The cops approached the front door and yelled something in Icelandic that Aria could only guess meant “Come out with your hands up!” She glanced at the heavy, warped back door, which she assumed Olaf was going to try to use. It wasn’t open. Maybe it had an intricate lock system from the inside that he couldn’t figure out. Was he trapped? Would the cops find him? Should she wait? Or should she run?
She pulled out the international cell phone she’d bought for the trip and stared at the screen. She needed advice . . . but she couldn’t call Noel. With trembling fingers, she dialed another number instead.
Hanna Marin swam up out of her dreams and blinked in the darkness. She was in a long, narrow room. A picture of a stubby-legged horse hung above her head. Her boyfriend, Mike, snored next to her, his feet hanging outside the heavy duvet. The bed across the room, where her best friend Aria Montgomery and Aria’s boyfriend, Noel Kahn, were supposed to be sleeping, was empty. Hanna looked at the street sign outside the window. It was sort of in English, but also sort of in nonsense letters.
Right. She was in Iceland. On vacation.
Some vacation this was. What did Aria see in this country? It was light all the time. The bathrooms smelled like rotten eggs. The food was crappy, and the Icelandic girls were way too exotic and pretty. And now, as Hanna lay here, she was overcome with the most ominous feeling. Like someone had just died, maybe.
Her phone rang, and she jumped. She glanced at the screen. She didn’t recognize the number, but something made her pick up anyway.
“Hello?” Hanna whispered, clutching the phone with both hands.
“Hanna?” Aria’s voice sang out. There were sirens in the background.
Next to her, Mike stirred. Hanna slid off the bed and padded into the hall. “Where are you?”
“I’m in trouble.” The sirens grew louder. “I need your help.”
“Are you hurt?” Hanna asked.
Aria’s chin wobbled. At the front of the house, the police were trying to knock down the front door. “I’m not hurt. But I sort of broke into a house and stole a painting.”
“You what?” Hanna shrieked, her voice echoing through the quiet hall.
“I came here with that guy from earlier. He mentioned how a priceless practice painting of Van Gogh’s Starry Night was in a mansion on the edge of town. It had been stolen from a Jewish ghetto in Paris or something during World War II, and the thief had never given it back.”
“Wait, you’re with Olaf?” Hanna shut her eyes tight, recalling the uncomfortable run-in she’d had with Aria and that random bearded dude making out in the alley earlier. He’d seemed perfectly harmless, but Aria already had a boyfriend.
“That’s right.” The cops broke down the door. All six of them stomped in like storm troopers. Aria gripped the phone hard. “We both went inside to find the painting. I didn’t think we would . . . but then there it was. Then all these alarms went off. . . . I got out. Now the cops are here. They have guns, Hanna. Olaf is still trapped inside. I need you to come and get us on one of the back roads—we’ll cut through the woods and find you. There’s no way we’ll be able to take Olaf’s Jeep with all these cops here.”
“Do the cops see you now?”
“No, I’m around the back, in the woods.”
“Jesus, Aria, why are you still even there at all?” Hanna shouted. “Run!”
Aria glanced at the back door. “But Olaf’s still inside.”
“Aria, why do you care?” Hanna screeched. “You hardly know the guy! Run, now. I’ll get on the moped. Give me the name of the street you’re on once you make it through the woods, okay?”
There was a long pause. Aria’s gaze fixed on the whirling police lights. She sized up the woods behind the chateau. Then, finally, she looked at the house once more. Still no Olaf. And Hanna was right. She didn’t know him.
“Okay,” she said shakily. “I’m going.”
She hung up and sprinted through the woods, her heart pounding a mile a minute. She tripped over a huge log, breaking the heel of her shoe and badly skinning her knee. She slogged through a shallow creek, getting half her dress wet. By the time she was on the city road, she was cold and bleeding. She called Hanna, told her which street she was on, and collapsed on the curb to wait. She could still hear the sirens blaring in the distance. Had they found Olaf by now? Had he told them that she had been with him? What if they were looking for her?
When she saw Hanna on the moped at the end of the street, she almost burst into tears of joy. They rode back silently, the noise of the engine and the wind too loud for Hanna to ask any questions.
At the guesthouse, they opened the door as quietly as they could. Hanna turned on a light in the little kitchen and looked at Aria with wide eyes. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “We need to clean you up.”
Hanna pushed Aria into the communal bathroom, washed off her knee, and dug the twigs out of her hair. Tears streamed down Aria’s face the whole time. “I’m sorry,” Aria kept saying. “I don’t know what got into me.”
“You’re sure the police didn’t see you?” Hanna asked sternly, handing her a bath towel.
Aria rubbed her head. “I don’t think so. I don’t know what happened to Olaf, though.”
Hanna shut her eyes. “You’d better hope he doesn’t tell them you were with him. Because I don’t know how much I can help you, Aria.”
“He didn’t know my last name,” Aria said, placing the towel over the radiator and walking into the hall again. “Maybe I’ll be okay. But whatever you do, please don’t tell . . .”