“It’s so good of you to say that, dear. It has not been the easiest year for the resort, I’m afraid.” His eyebrows scrunched up in his face and he looked like a sad cartoon character. His emotions were so big, they didn’t look real sometimes. But you could tell they were genuine.
“Has something been wrong?”
“And here I thought everyone had heard! But then, we’re always the center of our own universe, right? It’s good to be reminded that life goes on aside from our woes.” He sighed and wrung his hands. “There have been a number of terrible events here in the past few months: robberies and break-ins and balconies falling into the pool and altogether too much for me to be worrying such a lovely young girl about over dinner. Tell me, how has your father been?”
Just when we were getting close to the information I wanted to discuss, our conversation headed off in another direction. I told him how sad Dad was that he couldn’t make it down to visit.
“Ah, Carson! That was always your father’s way. Busy, busy, busy. Too big a heart to turn anyone down. That’s how I knew he was the right person to help me out with my employee problems.”
Employee problems? The only unhappy employee I’d met was Petrovitch. This sounded exactly like the sort of information we needed.
“What kind of problems were you having? It’s hard to imagine someone who works at the Wetlands not being happy. I wish I could work here!”
“Oh, no—no, no, no, nothing like that. I pride myself on treating my employees well. I know what it’s like to work in the resorts down here. Some of them treat their employees terribly, like servants.”
Mr. Thorton went on to explain that many of the people who worked at the resort were immigrants. There was a large immigrant population in the local community. It was normal for restaurants and hotels to hire illegal immigrants, who they could pay less and treat poorly. Mr. Thorton, with help from my dad, was working on a program to enable his employees to apply for visas, which would let them stay legally.
“Wow,” I told Mr. Thorton. “That’s really generous of you.”
“It was all due to an employee of mine. I believe you met him, Andrew Nikitin?”
My skin prickled at the sound of his name.
“Yes, he checked us in. The program was his idea?”
“Yes, indeed. Now his is a sad, sad story.” Mr. Thorton paused, and I could tell he wanted me to ask him for more information, which I was happy to do.
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, his life has been very hard. He himself is an immigrant from Russia. He changed his name to fit in better, from Androvitch to Andrew. He moved here many years ago, but still he sends almost all his money back home to support his family. His brother came here a few months ago, and we hired him to work at the Wetlands. But Andrew is still perpetually in debt.”
Nikitin has a brother? My mind froze. I knew, for certain, who it was.
“I think I’ve met his brother—his name isn’t Petrovitch, is it?”
“Yes, that’s him!”
Andrew Nikitin and Petrovitch weren’t just connected—they were brothers!
CHAPTER 13
JOE
MEETING FRIENDS IN THE STRANGEST OF PLACES
“And that’s when I realized Petrovitch and Nikitin are brothers! It explains everything.” Nancy called me as soon as her dinner with Jack Thorton ended, and told me she had crucial information. Frank and I were still conducting important investigations in the employee pool, but we raced to join her at the Courtyard Café, which was fast becoming our regular meet-up place.
Frank let out a low whistle. Nancy had really come through this time. Talk about zero to sixty in no time flat! After nearly a week of cleaning dishes and carrying guests’ towels, this case had really gotten going. Once Nancy told us that Petrovitch and Nikitin were brothers, and that Nikitin was known to have money problems, we were pretty sure we had this case wrapped up. Usually I could tell when people were lying, but Petrovitch had me completely convinced when he cautioned Frank and me against using violence. He was a good liar, as well as a good thief.
But not good enough. We had him, now we just had to reel him and his brother in. And for that, we needed hard evidence. I had an idea of where we were going to get it.
“I already searched his office and found nothing,” I said. “Nikitin’s got to have his share of the money somewhere. Even if he’s sending most of it home, I’d guess he’s keeping part of it. I think we need to search his room. Tonight.”
“I agree,” said Frank.
“Well, we’re in luck,” Nancy added. “I passed him in the lobby. He’s working the front desk right now.”
“All right, here’s what we do.” Nancy and Frank bent in to listen. “Nancy, he’s definitely keeping an eye on you already. So you have to distract him. Keep him busy in the lobby, and if he leaves, call us and let us know. Frank and I are going to search his apartment.”
“Where are Bess and George?” Frank asked. “I don’t like the idea of you doing this alone, Nance.”
Nance? Since when had Frank started calling Nancy by a pet name? I looked at him, and he blushed. That was my brother. Smooth as sandpaper.
“They’re at the beach.” Nancy said. “But I’ll be in the middle of a crowd. Nothing’s going to happen to me. But, Joe—make sure your phone is on, okay?”
I flipped my phone out and turned the volume all the way up.
“There you go, Nance.”
Frank kicked me under the table.
“Seriously, guys. Be careful. I’ve still got a bad feeling about all this. Something isn’t quite right.” Nancy looked worried.
“Don’t worry. We’ll be fine,” I said. “We’ve got this case wrapped up.”
Nancy left first, heading out to the lobby. We counted to one hundred, then followed her. By the time we got there, she had Nikitin deep in conversation, pouring over a map of the Wetlands. We scurried across the room and into the elevators without Nikitin ever once looking up at us.
We made it up to Nikitin’s apartment. Unlike most of the other employees, he lived in the same building as the guests, since he was on call so often for emergencies. It must have made it all the easier for him to plan the robberies. We found his room and I pulled out my cell phone.
Have I mentioned my favorite part of being in ATAC? It’s definitely the gadgets. Aside from making calls, our cell phones have dozens of special features you wouldn’t find on even the latest iPhone.
I held the phone in front of the door’s sensor pad. The light at the top of the phone strobed rapidly from red to green to blue and back. After a few seconds of this, I heard a click and Nikitin’s door swung open.
“Jackpot! Age before beauty. Frank, after you.” I held the door open.
Nikitin’s apartment was pretty much the opposite of his office. There was stuff everywhere. Pictures on the walls, shelves filled with books, little tables with knickknacks all over them. Wordlessly, Frank and I split up. We know how to search a room.
I worked my way along the left, Frank along the right. I flipped through the books on the shelves, but they all seemed real—no fake ones filled with money here.
“What is this?” I asked quietly. Even though the room was empty and we had Nancy as a lookout, it was standard procedure to be as subtle as possible when on a mission. The books were filled with weird script that looked positively medieval. I held one out to Frank.
“That’s Cyrillic, the script Russian is written in. Didn’t you do any research at all?
“Dude—it’s summer. The only thing I’m researching is how to get the best tan once this mission is over.”
Frank rolled his eyes and we went back to searching.
Everything in the room was, like, really Russian. The art, the pictures, the books. He even had a set of those hollow dolls that have smaller versions of themselves inside them. I found a bunch of photos of a much younger Nikitin with a crowd of smaller kids around him. I could pick out Petrovitch in all of them too. I didn
’t see any photos of his parents, or of any older people at all, except one very old woman.
“Frank? You don’t think these are all his siblings, do you?”
There were almost a dozen of them. No wonder Nikitin needed so much money to send back home. It didn’t make the robberies right, but it did make me understand him a little better.
I flipped open the lid of a small wooden trunk, and there it all was—wallets, cell phones, jewelry, and a small pile of cash. If I’d had any doubts about Nikitin’s being in on the crime, they were gone now.
“Frank, come here!”
Frank came running over. While he looked at what was in the trunk, I pulled out my phone and started snapping photos. Frank pulled a small notebook out of the trunk and flipped it open. Most of it was in Cyrillic, but there were columns of numbers that weren’t hard to figure out—money borrowed, money sent, money owed. Frank took photos of it too.
Suddenly a noise came from behind the closed door at the other end of the room. Frank and I both froze. Frank motioned for me to follow him and we crept quietly toward the door. Even if someone was there, I doubted they had heard us. It was probably just the air conditioning kicking on. Still, I picked up a small statue of a horse, just in case.
Frank looked back at me and shook his head. He motioned for me to put the statue down. He was right—our ATAC training always told us that bringing a weapon into an unknown situation just made it more likely that there would be violence, which was the last thing we wanted. But I made a mental note of where it was, just in case I needed it.
Frank pushed the door open and we moved in quickly. He went left, I went right. That way, if anyone was in the room, we’d have them flanked. But it didn’t matter. Standing in the room were Petrovitch and Matthias!
Or rather, Matthias was standing in the room. Petrovitch was lying on the bed, tied up! His hands and feet were bound together with rope, and he wasn’t struggling. I felt momentarily annoyed that Matthias had solved the case without us. If he’d involved us at all, we could totally have figured it out days ago! Then again, we didn’t tell him what we were up to, so I guess I couldn’t blame him.
“About time you guys got here,” Matthias said. “I thought I was going to have to do all the work myself.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I’ve been following Petrovitch all week. I caught him in the act of moving some of the stolen goods up here. I had no idea Andrew was involved. When I confronted Petrovitch, he attacked me. I just finished tying him up when you two burst in.”
At the mention of his name, Petrovitch started struggling against the ropes. His motions seemed slow and uncoordinated. His eyes kept fluttering closed. It was almost like he had been drugged. He was pretty big; Matthias might have needed to give him something to keep him from getting loose. Still, it meant we needed to get him to a hospital soon. Sedatives and other drugs could really hurt someone if they weren’t administered properly.
It was still hard for me to believe that Petrovitch had lied to us, but the evidence against him was pretty clear.
“Why didn’t you tell us you were after him?” I didn’t want to sound like a whiny kid, but we’d been wasting our time all week when we could have been working together.
“I knew he had a partner, and I was hoping the two of you would figure out who it was,” Matthias answered. He seemed excited and amused, like there was some big inside joke. “And it seems like you have, eh?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I overheard Nikitin talking on the phone about ‘laying low’ and we figured out that he was in on something.” I tried to explain everything we had learned without mentioning Nancy, but it was hard. Matthias didn’t seem to care how we’d figured everything out though. He talked right over me as though I weren’t even there.
“Now we just need to catch his brother. Are you guys ready for some action?”
“Yeah!” At least we’d be in on part of this case. Frank nodded his head cautiously.
“Okay, get ready.” Matthias pointed to either side of the door, and Frank and I took up positions. Then he pulled out his cell phone.
“Andrew? Yes, it’s Matthias. I was walking by your room, and I noticed the door was open. I think you should get up here immediately.”
He hung up the phone and checked the knots on Petrovitch once again. Then he turned to us.
“We’ll tackle him as soon as he comes in the door. Are you ready?”
We nodded. The room grew quiet as we all strained to hear the first signs of Nikitin entering the room. He was a big guy, but I had no doubt that, between the three of us, we could take him.
Da dun da dun dun dun!
My cell phone rang and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
“Shut that off!” Matthias hissed.
I looked at it guiltily. Nancy. Probably calling to tell us that Nikitin was on his way. I wanted to answer and explain what was happening, but Matthias looked like he was about to take it out of my hands and throw it against the wall, so I shut it off. I figured we’d have Nikitin in custody in ten minutes and the case wrapped up in an hour. I could call her later.
I had no idea how wrong I was.
CHAPTER 14
NANCY
BESS GUESS
I was in luck. When I reached the concierge desk, Nikitin was standing there alone in front of a large computer, typing away. He looked distracted. I tried to steady my pounding heart and approached him.
“Hi!” I said, with a big plastic smile on my face. “How are you doing?”
“I am quite well, Ms. Drew,” he said. “And yourself? I hope everything is living up to your expectations. Nothing wrong with your new accommodations, is there?”
I had to give it to him—Nikitin showed no sign that I was anything other than an ordinary guest. He was smooth.
“Oh no, the suite is lovely. Thank you so much.”
“I am terribly sorry about what happened in your old room. I assure you, it won’t happen again.”
I tried to think of something to say. The last thing I wanted to do was to get him talking about the break-ins. If he got suspicious, Frank and Joe could be in serious trouble. I wished Bess were here. She could talk to any guy, anywhere, about anything.
“I had dinner with Mr. Thorton earlier.” It was the first thought to pop into my mind, so I went with it. “He told me you were from Russia.”
“Yes. I moved to this country twelve years ago.” He sighed and looked back at his computer screen. “I’m going to be shutting down the desk in a moment—is there anything I can help you with before I do?”
I was losing him. If his shift was ending, he could be heading up to his room at any moment. I had to get his attention and keep him down here. I tried again.
“I studied Russian history in school,” I said quickly. “I’ve always been so interested in the country.” I leaned over the desk, looking Nikitin directly in the eyes—a trick I’d seen Bess use many times before. He shifted toward me.
“Well, it is true. Russia has a fascinating history.” Nikitin turned away from the computer and faced me directly. He was smiling now. Clearly, this was a topic that was close to his heart.
“Uh-huh,” I said, smiling at him again. That was all the encouragement Nikitin needed.
“For instance, did you know that Empress Yekaterina—Catherine the Great, you might know her as—ruled Russia for thirty-four years? She was one of the most powerful women of her time. There is a reason Russia is known as the ‘motherland.’”
This was going to be easy. I barely had to say anything. So long as I kept nodding my head, Nikitin kept talking. And he was right—it was fascinating. Despite what I’d told him, I didn’t know anything about Russian history. When I got back home, I’d have to get some books from the library. Any place with a history of strong women was a place I wanted to read about!
I figured another fifteen minutes and Frank and Joe would be safely out of Nikitin’s room. There was a large clock on the wall
behind him, and I watched the minutes tick down. It was after nine, and the lobby was nearly empty. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I noticed two pairs of footsteps running toward me, but I didn’t think anything of them until a hand grabbed my shoulder.
“Nancy!” I spun around. Bess and George were standing behind me. “We’ve been trying to call you!”
It wasn’t like Bess to interrupt a conversation. She looked upset and flustered. Her cheeks were red, and both she and George were sweating. If I hadn’t known any better, I would have guessed that they ran all the way from the beach to the hotel.
“I’m sorry, Bess. I must have put my phone in my purse and not noticed it because I was talking to Andrew.” I tried to emphasize those last words. I couldn’t afford to lose Nikitin’s attention right now.
“I’m sorry,” Bess said, leaning over my shoulder to talk to Nikitin. “Do you mind if we borrow Nancy for a minute?”
Before Nikitin had a chance to say anything, Bess and George had literally pulled me away from the desk. I’d never seen them act like this before! Something must be going on. Still, I was working with Frank and Joe, and I couldn’t let them down.
“Guys, I can’t. I have to keep Nikitin occupied.” I pulled free of their hands, but when I looked back, Nikitin had already left the desk and the computer was shut off. I looked around the lobby and spotted him heading for the elevators. I was too late.
“Nancy.” George looked me dead in the eye. “We need to talk to you. It’s important.”
I knew from the way she said it that it was true. They needed me now. They were my friends, and I trusted their intuition. If Bess and George thought that something was important, so did I. Besides, there was nothing I could do about Nikitin now.
“Okay. Let me just warn Frank and Joe.”
I called Joe, but it rang twice and went to his voice mail. I just hoped they were out of the room already. If not…I couldn’t think about what would happen if Nikitin caught them in his room. He was huge, bigger than Frank and Joe combined, and if he surprised them, they’d be in trouble. I left Joe a message saying Nikitin was on his way, and to call me if they needed backup.
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