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The words I’ll pay the money! roared through his mind time and again. Just tell me where!
He’d called the banker Mei-li had put him in touch with as soon as the bank opened that morning, putting him on notice Dirk would be wiring the ransom that day. But the hands of the clock moved inexorably toward closing time with no word. Nowhere for Dirk to wire the money to.
He chafed unbearably at the delay. And it didn’t help that his suite was full of people waiting with him—Rafe, Mike, Chet and Vanessa—all talking in hushed tones, all watching him with guarded eyes, all afraid to voice the question in the back of everyone’s mind—why haven’t we heard anything?
But the person he needed most wasn’t there. Mei-li had gone out midmorning with Patrick to drive her, promising to return the instant Dirk heard anything. “You can’t leave,” she’d told Dirk. “But there are some things I need to check out.” She hadn’t told him what those things were, and she hadn’t returned yet. But there’d been no reason to call her...except that he needed her. And he was damned if he’d ask her to come back just for that. Whatever she was doing was important, or she wouldn’t be doing it.
It would have been easier to bear the waiting if she’d been with him, though. Not that she could have done anything to make the kidnappers contact him, but...just being with her gave him hope.
We’ll get them back, she’d told him, and the unshakable faith in her voice that they’d rescue his daughters had kindled his faith, too. She’d cried for him when he couldn’t cry for himself—he could still see the tears wet on her face. She’d told him, You’re a good man, and had made him believe it. You cannot know what you would have done if he’d dropped the knife! reverberated in his mind. She’d brought him back from the depths of despair time and time again. Not just where Linden and Laurel were concerned, but helping him deal with the loss of his wife, too, to put it in perspective.
He needed her with him.
But she wasn’t there.
* * *
Mei-li was in Tai O, GPS in hand, staring at a stilt house built out over the water’s edge. “That’s the location,” she murmured to herself, double-checking the coordinates she’d keyed in. Then she quickly snapped a couple of pictures with her smartphone.
The house looked derelict and abandoned. But then, in some ways, so did those on either side, although the clothes hanging on the lines told her they weren’t vacant. She took a deep breath, then approached the front door of her target house and knocked. No one answered. After a minute, she knocked again, harder this time. She waited, but again no one came to the door.
A woman came out of the house on the left, a clothes basket balanced on one hip. She saw Mei-li and called out something in a dialect Mei-li didn’t understand. When Mei-li shook her head, the woman said in broken Cantonese, “They moved. Two years ago, you understand?”
Mei-li walked toward the other woman, asking, “No one lives here anymore?”
The woman couldn’t have been more than thirty, but her darkened teeth and weathered skin made her look older. “No. Not to live. No.”
The way she answered the question made Mei-li ask, “But someone was here, yes? Two nights ago.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a red banknote. “What can you tell me about them?”
The woman’s eyes gleamed at the sight of the hundred-dollar bill, and she set the laundry basket down. “Two men, one a gwai lo. They arrived after dark and left before sunrise.”
“But you saw them arrive.” When the woman nodded, Mei-li asked, “Did you see them leave?” Another nod for an answer. “Was there anyone else with them, either coming or going?” A vehement shake of the head was the only response. “Could you see if they were carrying anything, either when they arrived or when they left?”
“Hai,” the woman replied. “In and out. Long bags, gray green, with straps.” She held her hands out to show Mei-li the size she meant. “Smugglers, I thought. Drugs, maybe. I made sure they didn’t see me.”
Mei-li almost asked if the woman had called the police, but realized that was highly unlikely. No one in this small community would want to have it come out they’d informed to the police for fear of reprisals, especially if drugs were involved.
“Is there anything else you can tell me?”
The woman hesitated, and Mei-li knew there was something. She slid her hand into her purse and brought out another red hundred-dollar bill. She folded the two together, then fixed her attention on the other woman.
