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

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,