Island Getaway, An Art Crime Team Mystery (5 page)

Maybe she knew all about the jewelry. Maybe
she’d realized she’d be followed, and she’d set out to throw
whoever was tailing her off his game. Maybe he’d been made and
she’d known all along who he was.

He shot her a suspicious look. She answered
it with a smile that turned puzzled as soon as she noticed the
expression in his eyes. Her own turned wary. Then her face closed,
all the happiness leeching out of it, and Nick wanted to kick
himself.
Way to go, Costa
. If she hadn’t wondered about him
before, she would after that.

He cleared his throat, trying to come up
with something to say to put them on friendly footing again. He
needed her to like him. He needed her happy and open and trusting.
Whether or not she knew about the treasure, whether or not it had
been inside the bag someone stole, she was in the middle of this,
and—he suspected— at some point he’d need her cooperation in
working things out. If she were an innocent bystander, just taking
her father’s ashes to Sweden, it was his job to protect her from
people who thought she had more. And if she had the treasure, or
knew where it was, and was complicit in hiding it or trying to sell
it, he had to get it and then arrest her. But either way, for the
time being, he needed her to like him. And he’d just hammered a big
old nail into that coffin all by himself.

“How long are you in Stockholm?” Annika asked.

They had finished dinner and were on their
way back to the Lady Hamilton Hotel.

It was located in the heart of Gamla Stan,
within spitting distance of the Royal Palace. She was surrounded by
history, both inside the hotel and all around. The building was
another of the medieval ones, dating back to the 1470s, and it was
filled to the brim with Swedish country antiques. For some reason
Annika hadn’t been able to ascertain, it was named for Lady Emma
Hamilton, mistress of Lord Nelson, the famous British naval hero.
And she had debated long and hard as to whether she could afford
it, but she figured she was probably only in Stockholm this once,
and she was damned if she’d spend the night in a Radisson or
Holiday Inn.

Dinner had started out awkward—she still had
no idea why Nick had looked at her like that, especially after
seeming so pleased when he first saw her—but he’d been his usual
charming self a moment later, and after a few minutes, she’d
started to wonder if maybe she had imagined it. A trick of the
light; something reflected in her glasses...

And now they were on their way back,
wandering slowly along the cobblestoned streets, still making
polite small-talk. They’d spent the dinner hour talking mostly
about her: growing up in Brooklyn, her parents’ separation, her
siblings, and her relationship—or lack thereof—with her late
father.

They hadn’t talked much about Nick, and as
they headed back to the hotel, Annika set out to remedy that, by
asking him how long he’d be staying in Sweden.

He hesitated. It oughtn’t be a difficult
question to answer—surely he knew what his return ticket said—but
he seemed to be at a loss for words.

Eventually he gave her a bland and
unhelpful, “Until the job is done.”

That kind of flexibility must be nice, at
least for someone who enjoyed excitement and variety. Annika
suspected she was really more the type who enjoyed living
vicariously from her stable, orderly existence.

“And what do you do?”

He hesitated again. Strange, that he didn’t
just tell her what his job was.

Unless he couldn’t. Maybe he really was a
spy.

“Consultant,” he said eventually

“What do you consult on?”

He blinked. “Business.”

“What kind of business?”

There was a pause, as if he had to think
about it. Either he was involved in something he shouldn’t be
talking about, or he was lying. “I’m in international finance. Here
to consult on a merger.”

“Oh.” Money. Not something she
understood.

“My return depends on how long the
negotiations take,” Nick added, more easily now. “I stay until the
talking is done, and then I go home.”

That made sense. Strange that he’d been so
reluctant to tell her about it. “And where is home, for you?”

There was another pause. “Washington,
D.C.”

Less than four hours from New York by train,
a tiny voice at the back of her head whispered.

She shushed it. She had no expectations of
seeing Nick again after she left Stockholm. She had no expectations
of seeing him again after tonight. How close or far he lived to or
from Brooklyn was irrelevant.

“Do you travel a lot? For work?”

“More than I don’t,” Nick said.

“That must be hard.” Annika couldn’t imagine
always running off somewhere. Her life might be uneventful, but it
was stable and comfortable and safe.

Nick shrugged. “I don’t have anyone to go
home to. So I might as well go somewhere else.”

“Did you grow up in D.C.? Are your parents
there?”

He shook his head. “I’m from Florida. My
father’s ancestors were Minorcan. They came over hundreds of years
ago. My mother came from Sweden as an au pair in the 1970s. They
live near Jacksonville.”

“Do you get to see them a lot?” Her own
father had lived just twenty miles away, but Annika hadn’t seen him
more than once or twice a year. And she was no closer to the rest
of the family, or they to her, than she’d been to him. Astrid was
always jetting off somewhere, for inspiration or a fashion show or
photo shoot. Andy was in Costa Rica, and her mother had always
given the impression that she liked her students better than her
own children.

“I go back a few times a year,” Nick said.
“To see the family and work on the tan.” He grinned, white teeth
flashing against golden skin.

The work on the tan seemed to be going well.
The parts of him that Annika could see were all over smooth and
golden. The parts she couldn’t see were probably smooth and golden
too.

She stopped before she could mentally
undress him and take stock. “Sounds nice.”

“It is. Usually.” He glanced at her. “What
about you? Do you like the beach?”

“I burn,” Annika said, and didn’t mention
that she didn’t enjoy taking her lily-white, scrawny body into the
sun where anyone could see it.

Nick nodded. “What do you like to do when
you go on vacation? Shop?”

Nothing. She didn’t take vacations.
Although— “I like to do this.”

“Getting mugged and then picked up by a
stranger and taken out to dinner?” He smiled.

Annika could feel color creep up into her
cheeks. Hardly. She never got picked up by strangers. At least not
until today. “I meant this. The Old Town. History. Museums.”

Nick nodded, although she could see his lips
twitch. He probably thought she was weird. A twenty seven year old
woman who didn’t like the beach, and didn’t like shopping, and
didn’t go on dates. A librarian, with every bad stereotype that
went along with it. She sounded like she was seventy instead of
twenty seven.

“It’s beautiful here.” She looked away from
him, up at the facades of the tall and narrow Hanseatic buildings
painted in red, yellow, and ochre, with their tall chimneys and
dozens of mullioned windows. Above the chimneys, the sky arced,
midnight blue and velvety, with a sprinkling of stars.

“Yes, it is.” But Nick wasn’t looking at the
buildings, he was looking at her, and Annika blushed. He
smiled.

“C’mon. Let’s get you back to the hotel
before it gets cold. The nights can still get chilly this time of
year, and you’re not wearing much.”

She wasn’t. But she wasn’t cold, especially
after Nick offered his arm and she tucked her hand through and felt
the heat of his body through the layers of clothes.

It really was only a few blocks between the
restaurant and the hotel, and they walked the distance in
companionable silence. Once inside the lobby, Nick glanced at the
entrance to the bistro. “Glass of wine? Cup of coffee?”

Better not. Much as she had enjoyed his
company, Annika still wasn’t sure why he’d invited her to dinner,
and until she did, it was probably best not to enjoy his company
too much. Especially since they wouldn’t be seeing one another
again after tonight. “It’s late.”

“Not that late,” Nick said, with a glance at
his watch.

It felt late. A lot had happened. “It’s been
a long day. And I guess maybe I’m a little jetlagged.”

He nodded. “Thank you for having dinner with
me.”

“Thank you for inviting me.”

“My pleasure.” He smiled. “Maybe we can do
it again sometime. How long are you planning to stick around?”

Good question. “I guess that depends on how
long it takes to get my bag back.”

Nick nodded. “Any word from the police?”

Not by the time she’d left the hotel two
hours ago for dinner. “I’ll check before I go up.”

“Why don’t you check now?” Nick said, with a
glance at the reception counter.

It was a reasonable suggestion. No reason
why she should feel like he took more than a passing interest. It
was probably just her own imagination that turned a perfectly
reasonable suggestion into an order she couldn’t refuse.

Annika headed for the counter with Nick
trailing behind, and gave her name and room number to the girl
behind the desk. “Any messages for me?”

“Not that I know of, Ms. Holst.” The girl—a
gorgeous blonde with the kind of assets Annika could only dream
of—dimpled at Nick.

“Could you check?”

The girl huffed, but looked away from him
for long enough to ascertain that no, no one had left any messages.
Annika turned her back to the counter and her front to Nick,
who—point to him—didn’t keep staring at the blonde. “Nothing
yet.”

He shrugged. “Maybe tomorrow.”

Maybe. “Thanks again for dinner.”

“It was my pleasure.” He leaned in, his
breath warm against her skin. And hesitated. For a second, Annika
thought—was afraid; hoped—that he was about to kiss her, and her
breath went along with her knees.

He brushed his lips over hers, so lightly
she might almost have imagined it, except she knew she hadn’t. Her
lips tingled.

The girl behind the counter sighed, and
Nick’s dark eyes danced as he straightened. “Good night,
Annika.”

It took her a moment to get her voice to
cooperate. “Good night.”

“Sleep well.”

She nodded.

“I’ll see you around.”

Sure.

She headed for the elevator. When she turned
back just as the doors opened, he was still standing there watching
her. Either his mother had raised a gentleman, or he was waiting
until she was out of sight before he asked the receptionist for her
phone number.

Annika didn’t care. She’d had a wonderful
dinner in a beautiful restaurant with a handsome man, who’d
listened to everything she’d said without scoffing and who hadn’t
tried to invite himself into her bed afterwards. As far as she was
concerned, the evening had been perfect. At this point, she didn’t
care what he did. She headed up to the second floor in a cloud of
bliss, and could probably have floated there on her own, without
the use of the elevator. Once inside her room, she dropped her wrap
on the bed and crossed to the tall windows to pull the curtains
shut. Only to stop when she looked down and saw, below her on the
opposite sidewalk, a man in a gray suit. Nick.

He had a cell phone in his hand and was
talking into it, and he looked very different from the man she’d
left downstairs in the lobby just two minutes ago. Maybe the
receptionist had turned him down. That easy smile and killer charm
were gone, as if they’d never been. His handsome face was scowling,
those thick, dark brows drawn together, and his gestures were sharp
and angry. He kept shaking his head in denial or disagreement, and
his forefinger stabbed the air repeatedly, emphasizing his point.
She halfway expected him to stamp his foot.

He didn’t. Eventually the scowl disappeared.
He started nodding instead of shaking, and by then he had stopped
gesturing too. Now he ran his hand through his hair in resignation.
She watched as he dropped the cell phone into his pocket and stood
for a moment with his head bent. And then she stepped back,
instinctively, as Nick put his head back and looked up at the
facade of the Lady Hamilton. She didn’t think he could see her—she
hadn’t turned on the lights in her room—but she didn’t want to take
any chances.

She waited for him to walk away, but he
didn’t. Eventually—five minutes or more later—a car swung down the
street and up to the curb in front of him. It was black,
nondescript; a late model Volvo. At first she thought it might be a
cab—that he’d been calling for one, and been told he’d have to
wait, and that’s why he’d been angry—but although she had seen
plenty of Volvos and Saabs with taxi-lights since she arrived in
Stockholm, this one didn’t have a light.

A man got out, taller than Nick by an inch
or two, broad-shouldered and blond. They stood for a moment
talking, then Nick got into the car first. The other man stood for
a moment, looking up and down the street to the left and right, as
if making sure no one was watching, before he bent and slid onto
the seat next to Nick. But not before she’d seen him push his suit
jacket out of the way, preparatory to sitting, and at the same time
exposing the gun nestled in a holster at his hip.

“She’ll be fine,” Fredrik said, not for the first time.
“Relax.”

Nick nodded, although relaxing was beyond
him. He glanced out the back window of the Volvo, at the Lady
Hamilton Hotel, getting smaller and smaller in the distance. “I
wish there was more I could do.”

“There isn’t,” Fredrik said. “You can’t sit
in the hallway outside her room all night.”

Of course not. Someone would see him. And
the rooms to the left and right and opposite were already full, so
he couldn’t move into any of them. He’d considered telling the
receptionist to evict someone, just to open up a room for him, but
he had come to his senses before going to that extreme. As for
spending the night in a chair in the lobby... someone might find
that just a mite suspicious too.