Chapter Five
AURORA SAT HEAVILY in her chair behind her desk and stared at Jiro.
It was late, and the constables she shared the office with had all gone home for the night.
They’d only been back at HQ for five minutes and she was already regretting asking M?rten to let her continue with this case.
Why did she always get carried away with things?
If she’d left work at the end of her shift instead of heading out to the reindeer farm, then she wouldn’t have just offered Jiro her spare bedroom for the night. Stupid, stupid.
“Thank you, I really appreciate this,” Jiro said, his ebony eyes shooting her a look of complete sincerity. “I’ll just grab my bag from reception. I won’t be long,” he added, casting her an anxious glance as if she might leave without him.
Aurora rolled her eyes at his retreating back. God, she was such a sucker. Just because a good-looking guy needed a room for the night, she didn’t need to be the one to extend the invitation. And yet she’d opened her mouth and let the words roll out anyway. Even after he’d been such a dick to her.
Jiro’s words from earlier still stung. When he’d called her out as being just a rookie cop who had no idea what she was doing, her self-assurance had taken a hit.
Probably because it was mostly true. She still had a lot to learn; a long way to go before she would make a decision without second-guessing herself.
Yes, she still relied heavily on M?rten’s guidance, but that was normal, wasn’t it?
She’d heard of young, green cops who’d been badly injured or even killed because they thought they knew it all and hadn’t listened to a more mature partner.
Experience was everything in this job. And she freely admitted she was severely lacking in experience.
But she was glad she’d shown initiative tonight by asking to attend the case alone.
She needed to step out of M?rten’s shadow at some stage.
On the drive back to HQ, Jiro had phoned numerous hotels asking for a room for the night, but they all said there was some kind of conference going on in town, and no one had any spare.
By the time they entered the police building, Jiro was checking Airbnb sites, but most of them seemed taken up as well, apart from the hugely expensive ones.
He didn’t say anything, but she could tell he was getting quietly desperate as she watched him tapping away at his phone.
She had a spare room. Kept mainly for when her sister came to visit, because she didn’t have many other guests.
It wasn’t big, and she wracked her brain to make sure she’d put fresh linen on the bed.
It made sense for her to offer him the spare bedroom.
If new details emerged about his father, she could relay them to him immediately, and he could get a lift back to HQ with her in the morning so they could start the search again.
Aurora tipped her head back to stare at the ceiling, biting her lip as she considered the pros and cons.
Her father was the biggest con. But then she couldn’t very well let Jiro sleep on the street.
He was alone in a strange country, worried sick about his missing father, and something about his predicament tugged at her heartstrings.
So she’d opened her mouth, and now she was stuck with him.
She’d already reported the basics of how the night had gone to M?rten—including Dalstrom’s strange behavior, and excluding the fact she hadn’t had his permission to talk to Dávvet—but now she sent another quick text to him, letting him know what she was doing.
She didn’t believe Jiro formed any sort of threat, but it never hurt to let someone else know what was going on.
Just in case. M?rten surprised her by replying almost immediately.
Don’t think that’s a good idea.
She thought about it for a few seconds before she replied.
He’s got nowhere else to go. All the hotels are full tonight.
There was almost a minute where the three dots kept scrolling before M?rten finally replied.
Okay. I trust you to be a good judge of character. I’ll keep my phone on just in case you need me.
A balloon expanded in her chest. It felt good to know someone had faith in her.
M?rten was giving her the benefit of the doubt, and that was why he was such a good mentor.
He allowed her to make her own mistakes and learn from them.
But he was also right there as backup if she needed it.
He was such a good man. Summer was one lucky woman to have him.
But that balloon quickly deflated as she remembered that Jiro was about to meet her father.
She wondered what kind of mood he would be in when they got home.
He would probably say something rude or inappropriate when he saw she’d brought someone home with her.
Especially because it was a man. Perhaps they should try one more time to find him a hotel room.
Nope. She screwed up her courage. Her father was living in her cottage.
She was taking care of him. She was doing him a favor.
Not the other way around. She had every right to bring people home if she wanted to.
He no longer had the authority to order her around like he had when she was a child.
Yeah, right. She just needed to keep telling herself that.
“I’m ready to go.” Jiro reappeared in her office doorway, his duffel bag slung over one shoulder. At least he seemed to travel light.
“Right.” She stood wearily and led him toward the underground parking lot to retrieve her car.
It was only an eleven-minute drive to her house on the outskirts of town—Lule? was not very big, as she’d already iterated to Jiro.
They drove in silence. Jiro had tried to start a conversation, but she was in no mood, fretting more than she would like to admit about how her father was going to take all this, and shoring up her reserve to deal with him.
It was only thanks to her mother that she’d been able to afford to buy a house in this northern town.
Her mother had come from a well-to-do family and had set up a smallish trust fund for her and Astrid when they’d been very young to make sure they were taken care of if something ever happened to her.
Which it had. Karin Karlsson had fallen through a patch of thin ice and drowned in the freezing water of a lake near their house eight years ago, almost to the day.
If she hadn’t set up the trust fund, neither of the girls would’ve seen a dime, as her father had squandered away everything else she’d left behind after she died.
Which was the reason he was living with her now.
Aurora could never figure out why her mother had married Karl; they were such complete opposites.
Her headlights lit up her house as she swung onto the driveway.
The lights from the Christmas tree she’d set up in the front window twinkled playfully, as if welcoming her home, and for a second her heart lifted.
Painted pale yellow, with white trim and a steeply sloped corrugated iron roof, the cottage was small and not in the best part of town, but at least it was hers.
She pulled her car into the single garage, which was attached to the next-door neighbor’s carport.
You couldn’t see it at the moment because it was dark, but the cottage backed onto a small body of water, Bjorsbyfj?rden, where she could swim and lie on the little beaches that edged the inlet in summer.
Well, she had done before her father had moved in, but now rarely found the time.
In winter, the inlet was iced over, and could be dangerous to the unwary, as the ice often didn’t get thick enough to walk on.
All the lights were blazing, which meant her father was still awake, and she clenched her teeth as she led Jiro up the ramp she’d installed last year to help her father gain wheelchair access to the front door.
As she pulled out her keys, she stopped and swiveled to face him.
He should probably be made aware of what he was in for.
“My father, Karl, lives with me, and has done so for the past year. He has early-onset Parkinson’s, and I am his carer.
” She was straight to the point, but silently wondered if she was actually doing Jiro a disfavor by offering him a room.
She gave a small shrug. At least Jiro could avoid Karl by staying in his room if he wanted; a luxury Aurora wasn’t afforded.
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t know. Are you sure it’s okay for me to stay with you? I don’t want to impose.” He took a step back and had to grab the handrail to stop himself tumbling down the ramp. So much for it being safer than stairs.
“You’re not imposing,” she reassured him.
“In fact, it’ll probably do him good to have some company,” she said with an ironic tilt of her head.
More likely, it might make him hold his tongue for once.
“I just need to warn you, the disease has made him… cantankerous. Don’t mind what he says; he doesn’t really mean it,” she lied.
She knew he meant every single word. And it wasn’t the disease that’d made him cantankerous.
He’d always had a mean streak. The disease was just an excuse to take his spitefulness up a few notches.
She took a deep breath and opened the door. “Fader, I’m home,” she called as she ushered Jiro into the mudroom.
She heard him reply in Swedish, “It’s about fucking time,” but ignored his lack of a polite greeting and showed Jiro where to stash his shoes and jacket.
The one silver lining to Jiro staying here was that he wouldn’t understand most of what her father had to say because he’d never bothered to learn to speak much English.
And she wouldn’t be translating for him.
He could catch the drift of most of what was said if people around him were speaking English, but he struggled to hold a two-way conversation.