Read Island Getaway, An Art Crime Team Mystery for Free Online

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.
    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.

Chapter Four
     
    “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