Page 46 of Shadowing You

She tilted her head to the side, thinking about that. “Like a virus?”

He chuckled. “In a good way.”

“If you say so. Anyway, this woman’s husband liked to drink. He had broken her arm.”

“Aw, that’s terrible. Did you report him?”

Mei Lin’s smirk told him that wasn’t protocol or wouldn’t have done any good. “Dr. Lu arranged for Ài Le to go to the center. When she left, I hugged her goodbye.” Mei Lin took a sip of tea, her hand shaking a little. “A month later, her husband came to the hospital, looking for her. I was surprised she hadn’t gone home by then. A month was a long time to stay gone. The man said he had stopped drinking and he wanted his wife back. He asked me for the address of the center.”

“Did you give it to him?”

“I didn’t know the address, but I had a phone number. I called and told the woman who answered who I was and asked to speak with the man’s wife. She was tapping on a computer—I could hear in the background. And then she said the patient had never arrived.”

That was concerning. “What do you think happened?”

“I thought it was a paperwork error. Maybe she went to a different center. I asked Dr. Lu, and he said she ran away, that she didn’t want to return to her husband.”

“I guess I can see⁠—”

“No. Ài Le didn’t want to go to the rehab. She had children. She went because Dr. Lu insisted, but she wanted to go home. It made me curious.”

Ethan almost smiled at the word she chose—curious. As if that covered her walking head-first into some kind of a criminal organization.

“I called the center back, and then I called the other centers and asked about the other women. I discovered a number of them had no records. I started asking questions. Not of Dr. Lu, of course. I looked at medical reports and made phone calls.” She lifted her tea, then set it down without sipping it. “That was when I realized Dr. Lu was lying. And doing something terrible to those women.”

“What did you think he was doing?”

“He was sending them somewhere. He was selling them.”

Oh. Oh. “You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“How? How can you know that?”

“They had been sent away, and there was no record of them anywhere.” Mei Lin stood and paced. “None of them had gone home. Not all of them had abusive husbands. Some were just in need of a little more time to recover. There was one who’d gotten the flu. She should have been home within a week. Another had had a miscarriage but had a bunch of kids at home. She just needed a few days to sleep.”

She stopped and faced Ethan. “They were all young—in their twenties. They were all attractive. They were all from small, poor villages. And none of them went home. They left husbands and children and parents and everything behind. They all sent letters to their families with excuses—they were leaving, they weren’t happy, they wanted to move to the city. Their reasons were similar. And their messages were always emailed—typed and sent from the same email address. These women never contacted their families again.”

Ethan took that in, the enormity of what Mei Lin was saying. Lu Feng had stolen them. Sold them. “How many?”

“That I could find? Nineteen.”

“Whoa.” He sat back. “That’s a lot. How did nobody report them?”

“Dr. Lu said they were safe, and he has authority. Was a villager going to contradict him?”

“If it was you, I’d have found you. I wouldn’t have just taken that guy’s word for it.”

“You also have authority, though. You’re not a farmer or factory worker. You’re not…” She seemed to grope for a word, finally settling on, “…vulnerable. You’re strong and courageous. But you don’t know this country. You don’t know what happens to people who ask too many questions.”

“But you know, Mei Lin.” He stood, and by the way her eyes widened, she didn’t miss the anger in his voice. “Yet you couldn’t help yourself. You should’ve⁠—”

“What? I should’ve what?” She took a step toward him, glaring up at him. She was so tiny—more than a foot shorter than he was—but today’s Mei Lin wasn’t yesterday’s. This woman wouldn’t cower. “You would have had me ignore what I’d learned?”

Yes!

No.