Kiva looked at it. “Pretty sure I just found him too,” she said, and pointed to the body on the atrium floor, surrounded now by people, and which had now begun to leak. Then she noticed something else and started walking down the hallway in her robe, toward the elevators. Pitof followed.

On the lobby floor, Kiva walked into the atrium, past the dead body and the scrum of people around it, and over to one of the planters there, stuffed with attractive artificial plants. In the planter was a keycard, nestled into the leaves of a large, fake succulent. Kiva snatched it up, walked again past the dead man and his admirers, and headed over to reception, where she got the attention of a very shaken-looking hotel assistant manager.

“Would you be a dear and ping Geork Broshning for me? He’s expecting me but I’ve forgotten his room number.”

“Yes… of course,” said the hotel assistant manager, activating his screen to search for the name, and then swiping over to a communication panel to punch in the room code. “No response, ma’am,” he said, after a minute.

“I don’t suppose you could just tell me the room number?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I’m not allowed to do that.”

“Of course,” Kiva said, and then turned just as Pitof walked up to her. Kiva walked straight past her minder and back onto the elevator, pressing the button for the twelfth floor as Pitof walked on. Pitof noted the floor but didn’t say anything.

On the twelfth floor Kiva got off, walked to room 1245, the number she had seen the assistant manager punch into his screen, and pressed the card to the door. It unlocked.

“You probably shouldn’t follow me in here,” she said to Pitof. “You might be accused of tampering with the evidence. In a bathrobe.”

“Shut up and open the door,” Pitof said. Kiva shrugged and went in.

The bed in the room was rumpled but the sheets were not pulled back; someone had lain on the bed but maybe hadn’t slept in it. Otherwise the room was neat with suitcases and other effects unpacked. Kiva looked to the desk and found a notepad and a pen there, with letters on the sheet on the top of the notepad. She went over to the desk and without touching it read the words, written in a tight, small script.