They made love in the morning, slowly, methodically, without the crazed rush of the day before. Ann found it sweet, something to savor. After they showered and dressed, and with breakfast completed, they prepared to go their separate ways in search of Charles Ling.
Jonathan turned to Ann and took a moment to study her. “Take it down,” he said.
She paused and looked at him, confused. “What?”
“Your hair. Why do you always put it up like that?”
“I don’t know. I look … it’s more … professional.”
“I like it down. Pushed up like that it’s too severe. Not feminine.”
“Well, when I’m doing business, I don’t want to be feminine.”
He reached behind her head and pulled out the clip, just as her cell phone rang.
Ann quickly reached for it.
Frank Ketch uttered a single word to her hello. “Trouble.” Felicia, she thought. Oh, dear God, not Felicia. But if something had happened to her, then Cal or Lacey would have called them, not Ketch.
Patrick, then. It had to be Patrick.
“What did he do now?” Her voice ended in a squeak of despair.
“He strolled out of the rehab clinic last night.”
“Strolled?” Her voice rose another notch as she looked to Jonathan. “Your brother,” she mouthed.
First there was confusion on his face. Then anger. Then tired acceptance. “He checked himself out?” Jonathan asked.
“He checked himself out?” Ann repeated to Ketch. “That wasn’t supposed to be possible!”
“It’s not. He just walked out the door. No one is sure how.”
“Where is he now?”
“Back in jail.”
Ann thought distractedly that by now she ought to be accustomed to this sensation in her legs—the emptying of emotion from her heels. The noodle effect. “Why?” she asked, not really wanting to know.
“His secretary is in the hospital, beaten to a pulp. She’s in critical condition, currently comatose, hanging on by a thread.”
“His secretary?”
“Patrick turned up at her apartment first thing this morning and says he found her like that, then he called 9-1-1. The paramedics arrived with her half-dead and Mr. Morhardt sitting beside her in a puddle of various body fluids, intoxicated. Yesterday I was in front of the judge going through the motions of dismissing the cocaine charge. Now this.”
“Are you telling me you’re quitting?”
“No, no. But I’ll need more of a retainer.”
She laughed a little crazily. Ann removed the phone from her ear and shoved it at Jonathan. “Here. You talk to him.”
She turned away and took a seat on the unmade bed, afraid she might throw up everything she had just eaten. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, willing her stomach to settle. Mind over matter, she told herself. When she could take air in again without everything rolling inside her, she straightened and looked back at Jonathan. He was off the phone. He stood in the middle of the room, looking empty.
Ann approached him on unsteady legs. “I’m sorry.” She gripped his arm. His muscles were tense, hard as a rock beneath her fingertips.
“How the hell did he come to this?”
“I don’t know.”
“What a legacy. And … Matt … Mattie was … such a good kid.”
“Mattie had wings.” He’d been an angel, Ann thought. In her darkest moments, she’d been sure that God had only loaned him to the Morthardts. She let go of Jonathan’s arm. “I loved him. But he really was too good for me, Jon. I knew that from the start.”
He turned to her, took her chin in his hand to make sure she couldn’t look away. “What about me?”
Where was her voice? “You’re tough as beef jerky.”
“Not always. This takes the wind out of me.”
Was he talking about Patrick’s latest mess? Or what was happening between them? “I think … I hope … you’re strong enough … for the likes of me.”
“So far, the likes of you are just fine.”
He dropped his hand. She already missed his touch. “About Patrick…”
“If he hurt that woman, there’s no saving him, Ann.”
“Your mother—”
“We have to get home to her.”
Yes, she thought, they did. “What about Charles Ling? We can’t forget about him.”
He pushed fingers into his hair. “You’re right. If we don’t find him, then our chance of putting out the doll will be lost. Our only other option would be to go home and fly back here in a couple of days.”
“That would be a waste.” She looked at her watch. “Nine-thirty. We can probably wrap this up by mid-afternoon.”
He went over to the desk by the window and picked up the hotel phone. “Let me see when we can get a flight out of here.”
It took him a while, but he finally connected to the airline and got the information. “There’s an available flight at 6:30,” he said.
“Get us on it,” Ann urged.
He made the arrangements and turned to her, handing her back her cell phone. “Where are our lists?”
Ann got them out of her briefcase as she dropped the cell phone inside. “What time do you want to meet back here?”
“I think we can safely give ourselves until one o’clock.” He paused. “Ann, it’s with the utmost regret that I say this, but I think under the circumstances, we need to skip the hot tub this afternoon.”
Her gaze jumped to his. “A woman does what a woman has to do.”
One corner of his mouth tried to smile. “You’re incredible.”
“Tell me that after I dismember your brother.”
He looked away. Then his eyes came back to her. “Maybe you were right about him.”
She could see how difficult it was for Jonathan to admit this to himself, let alone her. She didn’t want him to hurt. Yes, she had grown to actually despise Patrick—really hate him for his weak, conniving ways. “He’s got Morhardt genes,” she said finally. “There has to be something redeemable in him, somewhere.”
“Maybe.” Jonathan kissed her once, quickly, then they headed out of the room.
“One o’clock,” he said before setting off on his own. “No matter where you are or what you’re doing, you cease and desist and come back to home base.”
“Right on, Captain.” Ann half saluted, trying to appear playful. But when she was sure he was gone, she paused and admitted to herself that maybe it was time to give up. Yes, Felicia wanted this doll project to proceed, and more than anything she wanted it for her. But at what cost? More money would be needed for Patrick’s lawyer. Another million five would have to go to Ling, if they ever found him. At what point would it be too much?
A lot was working against them. Her mind spiraled back to what she had thought was the worst point in this odyssey, her previous version of rock bottom—the meeting at Kmart with Tom Carlisle. She couldn’t do this anymore.
She took a deep breath. No. She would continue, she thought. She would see it through. She would find a way to do it. For Felicia, and—by association—for Jonathan. Prioritize, she told herself. Find Ling. That came first.
The cab ride took her west on a few side streets, then north on Nathan Road. In all her trips to Hong Kong, Ann had never ventured much past Mong Kok which, she now reminded herself, was actually a misnomer. The true name in Cantonese was Wong Kok but the sign painter many years ago was rumored to be dyslexic and replaced the ‘W’ with an ‘M’ in error. Despite herself, Ann smiled. Only in Hong Kong would this sort of thing be allowed to stand.
The cab turned east on Prince Edward Road and drove past Yuen Po Street, home of the Bird Market where, despite fears of virulent strains of flu running rampant among fowl, people still gathered in droves to admire the hundreds of songbirds. Ann remembered coming here once, but that had been many years before, when the flu was something you caught from a person, not a bird.
Just approaching Kowloon City, she became cognizant of a noticeable change. The touristy things she was familiar with—the jewelry and electronic shops, the fast food joints and pastry stores—now gave way to apartment building after apartment building, some in disrepair, stacked one next to the other.
The cab turned on a small side-street and came to a halt a hundred feet or so from the corner. Ann gave the driver seventy Hong Kong, the equivalent of nine American dollars, which reminded her that taxis were one of the few bargains left in the city.
She stood for a moment on the sidewalk, experiencing a strange sense that she was indeed a gwilo, a foreigner in unfamiliar terrain, and that she was being noticed.
She unfolded the piece of paper she held in her hand, meaning to verify the address, when suddenly, something impossibly hard hit her in the back of the skull. She cried out and pitched forward, losing her grip on her briefcase. It hit the sidewalk and skidded. As she went down, she felt her knees scrape the concrete. Then her chin connected with enough force to make her see stars.
She rolled out of pure instinct. Every day of her life since she’d been fourteen years old she considered all of the things she could have done, should have done, to fight off Mad Dog. Now, all those well-rehearsed alternatives came to her in a flash. She slid onto her back, brought her legs up close to her chest, and kicked out hard. Blindly.
He was Chinese. He stood above her in some kind of fighter’s stance. Without thinking, she repeated the gesture, gathering her knees close, shooting her feet at him with more power than before, aiming straight for his groin.
He screamed out in Cantonese, doubled over, staggered back. But there was another man standing by. Another? No, no, no, she couldn’t fight two of them!
She felt part of her mind sinking down. Going wild, feral. And she roared a sound of pure rage. Her legs pumped and her fists flew as the second man leaned over, trying to grab her. She caught a glimpse of a gun at his belt. She wouldn’t—couldn’t—let him get a grip on it. She kept screaming and kicking. Somebody, please see this, hear this, she thought.
The first man had now recovered and hit her in the face. Something red then white mushroomed in her vision before Ann’s teeth found the flesh of his hand. She bit down with everything she had.
She continued flailing her arms and legs, until she realized she was just swiping at air. The men were gone. An arm in a short blue sleeve reached to help her up. She bit hard on that hand, too, and heard the sound of pain and surprise. Ann scrambled away, crouching at a safe distance.
She was sobbing, shaking. The stranger was saying something she didn’t understand.
“I don’t speak Chinese,” she choked.
The man moved toward her, holding his hands out to show he only wanted to help. Ann mewled low in her throat. She noticed her briefcase on the pavement where it had fallen. She shot to her feet, swayed, then lunged and grabbed for it, almost losing her balance. “I’m okay,” she said to the man. “I’m okay.” Then she turned and ran.