Chapter One #2
“We were on some Lapland tour thing. We came in on the cruise ship last night, and this was one of those extracurricular day trip things.” The man waved a hand in the direction of the harbor.
“Oh, God.” He bent down and leaned his hands on his knees, sucking in more air.
“It’s all my fault. I should’ve stayed at the lodge with him and drunk akvavit, and not gone out to do that stupid ice plunge.
I should’ve listened to my gut and not to that idiotic tour guide, who told me my father was on the second bus and not to worry. ”
The guy sounded legit. And if it was true, then something needed to be done sooner rather than later. An old man lost in the freezing Norrbotten County wilderness wouldn’t last long.
“You need to stay calm, sir,” she said, peering over the edge of the desk at the top of his head. A head full of thick, dark, wavy hair that curled enticingly over his forehead as he leaned down.
“I’m trying,” he replied, but it was obvious he was struggling to breathe. He was going to hyperventilate if he wasn’t careful. And that was the last thing she needed—a civilian passed out on her reception floor.
With what seemed like herculean effort, the man regained control and straightened up slowly, fixing her with eyes as dark as the bottomless ocean. Wow. A girl could drown in those eyes.
She was suddenly aware that Erik still hovered at her elbow. “Erik, could you ask Inspector Viskten to attend the front desk, please?” This case might need more than her rudimentary expertise, and M?rten had good knowledge of the local area, including all the tourist traps and activity centers.
“What?” Erik had been staring at the man, watching with fascination as the drama unfolded. She guessed he didn’t get much action hidden away in the bowels of the building, sitting at his desk and staring at a computer all day. “Oh, yes, of course.” He left without further comment.
“Sorry,” the man apologized, standing up straight, obviously having pulled himself together.
“What else do you need to know? We have to start looking for him straight away.” He cast a quick glance over at the window by the door, then banged his palm down on the countertop.
“The sun’s gone already. This bloody northern winter, it gets dark in the middle of the bloody afternoon.
I can’t believe I agreed to come on a bloody northern exposure cruise.
I hate the snow.” These last comments seemed to be more directed at himself, so Aurora ignored his hand still resting demandingly on the countertop and moved on.
“Of course. Can I ask your name and the name of your father?”
“I’m Jiro Nashimori. My father is Kenichi Nashimori.
We’re both American nationals, and we were taking this cruise together.
It was his idea, said he wanted to see the Arctic Circle before he died.
” Jiro blew out a breath and looked at her expectantly.
When he stated his name, it confirmed her first thought that he was of Japanese descent, even if the olive skin, dark hair and slightly tilted eyes hadn’t already done so.
“Do you know the name of the place where your tour bus took you?” There were many tourist adventures and experiences to be had around Lule?.
They’d sprung up around the town for exactly the reason Jiro had stated.
Because of the lucrative cruise industry.
It brought hordes of tourists here year-round; winter was just as popular as the summer months because people could experience the polar north from the comfort of a luxury boat.
The tourists were fooling themselves if they thought they could embrace the real Sweden with one quick sled ride and a meal of reindeer cooked the traditional way on the open fire.
It was a farce, but it brought much-needed income to this otherwise isolated town way up north.
Aurora kept all her thoughts hidden behind a bland look as she waited for his answer.
“It was something like Lule? Adventures. They had activities like dog sledding, reindeer interactions, an ice plunge, you know, all those sorts of things.” Jiro didn’t know it, but he’d just described about half of all the tourist places within thirty miles of the town.
Most of them were family-run small businesses.
As Jiro finished reeling off the list of activities, the door opened behind her, and she breathed a quiet sigh of relief as she felt M?rten enter.
Without looking up, she knew his assessing gaze would be taking in everything about this distressed man at the front counter, and it took only a second for her partner to understand the mood in the room.
“I’m Inspector M?rten Viskten.” He reached a hand across the desk and introduced himself.
“I’m sorry to hear your father is missing.
Let’s see what we can do to find him.” M?rten peered over her shoulder, reading from the notes she’d taken.
Then he stood and fired a few pertinent questions at Jiro regarding where he last seen his father, what sort of mood his father had been in, if he was appropriately dressed for the cold—which Jiro assured him he was, as the tour had supplied them all with proper clothing—what was his father’s level of fitness, exactly what activities had his father partaken in, and was there anything Jiro could think of that might make him want to miss that bus?
All things she would have thought of to ask, eventually.
But it just reiterated how much she still needed to learn from M?rten’s experience and knowledge.
Jiro answered M?rten steadily, although she could see that he didn’t like the tone of the questions as his face hardened and his lips firmed into a thin line.
But he must’ve realized M?rten was only doing his job, and he held onto his temper, which put him up a notch or two in Aurora’s mind.
A lot of people—men especially—got angry when their motives were called into question.
At last, M?rten said, “Lule? Adventures. Hmm. I know the man who owns that place. Let me give him a quick call.” Aurora felt some of the weight shift from her shoulders now that M?rten had stepped in and taken control.
He would know what to do. Like he said, he knew people around here.
While he hadn’t been born in the town—much like her—he’d moved here as a rookie cop and stayed on to continue his career, rising up through the ranks to Inspector over the past twelve years, he’d become quiet well known amongst the locals.
She watched Jiro, his dark gaze fixed on M?rten as he picked up the phone and made the call.
He was no longer breathing hard, seemingly recovered from his mad dash into the station—had he run all the way from the docks where the cruise ships came in?
It was a good couple of kilometers, but a fit person could do it in around ten minutes. And he looked very fit.
Wearing a dark- blue Patagonia-branded torso-hugging puffer jacket that he’d unzipped when he entered the building, and black insulated pants, she could tell he had an athletic body underneath the cold weather gear.
Tall, at least six feet, she put him in his late twenties.
Beanie still in his hand, she noticed he wasn’t wearing gloves, and unless he had them stuffed in a pocket somewhere, that might need to be remedied before he went back out into the cold.
The temperature had peaked at -5C today, but as the sun set, it would only get colder, down to -20C at least. Tourists didn’t seem to understand how profound the cold was up here, and how quickly it could affect a person.
It affected fine motor skills first, and often took away their ability to think clearly, even before the first signs of frostbite or hypothermia set in.
She heard M?rten asking pointed questions to the guy on the phone in the background, but couldn’t hear the reply.
Jiro began to pace around the small reception area.
He glanced up at her, spearing her with his dark, questioning gaze.
Sudden heat shot through her as their eyes met, and she quickly averted her gaze, opening an Internet page on her computer instead, to do a search for tourist places in the area, in case they needed to contact them all to find this missing father. He went back to his pacing.
Unable to help herself, she peeked at him once through lowered lashes.
He wasn’t her type at all. He was too… Handsome.
Confidant. Too American. Admittedly, she didn’t know many Americans personally but the few she did know here in Lule? had all been overly optimistic and assertive, loud and taking up too much space—apart from Summer, who went against the stereotype and was none of those things.
She just wasn’t into all that testosterone-fueled self-gratification.
She much preferred the quieter, contemplative type.
Men who had a sensitive side, like Erik.
M?rten was suddenly at her elbow, breaking her reverie.
“Right. I’ve talked to Dávvet, and he has confirmed they ran a tour for the cruise ship this morning.
They had one-hundred-and-twenty-two people listed on the tour.
Two buses dropped them off around ten a.m. this morning, and they left again at one p.m., around two and a half hours ago.
But the farm never does an official headcount, so he can’t comment on whether anyone didn’t make it back onto the bus after the activities.
That is the cruise ship’s responsibility, he said.
There are no tours booked for this afternoon, and as far as he’s concerned, the place is empty, just him and his staff, and no one was left behind. ”