Island Getaway, An Art Crime Team Mystery (3 page)

He’d been watching her for the past few
days, and hadn’t seen her smile a lot.

Of course he hadn’t watched her
all
the time. Just when she was out and about. Most of the time she
looked pretty serious, hiding behind those big glasses which
magnified her eyes to buglike proportions. It was possible she
laughed and joked with her colleagues at work, or smiled fatuously
at the cat she lived with, but he hadn’t been around for any of
that. Mostly he’d just been parked across the street.

It had been the most boring four days of
work he’d ever done. There’d been nothing, absolutely nothing, to
indicate that she had anything to hide. It was business as usual,
one day exactly like the one before it. Up at 7:00, to work by
8:30, lunch at her desk, leave at 6:00, home by 7:00. On the
weekend she went grocery shopping and stopped by the farmer’s
market. She never went on a date, never had any appointments with
anyone outside work, never even went to lunch with the other
librarians. Best as he could figure, she spent her days cataloguing
rare books and manuscripts, and her nights reading and talking to
the cat. There wasn’t even the blue flicker of a television behind
her curtains.

The most exciting thing she’d probably ever
done was take this flight to Sweden.

Which reminded him—he should probably take
the opportunity to check in with Fredrik. If she were like most
women, she’d be in the bathroom more than long enough to let him
make a phone call or two. He hadn’t met a woman yet who didn’t
spend some time in front of the mirror checking her reflection
whenever the opportunity presented itself. Putting his back against
the wall, he fished his cell phone out of his pocket and thumbed
the display.

Yes, that last call had also been from
Fredrik, just like the previous three. It’d be quicker just to call
back and have Fredrik tell him the news rather than listen to each
message. Especially since he figured he knew what the story was
going to be anyway.

He dialed the number and waited. The phone
rang once on the other end and then was answered. “Finally!”

“Sorry,” Nick said. “But I’m with—” He had
his mouth open to utter ‘the suspect’ when he thought better of it.
As far as he knew, she wasn’t in a position to hear him, but better
safe than sorry. “...Ms. Holst, and I couldn’t answer.”

“Oh.” Fredrik sounded relieved. “You are?
Good.”

“Someone has to be. Why’d you push her?”

“Scuse me?” Fredrik said.

“You didn’t have to hurt her. She’d put the
bag down. You could have just taken it and walked away.”

“I didn’t push her,” Fredrik said.

“You didn’t?” Someone else must have done
it, then. Probably by accident, in the jostling and fighting for
access to the luggage band. “Sorry.”

Fredrik’s voice had changed. “You haven’t
listened to my messages, have you?”

Nick admitted he hadn’t. “Like I said, I’ve
been trying to help Annika—”

“Right,” Fredrik said. “Pretty, is she?”

Reasonably. Or she might turn out to be,
once someone got past the ugly clothes and big glasses and the fact
that she kept her hair scraped back into that uncompromising
librarian-like bun.

Not that Nick had any plans of getting past
her clothes. He was an FBI-agent, and she was involved in a case he
was working. Getting past her clothes wasn’t part of the job. But
there was something about her that called to that protective
instinct he had. She looked so lost and alone, like she could use
someone to look out for her. He couldn’t just leave her there, to
fend for herself. Clothes or no clothes.

“Well,” Fredrik said when he didn’t answer,
“if you’d bothered to answer your phone, you’d have known I got
caught in a traffic jam on E4 on my way up there.”

Nick yanked his mind away from Annika Holst
with no clothes. “You mean, you’re not here? You don’t have the
bag?”

“I’m still on the other side of Arlandastad
Golf Club,” Fredrik said, naming a landmark Nick knew was several
miles away. “So no, I don’t.”

“But if you didn’t take the bag, who
did?”

There was a pause. “I guess I can assume you
didn’t?”

“I thought
you
did! You were supposed
to! That’s why I called you, wasn’t it?”

“If you’d bothered to answer your phone,”
Fredrik said again, “you would have known that I couldn’t
have.”

Yeah, yeah. This really wasn’t the time to
rehash that particular argument. “Listen. She’s in the bathroom,
and I don’t know how much time I have. I’ll have to talk fast.
While she was waiting for her suitcase, someone pushed her onto the
baggage carousel. Sent her sprawling. Hurt her. By the time I got
her off—” and her skirt pulled down to her knees again, “—the
overnight bag was gone. We looked all over for it, and it’s
nowhere.”

“Lost and found...” Fredrik began.

“Don’t you think I thought of that? I’m
telling you, the damn thing’s gone!”

There was a beat of silence, while they both
thought deep and not particularly satisfying thoughts. As far as
Nick was concerned, he would much rather just go back to thinking
about Annika with no clothes.

“Who’d take it?” Fredrik wanted to know.
“
We
know what might be inside, but no one else does. So
who—?”

“She carried the damn thing onboard like she
was carrying spun gold. Someone could have decided it looked
interesting just from that.”

“Maybe,” Fredrik agreed. “Or maybe someone
knows something we don’t.”

“Maybe.”

They stood in silence for a moment. It
wasn’t a comfortable silence.

“You still need me to get there?” Fredrik
asked.

It didn’t take long to decide. Good thing
too, because he didn’t have long. Any second now, Annika Holst
could come back out of the bathroom. “No. I’ve got this. I’ll get
her settled in a hotel and call you later. Maybe the bag’ll turn
up. Maybe someone took it by accident, thinking it was theirs, and
when they realize it, they’ll call the police.”

There were a few honest people in the world.
When faced with a priceless national treasure they’d accidentally
picked up at the airport, some of them might do the right
thing.

“I’ll make sure every precinct knows to be
on the lookout for it,” Fredrik said. “They’ll let me know if it
comes in somewhere.”

“If it hasn’t turned up by tomorrow, we’ll
have to figure out something else. Meanwhile, someone should have a
look around for leftover black overnight bags. If someone took hers
by accident, they would have left their own.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Fredrik said.

“Pull the passenger list while you’re at it.
See if anything pops. If someone was following her, there has to be
a connection somewhere.”

Fredrik agreed. “You just keep an eye on
her. Until we know anything for sure, it’s best you stick close. If
whoever took that bag knew what was in it, and it wasn’t just
random, he’s already shown he’s willing to hurt her.”

True. “I won’t let her out of my sight. Not
until we know more about what’s going on.”

“Good,” Fredrik said.

“I’ll deal with things here. I’ll get the
bag reported stolen through the proper channels and see what she
wants to do next. I’ll call you when I know something.”

“I’ll let you work your magic. Unless the
bag turns up. Then I’ll send you a text.”

“Please do. Sorry about that beer.”

“We’ll celebrate when the case is over,”
Fredrik said, and rang off. Nick turned to smile as Annika came out
of the restroom, minus the black pantyhose. Her legs were long and
pale below the loose black dress, and the scratches on her knees
were still livid.

“There’s a first aid station down the hall.”
He put them back into motion, slowly, towing both suitcases now.
“We’ll stop there first, then find the security office and report
the bag stolen.”

She shot him a glance. “You really don’t
have to do that.”

“Do what?”

“I can take care of myself.”

Of course she could. According to her file,
she was twenty seven. She’d been on her own for years. She could
put Band-Aids on her own knees if she needed to. Or find her own
way to the first aid station and the security office. That wasn’t
the point.

He smiled. “I told you. We Americans have to
stick together.”

“But don’t you have something else to do?
You’re here on business, surely?” The big blue eyes behind the
glasses lighted on his dark business suit and tie.

“I can take thirty minutes to help a pretty
girl.” He winked. She flushed, and as expected, shut up.

They hit the first aid station to get her
knees bandaged, and from there they headed to the security office,
where Annika explained what had happened, this time to an older
security guard with thinning blond hair and those bright blue
Swedish eyes. He wrote up a report and said he’d be in touch if the
bag should happen to turn up. Then he asked for Annika’s address.
Nick watched as those straight, white teeth sank back into her
lower lip.

“I don’t have a local address. I didn’t plan
to spend any time in Stockholm. I’m supposed to go straight to
Gotland. My connecting flight’s in—” She checked her watch, a
dainty thing dangling around one thin wrist, “—just over an
hour.”

“We can forward the bag there if we find
it,” the guard offered.

But Annika shook her head, looking near
tears again. “If I don’t have the bag, there’s no point in going to
Gotland.”

Nick’s ears pricked up.

“What was in the bag?” the guard asked, pen
poised over the rubric on the report marked ‘contents.’

Annika blushed. “Cremains.”

“
Förlåt?
”

“Cremated remains,” Nick clarified.
“Ashes.”

And shit, if that was true, it explained the
careful way she’d carried the bag onto the plane, as well as the
guilty glances she’s shot up to the overhead bin during the flight.
People tended to be uncomfortable around things like remains, and
she’d probably been imagining the reactions of her fellow travelers
if they realized what was in the bag.

Fuck. Had he followed a bag of ashes halfway
around the world?

The guard still looked confused, and Annika
said, “My father passed away recently. He was Swedish. He had a
note in his wallet saying he wanted to be cremated and have his
ashes taken to Gotland.”

“Ah.” The guard made a notation on the form
along with a muttered remark that Nick recognized as the Swedish
equivalent of ‘damned fools.’ He decided not to comment. Easier for
everyone if he just pretended not to understand Swedish.

“I’m sure the airline would be happy to
change your flight,” he told Annika instead, “given the
circumstances. Maybe you should stay in Stockholm for a day or two,
just in case the bag turns up. You can always go to Gotland
later.”

She nodded, back to worrying her lower lip
again. Nick was beginning to find it distracting. It made him keep
his eyes on her mouth too much for comfort.

“I know the names of a couple of good
hotels,” he told her when they were outside in the corridor again,
headed toward the customer service counter for her ticket change.
“If you’re spending the night in Stockholm you can have dinner with
me later.”

That stopped the worried gnawing, which
hadn’t been his primary intent, but which was helpful all the same.
Her mouth fell open for a second, that lower lip plump and red,
before she closed it again. Her cheeks flushed and she blinked
owlishly at him from behind the glasses. “Why would you want to
have dinner with me?”

“I already told you.”

“We Americans have to stick together?”

“Exactly.” He flashed her a grin, and had
the pleasure of seeing another blush stain her pale cheeks before
he turned away.

She didn’t have anything to wear.

That wasn’t what she should be worrying
about, frankly—not with everything else going on—but it was the
topmost thing on Annika’s mind right at the moment.

Of course, that could be because she was
standing in front of a boutique window in Gamla Stan, Stockholm’s
Old Town, looking at the most gorgeous summer dress she’d ever
seen.

It was blue. Pale blue, like the sky, or
like those little flowers she’d read about but never
seen—forget-me-nots. And it wasn’t slinky and sexy at all, not a
dress a femme fatale would wear to a casino in Monte Carlo for a
rendezvous with a dashing spy. But it was long enough to cover her
scabby knees—which were not sexy at all—and the shape—curved and
swingy—would make her look like she had more of a figure than she
did, while the color would play up her own blue eyes and pale
complexion and fair hair. She’d never be competition for the women
Nick usually had dinner with, but at least he wouldn’t be
embarrassed to be seen with her.

Although why he’d want to...

Something was going on there, something more
than just ‘us Americans have to stick together.’ She could sense
it. He hadn’t invited her to dinner because he wanted to get to
know her better; she did know that much. She’d heard him on the
phone before exiting the bathroom at the airport earlier. He’d told
someone he’d keep an eye on her, that he wouldn’t let her out of
his sight until they knew more about what was going on.

She had no idea what he thought might be
going on, but it sounded like it might have something to do with
that missing bag.

But why would he be interested in her
father’s ashes? No one else was. Even her own family couldn’t
understand why Annika had felt she had to make this trip. They’d
all refused to go with her.

All right, so maybe it made sense that her
mother didn’t want to go to Sweden to bury her late husband’s
ashes. They’d been separated for more than fifteen years, and
things hadn’t been great while they were together. Besides, Anne
had a job. An important job. She couldn’t just up and leave.
Especially with the end of the semester and exams coming up.