Page 20 of Shadowing You

“Hold on.” A few seconds passed. “How’d you find her?” Gavin’s voice was a normal volume.

“She contacted me, but not from her phone. It was an unknown number. She just gave me the name of this big square in the city, and…”

“She’s smart. Is she okay?”

“I don’t know.” Ethan described how fearful she seemed, and quiet. “She’s just…not herself.”

“Has she told you anything about⁠—?”

“Nothing. She was practically asleep on her feet. She looks like she hasn’t rested, or eaten, in years.”

“Hmm.”

What did hmm mean? Ethan gave his father time to expand on that.

“A woman bright enough to get into nursing school in Canada and earn the money to get there…”

Ethan hadn’t told Gavin any of his wife’s story, but it seemed that Gavin had done his homework.

“She obviously survived…something.”

“Yeah.” Ethan’s eyes burned, and he swiped a tear away. It was too much.

“She was courageous enough at eighteen years old to leave everything she knew behind,” Gavin continued. “Her family, her country. I don’t know her, but my guess is she’s strong. Whatever happened, it didn’t break her. The fact that she found you is proof of that.”

Ethan stood and paced. “I hope you’re right.”

“Never doubt me.”

Ethan barked a laugh. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

His father chuckled, but it didn’t linger. “I just checked my messages. As far as I’m aware, her passport still hasn’t been flagged. If someone’s looking for her, it’s not the government. That doesn’t mean they—whoever they are—don’t have information. I mean…I’m getting information. All it takes is knowing the right person and having enough cash.”

“What should we do?”

“Get back to Hong Kong as fast as possible. Attach a train ticket to her ID, but don’t take that train. Buy another with cash, or pay someone to drive you.”

Maybe the taxi driver⁠—

A knock sounded on the door, and Ethan jumped out of his skin. “Hold on a sec.” At the door, he said, “Who is it?”

“Uh…food.” The word was highly accented.

“Okay,” he said through the door, then into the phone, “Our food’s here.”

“Eat and rest,” Gavin said. “You’re safe where you are. I’ll see if I can figure something out for you.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“It’s my pleasure, son.”

Ethan ended the call, that last word resonating. Son.

Back when he was a teenager, he would get furious when his father called him that. It might have been technically true, but it felt like a term of endearment meant for real fathers and sons, not absentee fathers hiding their son’s existence.

At the moment, Ethan couldn’t bring himself to summon anything but affection for the man who’d helped him find his wife and was still keeping them safe.

He tipped the delivery driver for the food. A few minutes later, he tipped a second for the groceries and clothes.