Chapter 13
I’m tailing a murder suspect through the oldest streets in Stockholm, and I’d like the record to show I look fantastic doing it.
Gamla Stan’s cobblestones twist through the city’s medieval heart with all the logic of a ball of yarn after the cat’s had her way with it, and I’m navigating them while trying not to lose sight of Poppy Lindgren’s honey-blonde bob twenty feet ahead.
The air smells of fresh cinnamon buns and coffee drifting from the local cafés, mixed with that crisp Scandinavian freshness the Swedes really ought to bottle and sell. They could call it Cozy Delight. It would fly off the shelves.
Buildings in shades of ocher, rust, and mustard yellow crowd in on either side, their windows filled with hand-blown glass and Viking memorabilia. Tourists cluster at every corner snapping photos, and their voices create a multilingual hum that makes it easy to blend in.
Wes walks on my right, Marina on my left, and Bess and Nettie trail behind us, all five of us pretending we’re casual sightseers and absolutely not tailing a murder suspect through one of Europe’s best-preserved medieval city centers.
We’re nailing it, too. Nothing says inconspicuous like traveling in a herd.
Nettie spots a life-size Viking statue in front of a boutique and makes a beeline for it with the same focus she gives the lava cake station on formal night.
“Nettie, no,” Bess calls out.
“Nettie, yes!” she calls back, already wrapping her arms around the wooden warrior. “Look at the shoulders on this man. He’s been standing out here all day waiting for me.”
“We’re in public!” Bess scolds.
“So is he! And unlike the last man I hugged, this one can’t press charges!”
“He can’t consent either!”
“He’s four hundred years old, Bess. He’s seen things!”
Bess closes her eyes and lets out a sigh with real mileage on it. “Eighty-something years on this earth and she’s out here necking with lumber. I’d better go make sure she doesn’t assault any mannequins.” She hurries after Nettie, muttering something about no dignity and lots of restraining orders.
Ten bucks says Nettie has heard both of those phrases before and never gave either a second thought.
Poppy pauses at a coffee stand and buys a cup of java and a small bag of pastries, completely oblivious to the parade trailing her.
Wes nods toward an ice cream shop across the narrow street. “How about I hang out over there? Just promise me you won’t let her take you to a second location. And if she offers you a windowless van, I want a text.”
I make a face at him. “Very funny. I’ll stay at the coffee stand.”
Married to security, best friends with the captain, and I still get the stranger-danger talk. Somewhere out there, a milk carton is holding my photo in reserve.
He turns to Marina. “You up for a scoop of ice cream with me?”
“I’d never say no to the captain.” She gasps at her unintentional double entendre and slaps a hand over her mouth. “I mean, you know, ice cream. With you. A double scoop would be nice. Maybe triple. I’ll stop talking now.”
She’s blushing all the way to her hairline as they head for the shop, and Wes grins the entire way there. He didn’t even buy a ticket, and somehow the man has won the lottery.
A shower of silver stars erupts to my right as Magnus Darkwater materializes, every last sinfully gorgeous and thoroughly annoying inch of him.
“Alone at last,” he purrs, falling into step beside me. “Your devoted captain has abandoned you for ice cream with the redhead. Should I be jealous? I make an excellent consolation prize. Ask any of the four hundred women who consoled me. Several of them wrote songs about it.”
“I think I’ve got this,” I say under my breath.
“I could keep you company. Whisper sweet nothings. Perhaps nibble on your—”
“Magnus.”
“—ear. I was going to say ear.” The grin on him could curdle glogg. “What did you think I meant?”
I ignore him and quicken my pace toward the coffee stand where Poppy has just collected her order.
Dead Vikings. You can’t take them anywhere.
She turns, nearly bumping into me, her golden bob catching the sun with every strand behaving itself. The woman is impeccable on a level I’ve only ever achieved in dreams and one very lucky passport photo.
Her whole face lights up. “Trixie! We meet again.”
“Small world,” I say, laughing. “Or small medieval district, anyway.”
“Would you like to grab a cup of coffee? Help me eat these?” She holds up the bag. “Pepparkakor and drommar. Gingersnaps and dream cookies. I always overorder.”
“I’d love to.”
And yes, I’m aware I’m accepting baked goods from a murder suspect just days after a woman dropped dead mid-toast. In my defense, they smell incredible. Also, technically, a bench counts as a second location. Wes can lecture me later.
I order a caramel pecan latte crowned with a cloud of cold foam and a sprinkle of cocoa, a beverage that qualifies less as coffee and more as dessert with a job title.
We find a bench under a sprawling tree right as the sky decides to shift moods.
Clouds roll in from nowhere, the world goes slate gray, and the temperature drops enough to remind me I’m wearing a sundress in Scandinavia.
Poppy doesn’t seem to notice the weather at all, already opening the bag of cookies with a contented sigh.
We both reach in and pull out cookies that smell the way I imagine heaven smells if heaven were run by Swedish grandmothers.
The pepparkakor are whisper-thin and crispy, all warm ginger and cinnamon with a snap that echoes in your back teeth, the cookie equivalent of a crackling fireplace.
And the drommar simply give up the ghost the second they hit my tongue, buttery and delicate and dusted with pearl sugar, dissolving into a little cloud of vanilla that makes me want to write the baker into my will.
“Oh wow,” I mumble through a mouthful of cookie. “These are incredible.”
“Right?” Poppy grins, taking another. “I’m going to need a second bag before we leave Stockholm.”
If these cookies turn out to be poisoned, at least I’ll go out smiling and covered in pearl sugar. Honestly, there are worse obituaries. Most of them don’t come with cookies.
Magnus drifts closer, eyeing the cookies with open interest. “Surely you won’t miss just one.” He plucks one of the drommar straight from the bag, and the thing floats in midair for all the world to see.
Poppy’s eyes go wide, her mouth opening on what promises to be a scream heard clear back in Connecticut.
I lunge forward and knock the floating cookie directly into my own mouth, catching it with what I hope reads as intentional coordination and not a woman brawling with a ghost over baked goods. Which I so am.
“It’s a party trick I learned in college,” I manage, doing my best to swallow it quickly. “I toss it in slow motion. It gets ‘em every time.”
Poppy blinks a few times. “That’s... impressive. I’ll give you that.”
Although the expression she’s wearing suggests she’s about twenty percent impressed and eighty percent recalculating our friendship and perhaps her safety. I brush pearl sugar off my chin with all the poise the moment allows, which is absolutely none.
Magnus grunts beside me. “It’s thievery is what it is.”
Says the man who dug through a stranger’s bakery bag with his ghostly fingers. A thousand years in Valhalla and not one etiquette class between raids.
I turn back to Poppy. “So how are you enjoying the trip? You know, all things considered?”
She takes a sip of her coffee, and her brows pinch together while she considers it. “It’s surprisingly serene, actually. I know that sounds strange given what happened, but Stockholm is beautiful. I really think the group needed this.”
“I agree. How are you holding up?”
“It’s been rough.” She stares into her coffee as if it were about to forecast her future. “I can’t stop thinking about poor Astrid. I can’t imagine what went wrong. Has your husband heard back from the coroner yet?”
I shake my head. “Not yet. Do you know if she had any allergies?”
“No.” Poppy shrugs. “I mean, she could have. We weren’t all that close, honestly. I thought it might be a shellfish allergy or something since it took her out so quickly. It’s just a shame the way it all happened. On our first night, no less. Not that it would have been any better any other night.”
I nod. “Timing doesn’t make it any less terrible.”
We each indulge in another cookie. These are so good I’m going to have to beg the pastry chefs onboard to whip up a few batches. Regularly. Possibly under contract. I’ll have Ransom draw up the paperwork.
“So what do you do back in Connecticut?” I ask, helping myself to another cookie.
Poppy brightens. “I’m an interior designer. I have a little boutique firm. Nothing fancy, mostly residential work. Helping people make their spaces feel like home.”
“That sounds lovely,” I say, and it’s the truth.
“It is. I mean, it’s not saving lives or anything, but there’s something satisfying about watching a client walk into a finished room and just exhale.
As if they’ve been holding their breath for years and suddenly they can let it out.
It keeps me busy, anyway. Between the firm, the hospital gala committee, two charity boards, and whatever the country club ropes me into every spring, I barely have time to read the books we vote on. ”
Her version of busy comes with valet parking. Duly noted.
Magnus sidles up to Poppy, studying her with frank appreciation. “She speaks of creating sanctuaries. How delightfully domestic. I wonder what her own sanctuary looks like. Specifically, her bedchamber. I’d offer to inspect it personally. For structural concerns. I’m very thorough.”
He would zero in on the bedchamber. Centuries dead and still such a Viking.
“I love interior decorating.” I keep my face neutral through sheer force of will. “How long have you been doing it?”