Chapter Three

JULIA SWITCHED OFF her shop vacuum before she pulled her hearing protectors off. Satisfied with the job she had done, she coiled the hose and tucked the vacuum under the bench near the front of the garage. From her back pocket she pulled the sheet of graph paper with her studio layout plan. Using a roll of painter’s tape, she marked the floor where she wanted to install her large equipment in the six-car garage. She pressed the button to open the center garage door. The ancient track rattled and screeched as the door rolled up. Using the ramp she had built, Julia rolled her nine-drawer tool cart into the garage and placed it precisely on the marks she had made for it.

The quiet of the garage seeped into her bones, clawing at her. She pulled her phone from her pocket and scrolled to her favorite playlist. The pounding beat filtered out of the phone, settled over her, smoothing off the rough edges of her day. After propping her phone against her toolbox, she went to work unloading the rest of her equipment. Her mind drifted back to her morning encounter with Nüwa.

Nüwa knew, had sensed Julia’s attraction to her, and like a good mistress had even reassured her when she had outed herself. Nüwa’s touch had settled Julia and ignited the smoldering spark of hope in her chest.

Julia shook herself from her ruminations as she pulled the full-size fire extinguisher from the back of her truck and placed it near the side door of the garage. After checking her layout again, she then placed the rest of her tools according to her plan.

She rolled the cart with the tanks for her acetylene torch to the far side of the garage. She pulled the large screw eyes from her pocket and attached them to the open studs on either side of the tanks. After making sure the tanks were secured by a chain to the wall, she walked back to her toolbox. Even the excitement of setting up her new workspace did not derail her thoughts from returning to Nüwa. Why was she living with her parents? Why had she stopped performing?

Curiosity grabbed Julia by the throat. She snatched her phone up, switched off her music, and opened her browser. She typed Nüwa’s name into the search bar. Unsurprisingly, a wiki article topped the search list. A banner at the top of the page warned much of the information needed to be verified. Undeterred, Julia read the article.

Nüwa had been a prodigy, displaying a talent for the piano from the age of six. She had graduated from Oberlin, won the Van Cliburn and the Ettore Pozzoli International Piano Competition, which led to a career as a concert pianist. By the time she was twenty-five she had played most of the major international classical music venues.

The entry stopped abruptly with the notation, “After an incident with a stalker, Nüwa Zhou retired from performing.” Julia blinked as she scrolled through Nüwa’s impressive discography. She had recorded ten solo albums, earned two Grammy nominations, and had been featured on several movie soundtracks. A chilly spring wind scuttled leaves into the garage. Julia shivered in her shirtsleeves, stopped reading long enough to slap the button to close the door to the garage. She flipped the overhead light on as the door creaked into place.

After settling on the stool, she opened her music app and purchased Nüwa’s Grammy-nominated album of Prokofiev concertos.

Julia closed the wiki tab and entered “Nüwa Zhou Stalker.” No less than a dozen tabloid style articles popped up. She chose the one with the least offensive headline and read it. The images accompanying the article were behind a paywall. Julia closed the tab. After several attempts she finally found what she was looking for. Three paragraphs in and she sat down hard on the stool by the bench. Anger burned through her as she read of Nüwa’s ordeal with Martin Fenster, her personal assistant, who had sought to win her favor by killing Nüwa’s manager.

Gooseflesh rippled over her skin as she read about Martin holding Nüwa captive in her apartment with the body for seventy-two hours before police were able to free her. Nüwa had survived. Lived to identify him, and later testified at his trial. Another headline at the end of the article declared “Convicted murderer and kidnapper kills two in escape.”

After clicking on captioned images accompanying the search, Julia studied the photo of a sallow-faced, narrow-jawed man being led from a courtroom in shackles. His intense dark eyes peered at the camera as if daring the photographer to take the picture. A photo of Nüwa entering a courthouse with her head draped in a scarf, Gerald and Lian at her side, was the next in the grouping.

The final photo in the search was of the slain manager’s family, on the sidewalk outside a large building, after losing a wrongful death suit they had filed against Nüwa. Julia placed her phone face down on the workbench, scrubbed her hands over her face, and closed her eyes against the images of Nüwa’s horrific ordeal the article generated.

 

“NO. I DON’T care how you handle it. As long as our name is not connected to it. He’s not in the country. At least that’s what my last private investigator said before she stopped returning my calls. I’ll send you what I have so you can forward them to whoever you hire.”

Nüwa paused outside her mother’s office and pulled her hand back from the doorknob.

“I’m not asking you to do anything criminal, Yvonne, I only want him located and the information sent to me. I’ll handle the rest.”

Nüwa shivered at the stone-cold determination in her mother’s voice. Of course, she couldn’t let it go. Anger welled up, red hot and wild.

“Fine. Thank you. Please send an invoice for your retainer and whatever else you require to my accountant.” Lian ended the call.

Nüwa shoved open the office door. “What the hell, Mother?”

Lian steepled her hands together. “I’m sure there is a reasonable explanation for you bursting into my office and swearing at me.”

“You promised.”

“Promised what?” Lian shifted her gaze to the file folder in front of her and flipped it closed. She rested her hands flat on top of the closed file.

“Stop pretending. I heard you. I’m not one of your business partners. Why are you not letting the police handle this? This is not an episode of Rizzoli & Isles, nor are you Jason Bourne. This is dangerous. He is dangerous,” Nüwa shouted.

“He’s a mad dog of a man who deserves to spend the rest of his life behind bars. And if it takes every dollar I have ever made to make sure that happens, so be it.” Lian shifted in her chair. “Don’t you want that? To be free of the worry? Why shouldn’t we do what the police won’t, or can’t do?”

“You don’t get it.” Nüwa raked her fingers through her hair. “He’ll find me. He knows where you live. He knows your names. He has an eidetic memory. He’s fucking genius level intellect. He managed to outsmart an entire forensic hospital and escape.”

“You never leave the house so what are you worried about? He’s not even in the country. We’ve worked hard and managed to keep your presence here quiet. We have state of the art security, and other than your father feeling the need to shelter a renter in our basement we have prevented your contact with non-vetted people. I’ve paid an epic amount of money to scrub your personal information from the internet. How do you think he’s going to find you? Even if he did, he couldn’t get inside this house. And if by some miracle he did enter our home, he’d never leave alive.” She patted the concealed carry holster bulging at the waistband of her pants.

Nüwa lifted her chin. “How do you know?” The anger was back, the urge to shake her mother until she reacted, to disturb her cool calm. Nothing rattled Lian Tan, but then it wasn’t her life. She hadn’t had to sit in the same room with a corpse for three days, wondering when it would be her turn. Wondering if Martin would decide waiting to consummate his love until Nüwa and he could be married was old fashioned. Wondering when she would be forced again to watch while he pleasured himself and smeared his tribute to her on the keys of her piano. Nüwa focused on her rage, brushing her fear aside.

Lian pushed back from her desk and crossed her legs. “Before the last private investigator ghosted me, she sent a report he was in Costa Rica. Living well and working at a resort.”

Nausea welled up, bile rose in Nüwa’s throat, and she knotted her hands together. “Ghosted? For how long? How do you know she’s still alive?” Fear and rising panic took over her then. “Why would you assume she just decided to stop working the case? Unless she’s in a coma, or dead, Mother, why would she walk away from a paycheck? And if I know you, a large paycheck for her discretion.”

Lian waved her hand through the air as if shooing flies. “Now you’re imagining things. I didn’t find her though my usual channels. She was happy to take my money. After the third time she didn’t return my calls, I stopped her draw.”

Nüwa paced her mother’s office. “Did you report it?”

“What was I going to report? That a less than above board private investigator won’t return my calls?” Lian stood, picked up her purse, and slipped the strap over her shoulder before smoothing her hand down the front of her slacks. “I have to take your father to lunch.” She rested her hands on her hips. “I’d tell you not to worry but it would be a waste of breath.”

Nüwa rested her chin on her chest. “It’s easy to blow off other people’s fear when you don’t have any skin in the game.”

Lian rounded on Nüwa and narrowed her eyes. “No skin in the game? Seriously, Nüwa? You are my life. My heart. Every moment I sat in that courtroom, listening to what he did to Jane, what he did to you…” Her voice faded out and she clenched the strap of her purse with both hands. Lian’s gaze burned as she stared into Nüwa’s eyes. Her lips peeled back from her teeth as she spoke. “If it takes the rest of my life, I will turn over every foul rock on this earth to find that disgusting excuse for a human. I will do everything in my power to make sure he never harms you, or anyone ever again. Whatever it takes.”

The lethal chill in her mother’s voice raised gooseflesh on Nüwa’s arms. “As much as I’d like to see him dead, Mother, it won’t do me any good if you end up in jail on a conspiracy to commit murder charge.” Nüwa firmed her chin.

“Oh no, I don’t want him dead. Death is a release.” Lian’s eyes were glittering dark pools of vengeance. “I want him to suffer. I want to deliver him to…” She pursed her lips. “Never mind. I see this discussion is distressing you.” She smoothed her hand over her hair. “We’ll be back by four. Text if you need anything.” Her tone light, as if she had not just declared her intent to destroy another human being, she left Nüwa standing in her office and walked away, head down, tapping out a message on her phone screen.