He was due to pick up Karla Lokosh in an hour at the Crowne Plaza, a business hotel just off the interstate. A choice that implied Bill Flynn didn’t make his Bridgetrust team travel on the cheap, but he wasn’t going to spring for the Fairmont Olympic either.
He showered and thought about what to wear. Shaw had forced himself to acquire some clothes other than jeans and work shirts during the past few months. Dating Wren had been part of that decision. She dressed well whenever they went out, which he perceived as her way of showing a kind of respect, for the occasion as well as for him. He’d wanted to meet her halfway.
The night was warm. He picked a plaid shirt in muted red, gray trousers, and a dark blue lightweight jacket. Addy had proclaimed it a Harrington jacket, which he’d had to look up. Shaw didn’t think he looked much like James Dean in it, but it fit across his shoulders, and that was good enough. Shaw had never liked dress shoes. He was accustomed to hiking boots or running shoes, anything that he could move in. Hard soles on dress shoes slipped, and rubber ones looked like a cop’s footwear. He compromised by finding chukka boots with crepe rubber soles and working conditioner into the leather for a week until the boots were as flexible as fabric.
He drove to the Crowne Plaza and found a spot at the curb. As he walked toward the hotel, a text chimed on his phone.
I’m in the lobby. K.
The Plaza lobby was a two-level atrium. On the upper level, bar tables made a line along the railing overlooking the entrance. Karla was seated alone on the left side, typing into her phone.
As Shaw came off the elevator, a waiter removed two half-empty wineglasses from her table. She looked up from signing the bill and smiled.
“That was fast,” she said.
“I’m early. I figured I’d have time to hang around and make the concierge nervous.”
“I just finished meeting with Morton.” She waved with her free hand, What can you do? “He’s brilliant at his job, but it’s like pulling teeth with chopsticks to get him to tell you something. And when he does . . .” She shook her head.
“He’s a jackass?”
“A condescending jackass. And clients feel it, too. Once we’re home from this job, I’ll recommend we toss him out with his used vape cartridges.”
“You speak your mind.”
“Yes I do. And I trust you. Even if you had a reason to throw a wrench into this deal with Droma, I don’t think you would.”
“Not if they’ve been straight with me.”
Karla looked at him quizzically. “You say that like they haven’t. Is there something I should know?”
“Yes, but it’s a longer story. Shop talk over dinner?”
“Great. Wine on an empty stomach isn’t my usual habit.”
She stood up. She wore an emerald-green cowl neck blouse with a skirt that was short enough to show off graceful knees and an inch of thigh as a bonus. Like Shaw, Karla had chosen footwear for comfortable walking, some sort of combination shoe and sandal. The low heels put the top of her red curls near Shaw’s chin.
“We can find good food almost anywhere,” he said. “You’re the sightseer. What sights would you like to see?”
The corner of her mouth turned up. “Take me somewhere touristy. The cheesier the better. What’s that place where they throw fish?”
“The Market. But the fish will be grounded by now. Salmon are morning fliers.” He jabbed a thumb in the direction of downtown. “We could walk the waterfront, plenty of souvenir shot glasses and snow globes made with Mount St. Helens ash down there. Or the Space Needle.”
“Yes. Perfect.”
They walked out of the hotel and down to the car. Karla tilted her head at the sight of the Barracuda, with its gleaming paint the color of an old penny and its black vinyl top.
“A muscle car,” she said.
“Happenstance,” said Shaw. “I needed a vehicle. The owner’s heir was letting this go.”
“Handy when Smokey’s on your tail, I’ll bet.”
He grinned and opened the passenger door for her. “Yeehah.”
They parked the car in a lot across from the blobby red façade of MoPOP, the museum for pop culture. By the undulating bronze walls at its north end, Karla stopped at the statue of Chris Cornell. Shaw pointed out the monorail speeding toward them on its elevated track. It hissed past, a dragon on urgent business.
The Needle stood almost directly behind the museum. Karla inhaled as she leaned back to take in the sight.
“It’s . . . delicate,” she said. “Amazing.”
Shaw looked at the spire. He’d seen it half the days of his life, it seemed. Often from an angle just like this one, when he would mess around Seattle Center as a kid. Just another part of the landscape. A big tree in the backyard.
The summer-evening crowd around the Needle was thick with families, the kids tired and complaining after a day of activity and the parents anxious to be on the observation deck in time to see the sunset. Shaw and Karla opted out of the line and bought tickets for two hours later. They walked three blocks south to Denny Way and a Thai restaurant Shaw knew.
“Sebastien Rohner offered me a job,” Shaw said once they’d ordered and poured tea.
“Really? I thought . . .” Karla mimed breaking a twig.
“That was my impression, too. That Droma wouldn’t trust me to change the soap in the company bathrooms. But Rohner said he liked how I handled the trouble with Nelson Bao. A two-year contract as their new security chief and an apology from the man himself rolled into one.”
“That’s wonderful. So you and I will be working together.”
“Nope. If I take the job, I’ll be on a plane tomorrow for Budapest.”
“What’s in Budapest?”
“Goulash? Rohner was a little vague. Site security for a new client was as far as he would go until I sign the papers.”
“Ah, those lovely NDAs.” Karla blew on her tiny cup of tea.
“Have you heard whether their deal with Jiangsu is going to continue?” said Shaw, thinking of Chen Li making off with Zhang’s passports and the little vial of chemical.
“We hope so. It’s up to Mr. Chen. He has to come to the table and prove viability.”
“Viability to do what?”
“To create a product with a decent ROI. Return on investment. Within three to five years, ideally. Chen’s company is expanding now because they say they have a breakthrough, or at least a good shot at one, theoretically. Nelson Bao was brought in to talk through the details on Chen’s innovation. Morton’s here to explain it to us laypeople.”
That would explain the laboratory, if they’d intended to demonstrate some part of the chemical reaction or whatever that Chen had invented. And it would certainly explain the secrecy.
“I’m guessing you can’t tell me what this innovation is,” Shaw said.
“I can’t. It’s proprietary information for Bridgetrust Group. But even with that, I hardly know anything beyond a cursory description. The conference at the island didn’t get too far.”
“So what happens now? Chen brings another chemical engineer from Hong Kong to replace Nelson?”
Karla’s eyes widened. “If we’re being detached about it, yes.”
“Sorry if that sounded cold. If I’m going to be Droma’s new security chief, my first concern is for the safety of the next guy in line.”
“I thought Nelson died by accident.”
“Rohner says that theory isn’t holding up. The cops are looking at Warren Kilbane now.”
“Oh, my God. Why would he have killed Nelson? He’d barely met him.”
The food came. They both let the plates sit.
“I didn’t have a clue before,” Shaw said. “But from what you’ve told me, now I’m wondering how much Kilbane knew about the pending deal with Chen. If he was going to get canned from Droma, maybe he came back to the island looking for information on Chen’s breakthrough. A formula, a design spec, anything that might help him sell the innovation to another manufacturer.”
“And Kilbane found Nelson Bao. Could he have forced Nelson to tell him the details? Or . . .”
“What?”
Karla looked at him, her hazel eyes doubtful. “If Bill knew I was talking about this, I’d be as finished as Morton . . .” She sighed. “Chen’s team brought a sample of . . . of a chemical they’d created to the island. Morton and Bao weren’t only there to talk about the process—they had planned to do some actual tests. Preliminary assessments, but enough to build some confidence that Jiangsu Manufacturing had the goods.”
Shaw thought of the vial of chemical at Bao’s. Had that vial been the sample? Or just one of multiple batches? Chen might have brought a gallon of the stuff from his manufacturing plant.
“Could Bao have been carrying some of the chemical on him?” he said.
“I don’t know. Once Nelson was found, Mr. Chen and that tough guy Zhang just clammed up. I’m not even sure they talked with the Rohners. I know Chen didn’t tell Bill what was going on. Only that they would be in touch soon. My boss is chewing his nails off. He wants answers, and Sebastien doesn’t have any to give. I’m talking too much.”
She looked at the restaurant. No one was seated near them, and the staff was well out of earshot, which Karla likely knew, but her glance seemed more from nerves than any real concern.
“Whoever has that chemical sample—if it was taken—is holding something that could ruin the deal if it’s not returned,” she said.
“It’s that critical?”
“A career maker. No, a company maker.”
“Can’t Chen just whip up more of it?”
“Sure. But if the sample falls into other hands, like a rival manufacturer, then they might reverse-engineer the formula. It becomes a race to see who can perfect the product and provide the details to apply for a patent. A company has to provide rafts of testing data, which can take months or years. They must prove its marketability or utility, too. A big corporation could put a lot of resources behind that race.”
Shaw understood. Secrecy was paramount until Chen got his backers and made enough progress to outpace any competition. Rohner’s job offer and the gag order that went with it were making more sense. Maybe the hasty travel plans, too.
“If Kilbane did steal the chemical,” Karla said, “the smart thing to do would be to offer it back. He could conceivably get more money by selling it to a rival company, but it’s a bird in the hand. Chen would pay very well just to keep it safe.”
She looked at her bowl of red curry. “I guess we should eat. Though I’ve lost some of my appetite.”
“Let’s change the subject. Tell me about growing up in Boston.”
They talked through the meal. Shaw learned Karla was thirty-two and had been divorced six years from a guy who sold commercial real estate. She and her husband had both had enough doubts about the marriage to put off having children. She made use of her background in dance by teaching classes for kids and teens at a local studio. Shaw told her some of the more socially acceptable parts of his history, including adjusting to civilian life after the Army. They agreed that good things came out of those unexpected swerves in life, but at the time they were a bitch and a half.
“Are you seeing anyone?” he asked.
The left corner of her mouth turned up again. Shaw was growing to like that expression of hers. It hinted at sly humor.
“For once I’m not the first to ask,” she said. “Nothing serious. You?”
“One thing serious. But not exclusive, and it’s not going to be.”
“Huh. Is that her choice or yours?”
“Started as hers. I think we’ve come around to both of us. The relationship works.”
Karla nodded. “Well, that’s the prize. It’s hard enough just creating something functional. I’ve tried.” She toasted that sentiment with tea.
Shaw neglected his food to watch her as they talked. When Karla told a story, she committed. Her mouth was wide. She had a habit of tucking the locks of her red hair behind her right ear when she said something even mildly risqué. He was so wrapped up in their conversation they nearly overshot their ticket time. The sun had set by the time they left the restaurant. Karla took Shaw’s arm while they walked quickly back to the Needle and gripped it tight as the elevator whisked them skyward to the observation deck.
They stood at the rail on the western side for a time, just looking. A few last paint strokes of silver hovered over the Olympic Mountains. The rest of the sky had become a precarious balance of blues: midnight for the clouds, navy to match Lake Union to the east, and sapphire for the open horizon ahead. The truce was short-lived. Even as they watched, the blues bled into a more uniform charcoal gray, like a blackboard wiped with a sponge at the end of the day’s lessons.
Karla tugged Shaw downstairs to the showpiece of the renovated landmark, a revolving glass floor with a view of five hundred vertical feet to the pavement. They looked down past their shoes at the gilded glow of the streetlights and the brighter ant-farm paths of traffic, until the inexorable movement of the floor, shifting a single degree every ten seconds, gave them vertigo.
“That’s not fair, Van. You promised me a tourist trap.” Karla looked out at the horizon. “This is beautiful. How often do you come here?”
“This is it. First time.”
“How is that possible? You grew up here.”
“How many people in Cairo never visit the pyramids? You’re here, you see it every day, going up to the top seems redundant.”
“Huh. Well, I got you to try something new.” She grinned. “And I’m buying the drinks to celebrate, since you bought the tickets. C’mon.”
They discussed possible bars while waiting for the elevator. Shaw asked what Karla liked to drink, and the revelation that they both leaned toward whiskeys, neat, led them to talking about favorite bars in their pasts.
Karla was also doing a more direct kind of leaning, pressing softly against Shaw’s arm. The crowd for the elevator wasn’t so tight as to demand such close contact. Her hair smelled faintly of cloves and a flower he couldn’t place. A rose, maybe, like on the island. He found himself inhaling slowly.
“We could just buy a bottle . . .” he said.
“And take it back to my room.” Karla raised a skeptical eyebrow, but the twist at the side of her mouth was back. “Is that what you had in mind?”
“That’s in my mind. Yeah.”
Karla tilted her head up to whisper in his ear. “Okay. But I pick the poison.”
Karla’s room was on the fifteenth floor, with a view of the interstate winding its way out of downtown. She kept most of the lights off so they could enjoy the diffused orange radiance of the city coming in through the window. They drank, and talked, and then without more discussion set their glasses down at the same time and began to kiss.
She undressed with a kind of urgency. Shaw helped with her skirt, sliding it down and off her elegant legs as she leaned forward and caressed the muscles of his back with her fingers. When he stood up, she kept her arms around his neck, and it was the easiest thing in the world to lift her and carry her to the bed.
Naked, their paces met and matched. They drew their hands over each other, finding the places that evoked low, trembling reactions and circling back to them a little faster each time. Karla moved sinuously, without apparent effort. Gliding with his movements. Shaw wondered briefly whether her fluid harmonization was a by-product of her dance training, before what she was doing to him made any coherent thought impossible.
He woke much later. The tangerine glow from outside had dimmed as wind swept the overcast sky. No clouds to catch and hold the light. He stared at the black wedge of night for a time. Karla lay beside him, breathing the easy rhythm of deep sleep, the bedsheet pulled so far up her body that only her feet and a tangle of red locks showed.
Shaw rose and went to the bathroom. He closed the door before flipping the broad switch and squinted in the aggressive brilliance of the mirror bulbs. The water was cold out of the tap. He splashed his face and shoulders. An assortment of folded towels had been left by the housekeepers on a rack above the toilet. He took one and dried himself, looking idly at the collection of makeup and other sundries that covered the narrow shelf below the mirror. Karla invested in higher-end cosmetics.
Her travel kit hung from the back of the bathroom door, atop the hotel robe. A plastic card was tucked into one of the mesh pockets; Shaw recognized the edge of the purple-and-blue logo of a national chain of gyms, whose selling point was being open around the clock in every location. No photo on the back, just a magnetic strip and a bar code and a name at the bottom in block letters. The name wasn’t Lokosh. He drew it out to look. haiden, k.
Haiden. Karla had been married. The card looked new. Maybe she used her maiden name for her professional life and her married name for personal stuff, or vice versa. Seemed complicated, but then Shaw didn’t have to worry about privacy and safety in the same way that a woman did.
He set it back in the travel kit and returned to the bed. A couple more hours of rest, and he would leave his car where it was and walk up the hill to see how Addy was doing with her friend Penelope.
Karla rolled to nestle against his back. She murmured and was asleep again. He felt her slow exhalations on his spine, the condensation of her breath warming and then chilling the vertebrae there.