Chapter 5 #4
Skeet stilled, glanced at Chloe. She frowned at him.
“Swans have a reputation for being in exactly the right place at exactly the right time to acquire things that don’t belong to them,” Coco said.
Skeet’s jaw clenched. “Like Chloe’s phone.”
“With all your evidence conveniently stored on it. I’m not sure what her plan is, but it’s possible that phone is in Volkov’s hands by now.”
He blew out a breath. Chloe pressed her hands over her face.
“There’s more,” Coco continued. “I did some digging into Dr. Radi?’s hotel registration. He’s staying at the same hotel as you, three floors up. Room 1247. If you want to confirm what happened to him, that’s where you should start.”
“How do we get into his room?”
He could almost hear her smile. “Funny you should ask. Hotel security systems these days are surprisingly vulnerable to the right kind of digital persuasion. I could theoretically create a temporary malfunction in the electronic locks on that floor.”
“Theoretically,” Skeet repeated.
“And if someone were to accidentally walk past room 1247 during this theoretical malfunction, and if the door were to theoretically open due to a computer glitch, well. Sometimes technology fails at the most inconvenient times.”
Chloe looked at him, eyebrows raised.
“Do it,” Skeet said.
“Give me a few minutes to work my theoretical magic. And Skeet? Be careful up there. If Volkov’s people are cleaning house, they might have left someone behind.”
“As in lying in wait.”
“Watch your six.” The line went dead.
Chloe was already moving toward the door. “We should go now, before—”
“Wait.” He got up and caught her arm. “If Dr. Radi? is dead, this isn’t a fact-finding mission anymore. This is a crime scene. Which means we get involved, we become suspects.”
“Which is why we need to see it before they clean up the evidence.”
“And if we walk into another trap?”
She met his eyes. Something there made his chest tight. Not fear—determination. The same look she’d worn when she’d spotted Lynx, when she’d made the split-second decision to trust a stranger rather than let them get caught.
“Then we deal with it. Together.”
Together.
She smiled at him.
He didn’t know what to do with the sudden heat inside his chest. “Okay then. But we do this smart. In and out, fast and quiet. And if anything feels wrong, we bug out.”
“Deal.”
They waited in their suite while Chloe paced to the window and back, nervous energy radiating off her. When his phone buzzed with Coco’s all clear, they moved through the hotel corridors—taking the stairs instead of the elevator, avoiding the main hallways and security cameras.
Ten minutes later, they stood outside room 1247. Skeet’s phone buzzed with a text from Coco.
Coco
Theoretical malfunction in progress. You have ten minutes before hotel security notices.
The hallway stretched empty on both sides.
Skeet tried the door handle. It turned smoothly, lock disengaged just as Coco had promised.
This hotel room was identical to his—sitting area with sofa and coffee table, bedroom with king-size bed, bathroom with black marble counters and gold fixtures. Everything neat and undisturbed, as if housekeeping had just finished evening service.
“Stay close. Keep your eyes open for anything that doesn’t belong.”
They moved through the sitting area slowly, checking behind furniture and under cushions. The coffee table held only hotel brochures and water bottles. The bedroom was pristine—bed made with hotel corners, no personal items visible on nightstands or the dresser.
“Where are his clothes? His suitcase?” Chloe asked.
“Bathroom,” Skeet said, though his gut was telling him what they’d find.
The marble bathroom gleamed under halogen lights, towels folded with precision. At first glance, as spotless as the rest of the suite.
Then he spotted the soaking tub.
Oh.
“Don’t look.” He stepped between Chloe and the tub.
Too late—
Chloe made a small, choked sound behind him, standing frozen, her eyes on Dr. Marko Radi?, dead in the white tub, fully clothed, eyes staring at the ceiling with a flat, empty gaze. He lay in hazy water, blood dripping down from the terrible line on his throat.
“They did kill him.”
“Yeah.” Skeet crouched beside the tub, careful not to disturb anything. “Single laceration across the carotid artery. Precise and deep. Minimal defensive wounds on his hands. Water level just high enough to dilute the blood.” He stood up. “Professional work. Quick. Clean. And efficient.”
“How long has he been dead?” Chloe asked.
“Not long.” He stood up, stomach churning. “They must have come straight here after losing us.”
“Because he was going to expose them.”
“Because he was a loose end. And loose ends get people killed.”
She looked at Skeet, her eyes darkening. “This isn’t just about weaponized medicine anymore, or even about children dying in remote villages. Volkov is willing to murder anyone who threatens his operation.”
“We need to get out of here,” Skeet said. “Now.”
They backed out of the bathroom, leaving everything else as they’d found it.
“Dr. Radi?’s research,” Chloe said as they moved toward the door. “Everything he was working on, all his notes about the supplements and the children who died—Volkov’s people must have taken them.”
“Not necessarily.” Skeet checked the hallway, found it still empty. “Academics don’t travel with their only copies of important research. There might be backup files, colleagues who have copies, maybe even family members who know about his work.”
“His wife.”
“What?”
“He was wearing a ring.”
She was pulling out her phone. “If we can find his wife, maybe she has copies of his research. Maybe she knows what he was working on.”
“Chloe, if Volkov is willing to kill Dr. Radi? to protect his operation—”
“Then his wife might be next.” She met his eyes. “We can’t let her end up like her husband.”
The elevator doors opened with a soft chime. They stepped inside. As they descended toward their floor, Skeet’s phone buzzed with a text from Coco:
Coco
Security cameras will show maintenance worker entering and leaving room 1247. Theoretical malfunction concluded.
He texted her back with the update on Radi?, then turned to Chloe. “We have the resort location, we know Volkov will be there this weekend. We could go straight there, try to gather evidence of what he’s doing.”
“Or we could talk to Dr. Radi?’s wife first. Get the complete picture of what her husband was working on, what he discovered that made Volkov kill him.”
He texted Coco.
Skeet
Do you have an address and phone for Radi?’s wife? Possibly in Czech Republic?
The elevator stopped at their floor.
His phone rang.
“Wow, that woman’s fast,” Chloe said.
Skeet answered as they walked toward their room.
“Her name is Elena,” Coco said without greeting.
“But good news. She lives here in Thailand. Goes by Elena Thanakit. She’s Thai, married Dr. Marko Radi? fifteen years ago when he was doing research at Chiang Mai University.
She’s listed as working with the Mae Sot Refugee Health Initiative, about seven hours north of Bangkok. ”
“Same field as her husband.”
“Be careful.”
He pocketed the phone while Chloe opened the door to their suite.
“Then we drive to Mae Sot. Find Elena Thanakit and figure out what her husband was working on,” Chloe said as they walked in.
Skeet moved back to the window, thinking. Seven hours to Mae Sot would put them there around midnight, maybe later.
Then they had to locate Elena and convince her to talk. Then drive back to Bangkok to return the car and catch a flight to the resort.
Tight timeline. But if Elena Thanakit had worked with her husband on refugee health initiatives, if she’d seen the effects of whatever was making children sick in those border villages, she might be their best source for understanding what Volkov was planning.
“We should go now,” Chloe said, moving toward her adjoining room.
“Agreed.” He grabbed his duffel. He’d had to purchase his fancy duds in Bangkok, and now he changed clothes, checked to make sure he didn’t have any random blood on his hands, then emerged from his room to see that Chloe had changed clothes too.
Jeans, a T-shirt, and Cons. She wore her rucksack over her shoulder. “The question is whether we can gather enough evidence to stop them before they stop us.”
He didn’t like how she said that. As if: challenge accepted.
They descended into the hotel parking garage. A different level from where they’d been chased, but concrete walls and exhaust fumes brought back memories.
Yeah, he—they—should be on a plane to the States. Instead, he’d rented a small Toyota sedan—nondescript and reliable, the kind of car that wouldn’t draw attention on rural highways.
Because this was oh such a great idea. And to make it worse, Chloe had gone quiet.
“You okay?” he asked as they loaded bags into the trunk.
Chloe paused. Sighed. “Maybe, no.”
“Well, points for honesty. Most people would’ve gone with ‘I’m fine’ while their eye was twitching.”
She gave him a thin smile.
“Our plan could go a dozen ways wrong,” he said.
“So,” she said, “we’re either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid.”
Wow, she sort of read his mind there. Without thinking, he pulled her into his arms. “Hey,” he said softly, “for what it’s worth, you’re handling this a lot better than most people would. And you look good doing it, which is just unfair to the rest of us mere mortals.”
What? Oh, Skeet—too much! What was wrong with him?
She stilled for a moment, then suddenly melted against him, face buried against his shoulder.
And she smelled good too.
“We’re in this together,” he said quietly, lips close to her ear. “Whatever happens next, you’re not facing it alone. Plus, I make excellent company in life-threatening situations. I’m very charming under pressure.”
Shoot. Skeet, just keep your mouth—
“As long as you feed me,” she said, then looked up at him. Grinned.
Oh. Well. “Hope you like the Golden Arches, because this hotel tapped me out. And we didn’t even get to sleep in those extra-plush beds.”
She pushed him away. “Aw, you don’t sleep anyway. You sort of hover near sleep, like a cat.”
“I’m not like a cat. I’m a panther.” He got into the car.
She got into the passenger side. “Take me to Mae Sot, panther man.”