Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
“You said there was a companion who talked to you about Owen. Do you have their name?”
“The police took the report but neglected to get a name.”
“Did you speak to Maggie Tomlin at all? Owen’s roommate?”
“Ms. Tomlin had flown home to Chicago for her sister’s wedding. She has not yet returned, and Mr. Sutter’s liaison was unsure if she would.”
As I’d already spoken to Maggie—who was utterly broken by Owen’s reported passing—I just wanted to make certain the stories were the same. She was, of course, blaming herself. If she’d never left… As if Owen would not have become entangled in whatever this was if she hadn’t gone home. This wasn’t her fault, and neither was it Owen’s. Something else was going on, and that was clear from how much work had gone into trying to get this body to look like Owen.
“Perhaps we will meet again, Colonel?” Sun said, returning me to the present.
“My organization’s philanthropic work doesn’t usually bring me this far east.”
“Perhaps it should. The Tai Po Waterfront in spring is a truly breathtaking sight.”
I nodded affably.
When he gripped my hand, Sun offered in a low voice, “May Buddha grant him a generous share of eternity.” His smile blew away like sand.
Outside, I was instantly enveloped in the heat and humidity of Bangkok in September before the sky opened up and it was raining again. It had stormed earlier, making it like a sauna when I reached the morgue, with the high being in the upper eighties. Now it was back to pouring. I was soaked in seconds, my shirt sticking to my back and chest.
I just wanted to take the body and go. I had so much to work through, and I needed to get started.
The body was loaded into an enormous black SUV, and within an hour, I was being waved through security at the airport, and the driver pulled right onto the ramp of the commercial terminal where my Gulfstream G650ER sat, engine idling. My plane had arrived while I was claiming the body, and it was a relief, even if only a momentary one, to see something familiar amid the craziness of the last forty-eight hours. Even better to see Arden Stewart, my pilot, coming down the boarding steps with a golf umbrella. She was there, on the tarmac, waiting as we drove up, looking as crisp and polished as ever even in the sweltering heat and drowning rain.
She moved quickly to reach me, and I waited until she got to the car. The second I got out of the passenger side, she covered me with the umbrella and walked with me around the front of the car. I knew she was dying to ask me questions, but she was silent as my eyes met her long-lashed onyx ones. She knew better than to ask me anything in front of the driver and the others who’d accompanied me. They were strangers, and she never made queries in front of people she didn’t know.
I tipped my head at her, and she nodded, nothing betraying the emotion I knew she had to be feeling. She’d been with me for over ten years, had flown Owen and me around the world and back, and had been with me in a number of dicey situations, flying things that, from a physics standpoint, should not have been able to take flight. To say she was a gifted pilot was putting it mildly. Plus, she was an excellent shot.
The Thai officials loaded the remains onto the plane, and when they were done, I signed a custodial release and boarded. Moments later, the airplane rolled onto the runway and accelerated, lifting off. Shortly after, Jing Khoo, one of my assistants, came from the back of the plane, looking like absolute hell.
“It’s not him,” I assured her.
She had to grab for the seat closest to her.
I put my head back, taking great gulps of air, finally feeling, even for a moment, like I could breathe.
“What the fuck is going on?” Even when swearing, she sounded posh, years of boarding school, then Oxford, making it impossible for her not to sound like she should have been narrating nature documentaries.
“I have no idea,” I told her, noting that even the messy bun, the clothes that looked like she’d slept in them, and the Converse sneakers did not diminish her incandescent beauty. Everyone noticed her looks, and she hated that people didn’t take her seriously because of it. Except me. I always looked at the inside.
“I’m drinking,” she told me. “May I assume you are too?”
I nodded.
“Bourbon?”
Another nod.
“I’ll make it a double.”
“Better bring the bottle,” I told her.
She studied my face. “Why aren’t you relieved?”
“I am. You know I am. But he’s still missing.”
“We’ll find him,” she promised, grasping my shoulder.
“I hate this,” I muttered.