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David’s thoughts turned instantly to the baby. His hand covered Hulan’s as she said, “I haven’t smelled anything when I’ve been there.”
“I don’t know if they use them,” Guy admitted. “I’m just saying that if they did, it would be very dangerous.”
“Was there anything else?” David asked, momentarily relieved.
Guy rummaged through his satchel again and pulled out a Xeroxed set of spreadsheets, but before David or Hulan could get a real look at them to verify that these were the same ones they’d seen at Suchee’s, Pearl Jenner reached out and scooped them up.
“I don’t think you need to see these,” Pearl said with a grin. “But when you’re ready to cooperate with me, I’ll be happy to show them to you.”
“At least tell us what they are,” David said.
“I don’t think so,” Pearl responded.
Hulan interrupted this exchange by switching to Mandarin and addressing Guy directly. “How did Miaoshan get the papers?”
“I told you. There was a man at the factory, an American,” Guy answered, also in Mandarin. “He helped her.”
“Hey! Speak in English!” Pearl ordered.
“Aaron Rodgers? Sandy Newheart?”
“A man, that’s all I know.” Guy’s sorrow was palpable. “She would go to him at night. He liked to talk and she listened. I told her to stop, because I was afraid. What if this man decided to stop talking? What if he wanted sex? She was alone with him. I worried about her and the baby.”
Hulan squeezed David’s hand. She switched back to Mandarin again. “Miaoshan was pregnant with your child.”
Guy’s eyes brimmed with tears, and he nodded. “I loved her,” he said in Mandarin. “I saw a future for us. But I pushed her and pushed her. I wanted success for myself. And I have lost my family and my future in one moment.”
“What are you saying?” Pearl demanded. When neither Hulan nor Guy translated, she looked at David. When she saw he wasn’t going to help her, that characteristic hard smile came back to her lips. She stood and motioned for Guy to join her. They took a few steps, then Pearl stopped and came back to the table.
“You can’t hide the truth from me,” she said to David. “As you say, what Knight’s doing may not be against the law, but it is against human law.” When he didn’t respond, she added, “Tartan can get its side out or not. Frankly, I don’t care, because I’ll do the story with or without you.”
“Tartan Incorporated has no comment at this time,” David said with all the lawyerly command he could muster.
Pearl Jenner flipped her ponytail behind her. She looked inordinately amused. “You have a reputation in Los Angeles. You’re respected. People speak of you as one of the good guys. I’m going to have a lot of fun proving they’re wrong.”
14
SILENTLY DAVID AND HULAN WATCHED AS PEARL AND GUY stepped into the elevator and the doors closed. David didn’t know what to say. What he’d thought of as a bad situation out at Suchee’s house had just gotten much worse.
“If Pearl really has a copy of Miaoshan’s papers,” Hulan said at last, “then she knows no more than we do.”
“But she’s not going to stop until—”
“We hav
e a lot to talk about. Let’s not do it here.”
In their room, David asked what Guy had said in Mandarin. Hulan told him, then added, “I knew I couldn’t ask him in English. It was too private, and I didn’t think he’d tell me in front of you or that woman.”
David sat down on the edge of the bed. “I’m in trouble.”
“Maybe, maybe not. In the last few hours we’ve been deluged with facts and innuendoes. We have to sort through them.”
“Why? It’s clear that Pearl Jenner has an agenda and I’m part of it. As she said, it doesn’t matter whether I participate in her story or not. She’s still going to write it.”
“And destroy your reputation?”
“It’s not just my reputation,” he said. “It’s who I am.”
