Island Getaway, An Art Crime Team Mystery by Jenna Bennett Page A

and you follow Bridge
Road toward the airport...”
    Annika nodded, mentally filing away
directions to Gustav’s small red cottage with white trim as the
waitress went on. “Thank you.”
    “Don’t mention it.” The waitress went to
move off, but then seemed to change her mind. “Just don’t do
anything to upset him. He’s not as young as he used to be. And it
won’t do any good to dredge up the past.”
    “What past?” Annika asked, but by then it
was too late; the waitress had moved away to clear a nearby table.
Annika turned to Curt, who gestured to the door.
    “Shall we?”
    They may as well. They had finished their
meal, and Annika wasn’t about to accost any more strangers. She
headed for the door with Curt following behind.
    It had gotten darker while they’d been
inside. It was late enough in the year that the days were starting
to get long so far north, but it wasn’t summer yet. The sun had
set, and the sky was turning midnight blue with stars emerging
against the dark velvet. A slim crescent moon bathed the warren of
narrow streets in a pale, unearthly light, and Annika shivered as a
chill crept down her spine; part temperature and part just being
here, surrounded by the history and mystery of the place.
    Curt grinned. “How about a walk?”
    “Sure.” Did he really think she was going to
refuse? She’d even run out before dinner to pick up a cheap pair of
white canvas tennis shoes just for walking around Visby. The silver
sandals were beautiful, and she wanted to wear them all day every
day, for every occasion and with every piece of clothing she owned,
but she didn’t want to twist an ankle on the uneven footing, or
risk breaking one of the slender straps. The canvas shoes had
seemed the smarter choice.
    “Come along, then.” He set off down the
narrow street. Annika arched her brows and followed, more
leisurely, looking around.
    Visby’s nickname was “the City of Roses and
Ruins,” and there were plenty of both to be seen. In 1525, an
invading army of Lübeckers burned down all of Visby’s churches save
the big cathedral. Of the original seventeen
churches, only ten remained, and nine of those lay in ruins. Annika
could see the towers of the only remaining church, St. Mary’s
Cathedral, rise above the tiled rooftops of the houses, and nearby,
the ruins of St. Hans, St. Lars, St. Olof and St.
Nicolai.
    The narrow street they
traversed—more of an alley, really—was cobblestoned, with cottages
on either side. Stuccoed walls and half-timbered gables brought to
mind Bavarian chalets, and Annika was reminded again that Visby was
a Hanseatic merchant town until 1470.
    The climbing roses were
everywhere. Every house and building had at least one bush hugging
its walls; many had several. The air was heavy with perfume, and
Annika drank it all in, growing almost dizzy with the scent and
wondering again how her father could have lived here and left it
all.
    It was easily the most romantic
place she’d ever been. Yes, she’d thought the same thing last night
in Stockholm’s Gamla Stan—and Nick’s presence might have had
something to do with that—but Visby, with its fairytale setting of
half-timbered cottages and roses, and the star-flecked sky arching
high above, with the moon reflecting in the ocean... it was like
nothing she’d ever seen, or for that matter ever imagined
seeing.
    The only thing that would have
made it better was if she’d had someone to share it with. Someone
other than Curt, whose back was two car-lengths ahead of her and
getting further away with every step.
    For a moment her mind slipped back
twenty four hours to Gamla Stan and Nick. How different the evening
had been with him.
    It wasn’t just that he was
movie-star handsome, while Curt was... well, in justice to him, he
certainly wasn’t ugly. Nothing wrong with him, really. Under other
circumstances—before she met Nick—she might have thought he was
good-looking, in an average sort of way. Medium hair,