Island Getaway, An Art Crime Team Mystery (12 page)

It looked deserted. The windows
were closed, reflecting the sun, and there was no smoke coming from
the chimney.

Not that there would be; it was a
warm early summer day, with clear skies. Annika was wearing shorts
and a T-shirt Andy had given her. Like yesterday’s jeans, she’d
never dared wear it before. Not until she was somewhere where no
one knew her.

The shirt was a little damp from
the walk. It wasn’t the kind of day when anybody in their right
mind would fire up the wood-burning stove.

And she’d slept late. By now it
was almost lunch time. Chances were Gustav was already up and out,
along with his metal detector. Off to the dunes looking for
treasure.

Looked like she’d come all the way
out here for nothing.

He would probably be back at the
tavern tonight. She could catch him then.

But as long as she was here—and
reasonably sure she was safe, and not in danger of being
attacked—she should at least go knock on the door. Just to say she
had.

The grass rustled softly around
her feet as she made her way toward the cottage. Out on the road a
car zoomed by, startling her for a moment. It was so quiet here,
away from the constant hum of the city—any city, even Visby, with
its refrigerators and street lights—that the buzzing of a big, fat
fly sounded obscenely loud in the silence. There were no electrical
or phone wires running to the house. Maybe Gustav didn’t have power
or a phone.

Or maybe he had a generator he
used for warmth in the cold winter months, and a cell phone. The
world had evolved considerably, even here on the edge of Sweden,
and it was hard to imagine anyone doing without those fairly basic
necessities. Her hotels—both the Valdemar and Lena’s—had had
wireless internet.

The front door was of heavy,
carved wood. She put her hand up to knock on it, only to find that
it opened smoothly on freshly-oiled hinges.

“Hello? Gustav?”

There was no answer. Surely he
hadn’t gone out and left the door open?

But maybe he had. This was
Gotland, where everyone seemed to know everyone else; or at least
enough people knew who the others were that things were pretty
safe. The crime statistics were low, crime novels and TV dramas
notwithstanding. Maybe it was the kind of place where, if your
neighbor came over to borrow a cup of sugar while you were out, he
or she just let himself in, got the sugar, and left again, with no
need to clear it with the home or sugar-owner. It wouldn’t never
occur to her to leave her Brooklyn apartment unlocked, or her
office at the college, but things might be different here. Just
look at the open door at the Valdemar Hotel last night.

She bit her lip.

If it was acceptable behavior in
this place to just walk in, maybe that was just what she should do.
And have a quick look around, just in case there was something to
see. A childhood picture of her father and Gustav, building
sandcastles on the beach or playing cowboys and Indians in the
ruins of one of the old churches. Or a note saying, “Gone to Visby;
back at one. If you need me, come to the tavern.” Something.

As the hum of another vehicle
sounded down the road, far away and coming closer, she turned back
to the door, pushing it a little more, deliberately this time.
“Anyone home? Gustav?”

There was no answer this time
either, just a buzzing as another big fly pushed its way out of the
crack in the door and swerved drunkenly past her face. Annika
swatted at it. Overfed ugly thing. Good thing it had left; she was
sure Gustav wouldn’t like something like that inside his
picturesque little home.

Giving the door another firm push,
she took a breath and stepped across the threshold.

Dammit, what the hell was she doing?

Nick had started his search for
Annika at the Valdemar Hotel. He knew she was supposed to be there;
after all, she’d called from there yesterday to let the staff at
the Lady Hamilton know she wouldn’t be returning. But when he got
there, the woman behind the reception desk—an athletic looking type
in her forties—said no, nobody with that name was staying with
them.

“She has to be.”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry,
Mister...?”

“Costa.”

“Mr. Costa, I’m sorry, but Miss
Holst left us last night.”

“Left? Why?” Was something wrong
with her room? The place looked nice enough—clean and
well-maintained—but he supposed the guestrooms could be threadbare
even if the lobby looked all right.

The woman hesitated. For a second
she reminded him of Annika, with her teeth sunk into her bottom
lip.

“Did something happen to her?” He
could hear the roughness of his voice, the edge of fear he wished
he didn’t feel. The edge of fear, of worry, that had followed him
ever since the airport. “Is she all right?”

“She’s fine. Nothing happened to
her.”

Good. He took an easier breath.
“She wouldn’t just up and leave for no reason. Did she meet someone
she decided to stay with?”

A family member they hadn’t dug
up? Someone who had known her father?

There was another beat while the
woman thought about the question. Nick resisted the urge to reach
across the counter and squeeze the answer out of her. He wanted to,
but it probably wouldn’t do any good. “Are you her boyfriend?” she
asked eventually.

He probably acted like one. A
jealous one, at that. “No.”

She nodded. “She did go out to
dinner with someone last night. A young American. Taller than you,
with glasses and brown hair.”

What the hell?

Nick was totally unprepared for
the wave of doubt and—yes—jealousy that washed over him at the
thought. She wasn’t supposed to know anyone on Gotland. Dammit, was
Fredrik right and he was wrong? Had she had an accomplice all
along, and now they had hooked up and were together? Had she picked
Nick up simply to keep an eye on him? She might have noticed him
following her. He was good, but if she’d been fooling him all this
time, obviously she was better.

He swallowed the disappointment
and disbelief. “This guy she was with. Do you know his name?”

She didn’t.

“So they weren’t staying here
together?”

The hotel proprietor shook her
head. “He picked her up in the lobby before dinner. They didn’t
seem like lovers. He didn’t kiss her.”

That shouldn’t have been as much
of a relief as it was. He should be more worried about the fact
that she might be a party to smuggling a fortune in silver across
continents. But dammit, he hadn’t had a chance to kiss her properly
himself yet. He’d held back when he wanted to. He didn’t like the
idea that someone else might get there first.

Yeah, that was it. That was all it
was.

“Did something happen at dinner to
change her mind about staying here? Did she,” he had to swallow,
“come back and check out to join him wherever he’s staying?”

The woman behind the counter
contemplated him for a moment before she sighed. “We had a mishap,”
she said, her voice resigned.

Finally they were getting
somewhere. Nick leaned an elbow on the counter. “What kind of
mishap?”

“I wasn’t in the lobby when she
came back. We close up at eight. She wasn’t back until closer to
ten. The door’s open, but nobody’s out front.”

That didn’t seem like a smart way
to do business, but this was Gotland; Nick didn’t say anything
other than an encouraging murmur of, “M-hm.”

“I was in the back when she came
running down the stairs.” She gestured to the back of the building,
to where he assumed her private quarters were. “She hammered on my
door until I opened it, and then told me that someone had been in
her room.”

Nick straightened so quickly he
almost gave himself whiplash. “Someone had been in her room?”

That was a little more than a
mishap, if you asked him. A mishap was a knob accidentally falling
off the door or the toilet refusing to stop running. A break-in was
on a different level entirely.

“I have no idea what happened,”
the proprietor said, and she sounded somewhere between confused and
angry. “We’ve never had that kind of thing happen here before. But
someone had definitely been in her room. Clothes all over the
floor, the bed torn apart. Unless she’d done it herself before she
left, but she didn’t seem like the type.”

Nick shook his head, although
really, what did he know?

“She seemed scared,” the woman
continued. “And she couldn’t stay there. Someone had gone at the
mattress and pillows with a knife.”

No kidding? That might scare him
too.

“So where did she go?”

The woman twisted her hands. “I
called my friend Lena. She has a small place up near the north
gate. Not a real hotel, not really, but she rents out rooms from
time to time, when things get crazy. She had one available.”

“So Annika... Ms. Holst went to
stay there?”

“I assume that’s where she went.
She left here a bit after ten, with her things.”

“Alone?”

The woman nodded. Nick bit back a
few choice words and the suggestion that maybe someone should have
made sure she got where she was going safely. “What did the police
say?”

She flushed. “I didn’t call
them.”

She...
what
? “Why?”

“She didn’t ask to see the police.
She said nothing was missing. And I didn’t want the hassle.”

Nick took a breath. And
another one. And thought,
to
hell with it
. “So you sent this girl,
this
American
girl, who’s never been here before, who doesn’t know Swedish,
and whose room had just been vandalized, out on her own at night to
find her own way to somewhere else she could stay—just because you
didn’t want the hassle of calling the police?”

“She said she was all
right...”

Sure. Well, what else was
she going to say?
I’m scared and
I’d like someone to take me there, please?
She wouldn’t. She’d done her best to tell him not bother with
her after she was hurt on the baggage carousel two days ago; she
wouldn’t ask someone to walk with her just so she wouldn’t be alone
and scared.

“Where is this place? Lena’s?”

The woman took an actual step back
at the snarl in his voice, and Nick made an effort to gentle his
tone. “Please. I need to see her and make sure she’s all
right.”

“I don’t know...”

“It’s a little late to worry about
her safety, isn’t it? But I can come back with the police, if you
want.”

She sighed. “That won’t be
necessary. Just... “ She scribbled an address on a piece of notepad
paper, “—take it and go.”

With pleasure.

Nick gave her a curt nod and
wheeled his—Annika’s—suitcase back outside, barely noticing the
beauty of his surroundings as he made his way through the narrow,
winding streets toward the north gate, stewing in his thoughts.

Lena turned out to be another fortyish woman with short-cropped
hair and an athletic build. She was a bit stockier than her friend,
and reminded him of a phys-ed teacher he’d once had. But her smile
was genuine. “Can I help you?”

Nick pulled the suitcase to a stop
just inside the door. “I’m looking for Annika Holst.”

A pair of blue eyes assessed him.
“Kiki send you?” She didn’t wait for an answer, just added, “She
isn’t here.”

Of course not. “Where is she?”

“Went out,” Lena said, with a wave
of her hand.

“Alone?”

Lena shrugged.

“Any idea where she went?”

He expected a no, that Annika had
simply gone out to see the sights, so it was a surprise when Lena
said, “Sure. She double-checked the directions with me.”

“What directions? Where?”

“She went to see someone,” Lena
said. “A man named Gustav. He lives a few kilometers from here,
outside town.”

“How long ago did she leave?”

She’d left more than thirty
minutes ago, at about the same time he was making his way off the
ferry.

“She must be getting close by
now,” Lena added.

“It’s that far?” Nick shook his
head. “Never mind. Any idea where I can get a car? Or something
else that drives?” He’d never catch up on foot, that was for
sure.

“I have a bicycle you can borrow,”
Lena said.

Hell, it was better than nothing.
“Great. I’m gonna need a room for tonight too. Mind if I leave this
here?” He gestured to the rolling suitcase and overnight bag.

“I’ll take it up for you. Let me
show you the bike.” She looked him up and down for a second. “You
may want to take off the jacket. It’s hot out there today.”

It was. He should have stopped on
his way through town to pick up that pair of jeans and T-shirt he’d
contemplated—or better yet, a pair of shorts—but it was too late
now. So he shrugged out of the jacket and draped it over the
suitcase, and while he followed Lena to the backyard, he unbuttoned
his cuffs and rolled the sleeves of his shirt up his forearms. It
wasn’t much, but it would have to do.

The bike was made for a
woman.
Of course it
is
. It was bright red, with puffy tires, and
to add insult to injury, it had a little basket hanging off the
handlebars in the front, to carry groceries or maybe a small dog.
The basket was lined with fabric. And although Lena wasn’t a small
woman, her legs were considerably shorter than his, and the bike
was quite a bit too low for him.

“You can adjust the height right
here.” She pointed to a spot just under the seat.

Nick shook his head. “Thanks, but
I think I’d better just get going. It’ll be fine.”

She nodded. “She’s all right,
isn’t she? She seemed like a nice girl. I’d hate to see anything
happen to her.”