked, already fearing what might get lost if Lindén was responsible for bugs or wiretaps.

Grube leveled a stare at her before nodding.

"Of course she speaks Danish. She's from Holstebro. She grew up in Herning but was living in Holstebro when I convinced her to move to Odense. She lives in Ringe now with her boyfriend, who's also thoroughly Danish, in case that's important to you."

Touché, Louise thought. They had really gotten off on the wrong foot and it was mostly her fault. She needed to pull herself together, but her disappointment that the team she had been promised amounted to a poorly-cobbled-together group of people she'd need to hand-hold to success was overshadowing her excitement over the travel unit being called out to assist on its first case. She knew herself well enough to recognize that her disappointment was primarily due to one thing: She was scared shitless of failing, of not being enough, and of not solving her first case. Performance anxiety.

She was deeply engrossed in this negative conversation with herself when she finally realized that Grube was speaking to her.

"Lange," he repeated patiently. "He's coming down from Hjørring. He called just before you arrived and asked if you were meeting here or if he should catch up with you in Tåsinge."

"And what's Lange's profile?" Louise asked, leaning forward in the chair, determined to put her bad attitude behind her.

Grube interlaced his fingers and stared down at the papers lying in front of him for a moment. Louise didn't get the sense that he needed to read from them, but rather that he wanted to make sure he correctly phrased whatever he said next.

"He's good with details. He sees everything and he understands what the forensic techs find. Plus, he remembers what people tell him."

Louise nodded. That was worth its weight in gold, she had to give him that much.

"So, you and Velin think that he'll take care of questioning and interrogations and the crime scene," she concluded. "Who will handle the family?"

The one time she'd been loaned to the old Mobile Task Force she'd gotten to see the many moving parts of a team like this. There had been a communications officer, a clerk who kept track of every report and had a clear overview of the case as a whole, an investigator responsible for questioning and interrogation, another who solely questioned family members, a team of technicians, and someone focused specifically on the crime scene.

"You will," Grube replied in a way that made it sound as if that was obvious. "And you'll bring in the forensic techs from Fredericia."

They sat in silence for a moment while Louise waited for him to continue, but he didn't say anything else.

"And of course we'll handle anyone who calls in," he said, once again making it sound like he'd given her a gift.

Louise nodded. It was essential to have someone to answer the calls that came in about a case, one person who had a comprehensive view of the investigation and was able to assess which tips should be taken seriously and acted on.

"Does this mean there won't be a clerk appointed to the unit? You'll handle all the reports from here?" she asked, eyeing him.

He nodded. "That'll be easiest for everyone."

"And that person will then report to me on a daily basis? Or how do you envision this being coordinated so that we don't lose information?"

"It will be reported directly to me," Grube replied, "and then I will sort through the information and pass anything relevant on to you."

She opened her mouth to protest, then restrained herself.

"Who else is on the team?" she asked instead. "Are the rest of the investigators from here or are they being brought in from other police districts?"

Louise knew that the Funen Police were hopelessly behind when it came to staffing and were often forced to hand off work to other police districts. She also knew that Grube was notorious for saying one thing and doing another, and that he didn't step in proactively to support his officers. So, she had decided that she would have as little to do with Grube as possible as soon as she'd found out she'd be assisting the Funen Police.

"There won't be anyone else from here, but you'll get two of the investigators from Svendborg who were at the discovery site yesterday. They've already interviewed the guests who spent the night before the killing at the inn."

Louise started doing the math. So other than herself, the new travel unit consisted of a young woman with a Swedish-sounding name, someone named Lange from Hjørring, technical assistance from Fredericia, plus two locals from Svendborg.