Island Getaway, An Art Crime Team Mystery (4 page)

But Astrid and Andy... Andy was down there
in Costa Rica, running his surf school; it wasn’t like anyone would
miss him if he took off for a week to go to Sweden with his little
sister. And Astrid was in Paris anyway, working on next year’s
collection of swimsuits. Would it have killed her to take a few
days to go to Gotland with Annika? So the three of them could carry
out their father’s wishes together?

But no, when she’d suggested it to Andy, not
only had he said no, he’d been rather rude about it. “Just toss him
in the Hudson River, sis. It’s not like he’s gonna know the
difference, is it? Where he is, he has bigger concerns.”

Annika wasn’t sure whether she’d been more
aghast at Andy’s suggestion about the Hudson River, or his
implication that their father hadn’t gone on to a better place.
Sure, Carl—Calle—might not have been the greatest father in the
world, but... “I can’t believe you said that!”

The only answer was a shrug she could hear
all the way from Costa Rica. And Astrid... well, she hadn’t been as
insensitive as Andy. Nobody was as insensitive as Andy. And she
had
told Annika to call her once she arrived in Stockholm,
just in case Astrid could get away for a bit. But it wasn’t the
same as having company and support on the way here.

If Astrid had been around, they’d still have
the bag with the ashes. They’d be in Gotland by now. Astrid
wouldn’t have made a fool of herself like that. Astrid had beauty
and poise.

On the other hand, if Astrid had been along,
Annika wouldn’t have met Nick.

Or maybe, if Astrid had been along, he’d
have asked
her
to dinner instead.

So maybe it was better that Annika was alone
after all. At least this way it’d be her he looked at across the
dinner table, and not her sister.

She bit her lip, gazing up at the blue dress
again. It looked expensive. Like it would cost more than she’d ever
spent on a single garment in her life. More than all the clothes in
her closet put together.

But if wearing that dress would make her
feel pretty, like she wouldn’t be out of place with a handsome and
dashing James Bond type... wouldn’t the price be worth it? It
wasn’t like she did this all the time. And she
was
on
vacation. She hadn’t brought anything along that was suitable for a
date. She hadn’t expected to go on any. Her suitcase was full of
boring skirts and blouses, the kind of clothes she wore to work,
and then a couple pairs of shorts—in case the weather was warm—and
jeans—in case it wasn’t. No pretty dresses. No dresses at all,
except for the one she’d been wearing on the flight. Black.
Shapeless. Mourning.

She needed this blue dress. And when she got
back to her Brooklyn apartment, and life returned to normal, she
could put it on once in a while and remember having dinner in Gamla
Stan with a man who looked like James Bond.

Or if nothing else, she could go inside and
find out how much it was. Maybe hold it up to herself to get an
idea of how it might look. If it wasn’t too horribly expensive and
seemed like it might look reasonably well, maybe she could try it
on. That didn’t mean she’d have to buy it. It was just to see how
it looked on. If she didn’t like it, she’d just hand it back and
walk out.

No harm in just trying it on, was there? And
she did need—want—something nice to wear to dinner. She didn’t want
him to be embarrassed to be seen with her. Even if he’d just asked
because...

She had no idea why he’d asked. And she
wasn’t going to find out unless she went. And to do that, she
needed a dress. This dress.

Taking a deep breath, Annika squared her
shoulders and pushed open the door.

When she came out ten minutes later, her credit card was emitting
screams of agony from the bottom of her purse, but she did have
everything she needed for dinner. Everything money could buy that
she thought might come in useful, anyway. The blue dress, with a
wrap to wear over it, in case the restaurant was chilly. A pair of
silver sandals that matched the silver threads in the wrap. Pink
polish, to put on her toenails. A pair of dangly earrings—the girl
had called them chandeliers, and that’s what they looked like—that
matched the dress and the shoes. A bracelet that matched the
earrings. She’d even let herself be talked into a set of new
underthings. Once the salesgirl found out that she was shopping for
a date, she’d wanted to make sure that Annika would be prepared for
any eventuality, and rather than ruin the illusion by explaining
that there was no chance at all that Nick would get to—or want
to—see her underwear, Annika had let herself be persuaded to buy a
pale blue lingerie set that the girl said would make any man drool.
If Nick did any drooling, it would be over the food, but the satin
bra was padded, and so did a little bit to plump up her own almost
non-existent assets, while the lacy panties were what the girl
called ‘boy-cut,’ which was a relief, since some of the things
Annika had seen had looked more like dental floss than underwear.
She imagined the lace might turn out to be a bit scratchy, but she
could live with it for a few hours. It wasn’t something she’d want
to wear every day, she imagined, but maybe next time she needed
underwear, she could move a step up from Hanes Her Way.

She could
definitely
move a step up
from Hanes Her Way, she decided two hours later, after putting on
the lacy panties, which weren’t scratchy at all, and the satin bra,
which did wonderful things to her chest. She didn’t exactly have
cleavage—she’d need implants for that, not just a new bra—but the
extra padding made her appear a bit better endowed, and that did
wonders for the slippery silk dress. It draped very nicely over her
enhanced bosom, skimmed her waist, and fit just right across her
hips, before falling to swirl around her calves. The silver sandals
were dainty and elegant without making it hard to walk, and the
chandelier earrings brushed her neck with every step. They made a
very faint tinkling noise that no one but Annika could hear, and
for some reason, that made her feel happy.

She’d learned long ago that her hair was
impossible. There was a lot of it, but it was incredibly soft and
had no body. It was as if she’d never outgrown her baby-hair. If
she cut it short, it turned flyaway, so she kept it long and
confined. For the occasion, she’d pulled the front and sides back
and secured them with a clip at the back of her head, while the
rest was left alone to flow down her back. Scraping it all back
into her usual severe knot just seemed wrong when paired with the
soft and pretty dress.

Nick had said he’d pick her up in the lobby
at seven, and he was right on time. The part of Annika that had
been worried he might not show up—because really, why would a man
like Nick want to have dinner with her?—settled down when she saw
him come through the doors from the street.

He’d changed, too, although the gray suit he
was wearing now looked a lot like the navy suit he’d worn earlier.
He’d replaced the white shirt with a pale blue one—almost as if
he’d known she’d bought this dress and he’d wanted them to
match—and he was without a tie. The shirt was open at the neck,
showing a triangle of warm skin, and for a second, it was all
Annika could do not to embarrass herself by gawking like a
star-struck teenager.

She’d seen her share of good-looking men.
New York City was all over actors and models, and most of them were
handsome. At the moment, however, she was fairly certain Nick Costa
was the best-looking man she’d ever seen. Tall, dark, and handsome
didn’t even begin to do him justice.

And it wasn’t just that he was
gorgeous—although he was. There was something else, too: something
in the way he held himself—confidently, but without being
arrogant—and in the way he moved—smoothly, like a black panther...
or a cat-burglar.

The thought made her realize that she knew
nothing about him. Just because she’d spun tales about him saving
bridges and companies and the world, didn’t mean he was one of the
good guys. Maybe he really was a cat-burglar. Maybe he was part of
a gang of purse-snatchers who targeted travelers and stole their
luggage. Maybe that’s why he was sticking close to her. He knew who
had stolen her bag, and he wanted to make sure she didn’t realize
it.

She bit her lip, waiting for him to come
closer. Wondering—a little belatedly—whether going out with him
would be a good idea.

But then he saw her and smiled, and just
like that, all her many conjectures went out the window. Annika
realized she didn’t care what he might have done or why he’d
insisted on taking her to dinner. She had the opportunity to spend
the next couple hours with him, having a nice meal in a nice
restaurant in a town she’d never visited before and likely would
never get to see again, and she was damned if she was going to let
stupid suspicions stand in the way of having a good time. For the
rest of the evening, she would simply enjoy being in Stockholm,
with Nick. Tomorrow was soon enough to return to reality.

Hot damn.

Nick had suspected there might be a pretty
girl hiding under the staid clothes and tightly buttoned
appearance, but until he saw her all dressed up and ready for
dinner, he’d had no idea how right he’d been.

She was lovely. Not flashy or obvious, like
the women he usually found himself going out with. The dress was
beautiful but demure. The light blue silk didn’t dwarf her fine
features and pale complexion the way the dead black had done.
Instead, it played up the blue of her eyes, still hidden behind the
glasses, and set off the flaxen sheen of her hair. The neckline
framed her face and throat, draped over her breasts, and skimmed
her waist and hips to swirl around her calves. She wasn’t wearing
stockings, and her legs were smooth and pale, ending in a pair of
strappy silver sandals. They had low heels, and that was fine with
Nick; he’d seen her legs when she’d been kicking around on the
baggage carousel earlier, and he knew she didn’t need any extra
help. If she’d shown up for dinner in four inch heels, he might
just have passed out from the excitement.

“You’re beautiful.”

He could hear the surprise in his voice, and
wanted to kick himself, but she didn’t seem to mind. A blush
started at the neckline of the dress and traveled up to her cheeks
and all the way out to the roots of her hair. Clearly it was a long
time since anyone had treated this woman the way a woman should be
treated.

Before he could say something else he’d
likely regret, he added, “Are you ready to go?”

She nodded. Looked like he’d made her
speechless.

“I made a reservation at
Den Gyldene
Freden
.” He put his hand against the small of her back, feeling
the silk slide under his palm, and guided her toward the outside.
“It’s just a few blocks from here. Would you like to walk, or
should I have the doorman get us a cab?”

“Walk,” Annika managed, and he couldn’t tell
whether she was afraid of spending the extra money or whether she
simply wanted to look around more. She’d spent most of the day
wandering, but it was a nice night, and they were in a beautiful
place—Stockholm’s medieval Old Town—so it could just be the
latter.

While they strolled along the cobblestoned
streets, he told her about the landmark he was taking her to. “It’s
located in one of the medieval buildings. And it belongs to the
Swedish Academy, the group that selects the winner of the Nobel
Prize in literature every year. The name of the place translates to
the golden peace
.”

She glanced up at him, a bit shyly. “You
speak Swedish?”

“My mother was Swedish,” Nick said. And
added, “And your father, I think you said?”

She nodded. “I don’t speak the language,
though. He never taught us. I understand a little Danish, but it
isn’t the same.”

No, it wasn’t. A native Scandinavian, like
Fredrik, could converse easily with people from the neighboring
countries, but Nick had always had a hard enough time just keeping
up with the Swedish. Once the Norwegians and Danes started talking,
he was lost. He knew there were similarities between the languages,
that they were close enough that the native speakers could
understand one another without problem, and he could recognize a
few words here and there himself too, but it wasn’t the same
language at all. Not to him.

“Why Danish?” he asked now, as if he were
just any old businessman who’d happened to meet a nice woman at the
airport, and not an FBI agent who’d already dug up as much of her
past as he’d been able to find.

She answered readily enough. “My mother was
Danish. She made sure we spoke the language for when we went to
visit family in Copenhagen when I was small.”

“But your father didn’t?”

Annika shook her head. “I don’t think I even
knew he was Swedish until I was a teenager. He never talked about
it.” She hesitated for a moment and added, “Now that I’m here, I
guess I could look into the family history. I’m sure there are
places I can go.”

Nick was sure there were too, especially for
a librarian. But he found he didn’t want her to realize that her
father had been a thief and a murderer. If she didn’t already know,
she had enough on her plate without that.

“Any word from the airport? Have they found
the bag?”

A shadow crossed her face at the change of
subject, and she shook her head. “Not yet. I can’t imagine what
anyone could have wanted with my father’s ashes.”

Nick couldn’t either. Assuming she was
telling the truth and that’s what had been in the bag. He still
wasn’t sure he could trust her.

In fact, looking at her now, all blonde and
blue and pretty, he was even less sure he could trust her. If she
could look like this, that dead black mourning she’d worn on the
plane had to be fake. Along with, he had to assume, the prim and
proper librarian she’d appeared to be back in Brooklyn.