Chapter 10 #2
Chloe’s stomach dropped. The spice packet. Tobias had used the entire contents for one bowl of soup. What if that was the source of the poison? What if he overdosed?
Tobias had been poisoned by eating the contaminated curry—he’d been right about that. But he’d been affected immediately, not later.
She looked at a curry vendor whose wok sent up clouds of aromatic steam that rose and dispersed into the humid air like visible heat waves.
The smell hit her like a revelation—not just the spices, but the way the heat carried the scent, the way steam rose and dispersed into the air around the stall, carrying particles of whatever was cooking in that oil.
Steam. Hot air. Particles suspended in the heat and carried on the wind to anyone standing nearby.
Wait. What if Tobias had been affected by the fumes? An overdose of fumes from one bowl of soup?
Which meant, what if whoever was behind this found a way to skip the eating entirely? What if they could put the toxin into a form fine enough to breathe?
“They can make it airborne.” Her pulse hammered in her throat.
They’d refined the poison. Fast-acting. The seasoning packets in the villages had been deadly enough when eaten—especially to children.
But this was something else entirely. The grinding machine .
. . They were making powder. Refined. Concentrated.
Weaponized into dust fine enough to hang in the air.
And mixed with hot water, it could be aerosolized.
Dispersed through a ventilation system and released into crowded spaces where people would breathe it.
People wouldn’t even know they were being poisoned.
“Selah. I have to go.”
“What? Chloe, what’s wrong?”
“I think I figured it out.” She put her sister on speaker, then pulled up Skeet’s number.
Chloe
I’m sorry, Skeet. I really am. I’m the fool for betraying you. Please meet me at the house—
A hand clamped down on her shoulder like an iron vise. Before she could turn around, something sharp pressed against her ribs through the thin fabric of her shirt.
“Miss Silver.”
She stilled at the voice, the cultured Eastern European accent.
“I think it’s time you and I have a conversation.”
Volkov took her phone from her. But not before she pushed Send.
“Let’s go.”
Run. But Volkov’s knife pressed her back, and his grip vised her arm as he pushed her through the market.
And shoot, part of her had thought—stupidly thought—she might get out of this.
With a great, award-winning story.
Aw, Skeet was right. So terribly right. What was her problem?
“Let me go,” she said, twisting away.
Heat flashed in her arm as the knife found flesh. He yanked her back. “Don’t think I won’t hurt you right here. Just another tourist robbed at the night market.”
And now she was shaking. He pushed her out to a black sedan parked on the street. Opened the door. “Get in.”
Inside the car, in the rear passenger seat, a woman with brown hair and terrified eyes pressed herself against the far window, still wearing the same blue dress she’d had on when she’d handed over the flash drive with her husband’s research.
“Elena,” Chloe gasped as she landed on the seat beside her.
“I’m sorry,” Elena whispered, tears streaming down her face. “I’m so sorry.”
“No need for apologies. Miss Silver understands the situation perfectly well.” Volkov settled into the front passenger seat.
The driver was a woman Chloe recognized—Volkov’s date from the resort. Dark hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail that emphasized the sharp angles of her face. She didn’t even glance at them as she pulled out into traffic.
“You have something that belongs to me.” Volkov turned to face them. Smiled. “Dr. Radi?’s research files. All of them.”
Right. The flash drive, in her laptop bag. All of Elena’s evidence, all of Dr. Radi?’s recordings, everything they needed to prove what Volkov was creating.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her voice emerged steadier than she felt.
Volkov’s smile widened.
The car turned onto a quieter street, away from the crowds of the market. Through the window, the glow of streetlights reflected off wet pavement.
“Here is what is going to happen.” Volkov pulled out a phone—her phone, she realized with a sick jolt. “I’m going to call your partner, Mr. Blackwood, and we’re going to arrange an exchange. The research files for your lives.”
“He won’t do it.” Chloe hoped she sounded more confident than she felt as her pulse hammered against her throat.
“Oh, I think he will. Mr. Blackwood strikes me as the sort of man who takes his protective instincts very seriously. Especially for his wife.”
Her mouth opened. Closed.
The phone started ringing on speaker. Her heart hammered against her ribs as she waited to hear Skeet’s voice.
And somewhere in the back of her mind, even through the fear that made her mouth taste like copper, a small voice whispered . . .
Be still.
Because what other choice did she have?
Air. Skeet needed air.
And distance. Enough that Chloe couldn’t see him fall apart.
Three blocks from the Airbnb, he found himself in Lumpini Park, stumbling toward a late-night coffee cart glowing under string lights. The vendor—weathered face, kind eyes—handed him Thai iced coffee.
“Farang look sad,” the vendor said in broken English. “Coffee help small bit.”
Skeet nodded, couldn’t speak past the knot in his throat.
Sweetened condensed milk swirled through bitter coffee. He found a bench under a banyan tree, away from the few late joggers and couples enjoying the starlight.
Fool.
Yeah.
He wanted to snatch back his words, all of them, the stupid heated conversation replaying in his head.
You’re dangerous.
He’d meant it, but not the way . . . shoot, not the way it had sounded.
Dangerous because yes . . . he would run after her. But he was made for that, wasn’t he?
I can’t trust you.
But she hadn’t betrayed him. She’d just been . . . well, doing her job, like she’d said. He took another sip of the coffee.
One mistake and we’re done?
Not a mistake, a broken promise, but . . . but maybe he shouldn’t have asked her to make that promise.
He closed his eyes against You make reckless choices that hurt people who care about you. He’d hurt her with that. Hurt himself, really.
“Yeah well, I’m done.”
Nice, Skeet. Real nice.
He pressed his palms against his eyes, but pressure couldn’t stop the slideshow behind his lids. Her laughing at the night market, daring him to eat crazy food. Her in a gorgeous coral dress, taking his breath away. Her running through the jungle with him, having escaped Volkov’s tree house.
The couple’s massage.
The kiss—both of them. One for show and one painfully, deliciously real.
So real it had made him—
“Thought I might find you out here.”
Ham’s voice cut through the white noise in his head. Skeet didn’t look up as the older man’s shadow fell across the bench, blocking the string lights’ gentle glow.
Of course Ham had followed him. The man never could leave well enough alone.
“I’m fine, Ham.”
“Sure you are.” Ham settled onto the bench. “I heard the fight. Those were some stingers.”
“I was a little rough on her.”
Ham went quiet. Then, “Yeah, well . . . I’m not sure I would be far off if Signe ran into trouble. And she’s a spy, a real, true-life spy that can handle herself.”
Skeet sighed. “I can’t get past the little voice in my brain that says . . .” He shook his head.
“Says what?”
He stared at his coffee. “That everything between us . . .” His throat closed. He swallowed. Tried again. “That it’s all been part of a game we’ve been playing.”
“Tell me why you think that.”
So he did.
Every detail from the village bombing in Myanmar to the conference in Bangkok to their fake marriage at the resort in Phuket to . . . “I keep telling myself that I wasn’t an idiot, but, but . . .”
“Broken promises.”
He glanced at Ham.
“A father who left, didn’t say goodbye. A woman you trusted who betrayed you. And now Chloe . . .”
“And now you’re a shrink.”
“It’s not hard math.”
In the distance, thunder sounded.
Skeet sighed. “I spent fifteen years thinking I wasn’t enough.” He finished his coffee. “Sort of thought this time was different.”
“You’re not disposable, Easton. That’s your wounds talking,” Ham said softly.
Oh, the boss used his big-boy name. He sighed. “Yeah. It’s hard to escape.”
Ham stayed quiet. Finally, “You know what I heard when you walked away from that argument?”
Skeet’s jaw tightened. “What?”
“A man who’s terrified.”
“I’m not—”
“Not of her getting hurt—although I understand that.” Ham turned, bench creaking under his weight. “You’re terrified because you care about her. Really care. And caring means risk.”
Skeet drew in a breath.
A siren wailed in the distance—sharp, insistent—then faded into traffic noise.
“I know you’re tempted to run,” Ham continued. “Push it away. A relationship—love—is complicated. And it’s easy to use offense as armor to protect yourself from getting hurt again.”
Yes.
And Skeet was sort of caught on the other word . . . love.
Aw. He might very much be in love with her.
“You have a choice. You don’t have to let fear make your decisions for you.”
The string lights near the food vendor swayed in the breeze. The scent of rain layered the air.
“The answer isn’t keeping her from doing what she’s doing,” Ham said softly. “It’s trusting that God will watch over both of you. Don’t give in to the temptation to go it alone just because you’re hurt.”
Skeet’s throat tightened.
“What if I can’t?” The words came out broken. “What if I’m not built for this kind of trust?”
“You’re probably not. Maybe none of us are. But that’s when you lean into the God who loves you.”
Skeet glanced at him.
“The same God who just maybe brought you into the life of a woman who can keep up with you. Challenge you. And . . . who needs you. Even if she won’t admit it.”