Chapter Three
AURORA WAS ALMOST as surprised as M?rten looked when the words left her lips and she asked to be allowed to remain on the case.
She hadn’t known she wanted to stay and help with the case until he said it would be handed over to Dalstrom.
Her spontaneous request had been on instinct.
It would mean doing overtime, which M?rten would have to ask Rydberg to approve.
And it would also mean she’d have to get someone in to make sure her father got his dinner.
Drat, she hadn’t thought about that when she’d opened her mouth.
Nevertheless, she stood at attention, not letting any emotion show on her face as she waited for M?rten’s reply.
Aurora had watched as Jiro had paced around the small room, working out his agitation with movement.
She knew how he felt; she was also one who needed to keep busy, was constantly on the go, had been told more than once by her teacher when she was in school that she needed to learn to sit still.
A strange swell of pity had overtaken her as she studied him.
Pity and something else that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
She hadn’t been surprised when he’d suddenly removed his fleece and thrown it on the chair next to his jacket; it was boiling in here.
The surprise had come when she found she could barely drag her gaze away from those wonderful muscular shoulders, every contour revealed beneath a skin-tight thermal undershirt.
Aurora had never been one to drool over a man before, but heavens above, he was quite yummy.
With his dark hair falling over his forehead and his equally dark, tilted eyes flashing with concern, he was like no other man she’d ever seen before.
“If that’s what you want, Aurora,” M?rten replied, snapping her attention back to him.
“I can work it out with the boss. I’ll let Dalstrom know you’ll be joining his team.
I’m sure he won’t mind another pair of eyes to help with the search, especially seeing as how you have firsthand knowledge on this case for now. ”
“Thank you.” She eased out a breath. This was good. Now she was keen to get going. Keen to get out there and start searching.
“I want you to keep me updated. No matter how late it gets,” he said, placing a hand on her shoulder as she turned to retrieve her jacket.
She wanted to protest that she would be fine; she knew what she was doing.
But she understood she was still his responsibility, and he felt a duty of care toward her.
It was probably a small miracle he was letting her do this on her own.
But he knew how much she chafed at the bit with wanting to be a proper cop, and he was giving her a chance.
He would also know it was an opportunity for her to learn useful search and rescue skills, which was possibly why he’d asked her to come along in the first place.
She wondered what important job had called M?rten back to HQ, but didn’t want to ask in front of Jiro, so she went to take another step toward the door.
Jiro was still messing about putting his puffer jacket on over on the other side of the room.
“Be careful out there, Aurora. Please.” M?rten’s tone held a slight edge that had Aurora swiveling her head to look at him.
His Arctic-blue eyes flashed a warning at her.
Then he leaned in and said quietly into her ear, “There’s something strange going on here.
I’m not sure he’s telling the complete truth.
Keep an eye on him.” That made Aurora take a mental step back.
M?rten hated the term gut instinct. He didn’t believe in feelings or intuitions, only cold hard facts, and the wisdom of hard-fought knowledge.
So if he was telling her something wasn’t right, she would definitely listen.
What was it that M?rten thought Jiro wasn’t telling them?
When he’d been detailing their movements out on the farm, she hadn’t sensed he was making any of it up.
It felt authentic. But now that she thought about it, there had been a kind of strained tension around him whenever he mentioned his father.
She’d reasoned that away as pure fear for what might have happened to his father, but perhaps there was more to it than that.
Maybe she’d have a chance to figure it out better once they got to the property.
“Okay.” She nodded her agreement just as Jiro joined them, holding out her jacket for her.
“Are we going?” he asked impatiently.
M?rten shot him an unreadable glance. “Yes,” he replied simply, then led them out of the room. Aurora ushered Jiro through and followed behind, staring at the back of his head as he replaced his beanie, M?rten's words still rolling around in her mind.
* * *
The police cruiser snaked down the darkened road, the headlights creating a false bubble of light around them.
Outside of that bubble, it was pitch black on either side, even though it was only just past six p.m. A large storm had blown in last week, bringing with it the first real winter blast. And it’d been big, dumping six feet of snow, at least. The road had been plowed recently, and the drifts on each side were piled high.
A light snow had started to fall, and Dalstrom had turned on the windshield wipers, their soft swishing sound the only noise to break the silence inside the car.
Endless forest stretched out on each side of the road, but it was so completely black out here that if Aurora hadn’t been familiar with this road, she would never have guessed what lay outside the headlights.
Jiro sat next to her in the rear of the vehicle, staring out into the blackness.
He’d hurriedly stuffed clothes into a bag in his cabin, then followed her and M?rten off the ship without a backward glance.
No one had spoken in the twenty minutes it’d taken to drive out to the reindeer farm.
She could tell Dalstrom wasn’t all that happy with her joining the team; M?rten had been wrong on that count.
The detective inspector’s silence told her everything she needed to know.
She got the feeling Dalstrom might regard this mission as a waste of time; beneath his capabilities.
Which surprised her, she’d always thought he was a fairly honest cop.
A family man for sure; he liked to be home on time so that he could sit down and have dinner with his wife and children.
Perhaps that was it. Maybe it was as simple as his not wanting to have to do any overtime on this dark, wintry night, only a few weeks out from Christmas.
She wasn’t regretting her decision to stay on the case, but she found herself wishing that M?rten had been able to take the lead on this one.
He would’ve been much more proactive, and made it feel more of a teaching experience for her.
She missed his solid presence, but she guessed she needed to learn to stand on her own two feet if she ever wanted to become a proper cop.
Earlier, as they’d driven out of the underground car park at police HQ, she’d furtively sent a flurry of texts to her next-door neighbor.
Millie was an older lady, recently retired, who’d taken Aurora under her wing when she’d heard she was to become a carer for her father.
Millie had always said she would help with him whenever work took Aurora away from her duties at home.
Aurora wasn’t sure what she would do without Millie.
All she knew for sure was that she couldn’t keep relying on the older lady.
But she wasn’t sure what other options she had.
Her younger sister, Astrid, was of no help, as she still lived in Malmo, an eight-hour drive away.
Aurora couldn’t really blame Astrid for staying away.
Aurora was the one who’d moved from their hometown up north to Lule?.
Astrid had stayed and built a career for herself in journalism, working her way up the ladder and was now employed at Sweden’s second largest newspaper.
She was proud of her little sister, even though she could be exasperating and selfish at times.
At least she’d carved out a life for herself.
And at least she seemed unaffected by their traumatic childhood.
Probably because Aurora had taken the brunt of their father’s angry outbursts, but she didn’t begrudge her sister for that.
Aurora turned to look at Constable Moreau, who sat directly in front of her in the passenger seat, staring straight out the windshield at the falling snow.
He’d seemed affable enough when they’s first all got into the car, but when it became clear his senior partner wasn’t up for a conversation, he’d closed up as well.
Up until now, Aurora hadn’t had much to do with Moreau—a level five constable, and her senior, who’d been on the job for six years now.
He had a young family and was a solid cop by all accounts.
The other women at HQ all swooned over Moreau, and Aurora supposed his wavy, brown hair, dark-blue eyes, and pronounced cheekbones could be considered handsome if you liked that sort of thing.
Supposedly he’d inherited his good looks from his French father, as well as his French accent.
Even though he’d been born in Sweden, he’d spent quite a few years in his youth traveling between the two countries.
Jiro sat quietly in the backseat beside her, his head turned away, and she wondered what he was thinking.
His mind was probably focused on only one thing.
Finding his father. His shoulders were square and taut, his chin lifted, and he was surrounded by a tense aura of holding himself back, of remaining rigidly still.
She thought back to his pacing on the cruise ship and in the reception area and knew it must be hard for him to stay immobile even for this long.