TENDER DECEIT (Mystery Romance): The TENDER Series ~ Book 1

by H. Y. Hanna

  “I don’t care about all that,” said Leah fiercely.

  “Your father does, though,” said Toran.

  “My father? What does he—”

  “Never mind,” Toran interrupted, smiling and stroking her hair back again. “I’ve decided to forget all that for now. I’m spreading my dreams under your feet, Leah.”

  The bell rang again. It was the second bell, the last warning. Leah stood on tiptoe to peck Toran on the lips. “And I promise to tread very softly.”

  ***

  Leah hugged the pillow tighter to herself as the memory of that first kiss with Toran cut through her again. She would never forget that moment—the feel of the rough tree bark against her back, his hands warm around her waist, his lips soft on hers.

  But that moment is gone.

  Leah sat up in bed and thrust the pillow away. It was time she stopped living in the past. Whatever Toran had once been, he was a stranger now—a stranger who had lied to her, a stranger who couldn’t be trusted.

  Well, he wasn’t the only one, Leah thought grimly as she flung back the bedclothes and got out of bed. She had promised Toran yesterday to go and find the source of the pink tag together—he was expecting to meet her at ten o’clock. Well, he was going to be waiting a long time because she wasn’t going to be there to meet him. She was going first—and she was going alone.

  CHAPTER 14

  Leah drew back the curtains. A typically hazy Singapore sky met her eyes. It could easily brighten up into a sunny day later or it could just as easily turn into one of those sudden, tropical thunderstorms that were so common in the region. Either way, it would still be hot and humid.

  She chose a loose cotton top and a pair of shorts from her suitcase, and dressed quickly. Then she went over to the hotel desk and drew out a bunch of tourist brochures from the top drawer. Shuffling through, she found one highlighting the shopping options in Singapore and opened up the map on the desk. Her own hotel was on Orchard Road as well and she ran her finger down the long strip, past the names of various shopping centres, until she came to the Merlion Mall. It was at the other end of Orchard Road, but she could get there by walking.

  Outside, the sky still looked grey, but at least the air seemed to be fresher. At this early hour of the morning, there was little traffic downtown and even fewer people. The shops were mostly still closed and the tourists were mostly still lazing over their breakfasts. The only people on the streets were locals hurrying on their commute to work. Like a lot of Asian cities, Singapore felt a bit like a ghost town in the early mornings, without the neon lights and noisy hubbub of its usual nightlife.

  Leah set off at a brisk pace along the wide pavement of Orchard Road, flanked on one side by the road and tall angsana trees and on the other by a succession of giant shopping malls. If Singapore was a shopper’s paradise, then this long boulevard of shopping plazas, flagship stores, and designer boutiques was where shopaholics went to die. Palais Renaissance, ION Orchard, Wisma Atria, Ngee Ann City, Takashimaya, Paragon, Mandarin Gallery, Orchard Central… the list was endless and the choices overwhelming. Leah stared in wonder at some of the newer shopping centres that had been erected since her time in Singapore—especially the sweeping, futuristic exterior of the colossal ION Ochard centre which resembled an alien mothership about to take off.

  After those grand, multi-storey duplexes, the Merlion Mall—tucked away at the end of Orchard Road—looked rather humble in comparison, despite being an impressive size in its own right. Leah wandered into the small atrium, enjoying the cool blast of air conditioning after the humid heat outside, and looked around. Most of the outlets were still shut—shops didn’t usually open until around 10 a.m. or 11 a.m.—but a few food places were trading busily. The sweet smell of buttery pastries reminded her that she had rushed out without having breakfast and she made a beeline for the bakery café.

  As she paid for her cup of hot coffee and paper bag of warm, flaky croissants, Leah felt that familiar sensation of being watched again. Turning slightly, she scanned the area. Nothing. Still, she trusted her instincts now. She gathered her breakfast and found herself a seat at a nearby table. As she was biting into her second croissant, she saw him. It wasn’t Curtis, but a different man this time. Still, there was no mistaking the carefully casual way this man sat at a table a few feet away from her, reading his newspaper, all the while studiously avoiding looking in her direction. Leah knew he was shadowing her.

  Strangely, for the first time, she felt none of the panicky fear she had felt before when she’d realised she was being followed. Maybe it was because she knew about Warne’s men now and she knew it wasn’t just the product of her own paranoid imagination. Somehow, the unknown was always more frightening than the reality.

  Instead, Leah felt a cold determination take hold of her. They wanted to follow her? Fine, she’d give them a hell of a chase. She finished her last mouthful of coffee and stood up. Stuffing her empty cup and crumpled paper bag into the bin, she walked briskly away, pausing at a shop by the escalators and pretending to look at a pair of shoes on display. She tilted her head to get a surreptitious view of the reflection in the glass. The man had risen as well and was loitering a few steps behind her.

  Biting her lip, Leah considered her options. She couldn’t go to the tailor shop with this man on her tail. Warne’s men might have seen the concealed safe and suspected that she found something in there, but they couldn’t know for sure. For all they knew, she could genuinely be out for some retail therapy. But if the man saw her head straight for the tailor shop and hand over the pink tag, he would instantly be on alert. She had to lose him somehow.

  Leah walked over to the centre directory standing between the escalators and looked at a map of the mall. Shop 11 was on the second floor, she noticed, next to a large department store. She glanced back. The man was pretending to be absorbed in a shop display. Making a decision, Leah jumped on the escalator and rode up to the second floor, hoping that the department store might be open already.

  She was in luck. The shop assistants were still busy dusting the displays and rearranging the mannequins, but the department store doors were open. Leah wandered slowly inside, pausing every so often to examine a bottle of perfume, pick up a shoe, pull out a dress on a hanger, all the while keeping a wary eye behind her. Sure enough, the man sauntered into the department store a few minutes after her.

  Now what? Leah wondered. She’d lured him in here without giving much thought to a proper plan, but unless she came up with something soon, he would simply follow her out of this place again. A pair of Singaporean girls walked past her, chattering excitedly, and she caught the tail end of their conversation:

  “…so good discount, you know? We get there early, we get best choice. Very good bras—even designer ones, half price!”

  “You tell Wendy also about sale?”

  “No need, lah! She always get first news.”

  Suddenly having an idea, Leah followed them and found herself in the lingerie section, which was the only part of the store that was already busy with customers. From the banners hanging overhead, it seemed that a big sale was starting today and the space by the racks of bras and panties was already filling up with women young and old, eager to take advantage of the promotion. Leah glanced over her shoulder and smiled to herself as she saw the man pause uncertainly by the first rack of bras. He would have to work hard to justify his presence here now if he wanted to continue shadowing her. Already, several girls were eyeing him askance and one of the shop assistants was bearing down on him with a frown.

  “Can I help you, sir?” she stopped in front of him, arms akimbo.

  “Er… yes, I’m looking for something for… er… my wife,” he mumbled. “A nice bra.”

  “What size is she?”

  “Um, medium?”

  “Bra size, sir.” The shop assistant glared at him.

  “Oh, er… 36D?”

  She lifted her eyebrows. “What colour? Style? Balconette
? Push-up? Multi-way? Strapless? Seam-free?”

  “Er… I…”

  Leah stifled a laugh and slipped past a few other girls, darted around a rack of corsets, and came out on the other side of the lingerie section. She threw a quick look back. The man was craning his head, looking in vain for her, as he received an armful of bras from the shop assistant. It didn’t look like he would extricate himself for a while, but Leah didn’t waste time. She hurried back out of the department store and turned right. The tailor shop was open and she stepped inside with a sigh of relief.

  Up until that moment, Leah hadn’t been sure what to expect. She had even had visions of a white-gloved butler taking the pink tag and explaining that the tailor shop was really a front for an exclusive facility where secret documents could be securely held. Instead, she found herself in a cramped space filled with racks of trousers and dresses, with the whirr of a sewing machine going in the background. A tiny, wizened amah rose from behind the sewing machine and came to greet her across the counter. Wordlessly, she held out a gnarled hand and Leah handed over the pink slip of paper. The old woman rifled through a nearby rack and returned a moment later with a grey suit jacket on a hanger, sheathed with a plastic cover.

  “Fifteen dollars.”

  Leah stared at her uncomprehendingly. This was it? Had she been wrong? Was the tag really just for a jacket that her father had wanted mended?

  “Did the man who brought this jacket in… Did he say anything?”

  The old woman looked at her in puzzlement. “Say jacket needs repair. I do good work. Fine stitching, see?” She showed Leah the hem on one of the sleeves.

  Leah nodded numbly. Slowly, she fumbled in her purse for the money and handed it over. Then she took the hanger and stared at the jacket. It was of a cheap, grey fabric with ugly brass buttons and wide pockets—nothing like the expensive Italian suits that usually hung in her father’s wardrobe.

  She looked back at the old woman. “The man who brought this in—what did he look like?”

  The old woman looked blankly at her. “He ang moh.”

  Ang moh. Red-haired. The word commonly used by many Asians to describe Caucasians or Westerners. Leah hadn’t heard that word in over a decade.

  “Was he young or old? Did he have grey hair here?” She indicated the temples.

  The amah gave her a toothy grin and nodded. “Older man. Handsome.” She tilted her head. “Look like you.”

  Leah started in surprise. No one had ever mentioned a resemblance to her father before. She had always been told that she looked like her mother. But perhaps there was more of her father in her than she realised. More than she cared to admit.

  Leah thanked the old woman and turned away, still holding the jacket. She wondered what to do with it. Take it back to the hotel room? A wave of disappointment washed over her. She had been so certain that the pink tag would lead to something important, but instead—

  Wait.

  Leah paused with her hand on the door handle, her mind suddenly racing. Her father was a careful man. Who needed a high-tech secret facility when you could hide something perfectly in the anonymity of a modest tailor shop? What better disguise for a clue than an innocent paper tag? Quickly, she turned back and laid the jacket on the counter.

  The old woman looked up in surprise. “Is problem?”

  “No, no problem,” Leah said absently as she slid her hand under the plastic cover and flipped the jacket open. Quickly, she searched all the pockets. She was rewarded when she got to the inner breast pocket. Her fingers closed around something small and rectangular, with the smooth feel of hard plastic. Carefully, she drew out her hand and opened her palm.

  It was a sixteen-gigabyte USB stick.

  CHAPTER 15

  Leah stuffed the USB stick into her shorts pocket and looked furtively around. Through the glass of the tailor shop window, she could see out into the rest of the mall. It was late morning now and the place was starting to fill up. She thought of the man in the lingerie section of the department store next door. He could be out again any minute and she had no intention of letting him see her in here.

  Grabbing the jacket, she pushed the door of the shop open and stepped out—just in time to see the man also step out of the department store on her left. Their eyes met and she saw his gaze drop to the jacket in her hands and a gleam of triumph light his eyes. Quickly, she turned and headed for the escalators.

  He came straight after her. There was no pretending now. Leah raced down the moving steps, taking them two at a time, and heard him clattering after her. Reaching the ground floor, she hesitated for a second, then swung around and continued down the next set of escalators to the basement.

  Like many shopping centres on Orchard Road, the Merlion Mall had a vast warren of basement arcades which boasted even more shops, restaurants, cafés, boutiques, and food courts, as well as a connecting passageway to the nearby MRT station. You could almost shop your way from one end of Orchard Road to the other without ever coming above ground, simply travelling through the network of underground arcades which connected various shopping malls to each other.

  For once, Leah was grateful for the crowds in Asia, as she quickly lost herself in the sea of people milling through the corridors. She looked back. The man had just arrived in the basement as well and was looking left and right for her. Leah ducked her head lower.

  He started in her direction. She turned and pushed ahead again. The crowd surged around her and Leah tried to move with them, to hide in their midst. The corridor bent to the right and she found herself in an underground food court. Queues were already starting to form around several of the stalls and most of the stools around the tables were already taken. People ate lunch early in Asia. Leah swerved around a man carrying a tray laden with bowls of steaming laksa, the smell of coconut milk and lemongrass wafting over her, then she paused by the edge of a sushi stall and looked back.

  The man was still behind her, peering over the heads of people around him, his eyes searching methodically. Leah didn’t think he had seen her, but he was coming at a quick pace and, if she wasn’t careful, he would see her in a moment when the crowds parted. She had to find somewhere to hide until he went past.

  She looked desperately around. Beyond the food court, most of the stores were open plan, with wide entrances and big window displays, giving her no protection from searching eyes. Then she spied a unit on the corner up ahead, which seemed to have wood-panelled walls with small round windows instead. From the décor and cute fish designs on its signage, Leah guessed that it was some kind of salon or spa. Whatever it was, it would offer her some privacy and a mud facial made as good a disguise as any. She pushed open the door and hurried inside.

  “Hello! Welcome to the Happy Harmony Internet Fish Spa!” A smiling girl with a baby face came eagerly forwards.

  “The what?” Leah gaped at her.

  “Pedicure by doctor fish! You haven’t tried before? It’s very wonderful—very relaxing.” The girl herded Leah further inside.

  The interior had been remodelled so that a series of low counters ran up and down the room, with computer screens and keyboards placed at intervals along the counter and a cushion in front of each screen. But the cushions were placed at floor level, so that you sat directly on the floor, and, where your feet would have gone, a long canal had been cut into the floor, directly beneath the counter, so that your legs dangled off the edge and into the canal.

  A few people were already sitting at various cushions, their fingers at the keyboards and their legs deep in the canal. Their feet were actually in water, Leah realised as she looked closer, for the canal was full of clear water.

  Then she blinked and looked again. The water in the canal was teeming with tiny, silver fish.

  They clustered around people’s feet, nibbling at their toes. Leah looked around in disbelief. Nobody in the room seemed that bothered. They continued tapping away, unconcerned, with their feet in the water full of fish. You would have
thought that having your toes eaten alive by fish while you surfed the net was a common occurrence. Maybe it was in Singapore.

  “What are they doing?” Leah asked the girl.

  “These are Garra rufa fish,” the girl explained. “They do fish therapy for you—natural exfoliation—as they eat the dead skin on your feet.”

  “They eat the what?” said Leah.

  “Come, come, you try. Best pedicure, very smooth and soft.”

  “Er, no thanks…” Leah said, recoiling at the thought. But her protests were overruled and before she knew it, she found herself paying for a half-hour session and being shown to a computer and cushion. She chose a seat at the back of the room, but facing the store doorway so that she could see anybody who walked in.

  Gingerly, Leah lowered her feet into the water and braced herself as the fish swarmed around her toes. She gave a gasp and squeal as a dozen little mouths got to work, but after a while, the ticklish feeling faded into a pleasant tingling sensation. Leah wriggled her toes and chuckled, forgetting for a moment about Toran, about the man following her, about her father’s jacket, even about the USB stick. This was one new Singapore experience she could get used to.

  The tinkle of bells announcing the store door opening brought her rapidly back to the present. Leah hunched down behind her screen. But it was only a young couple—obviously tourists—coming in for a fish therapy experience. Still, it reminded her why she was there and Leah took the USB stick out of her pocket and regarded it grimly.

  She had no idea what was on it, but she knew that she had to keep the contents safe. Until she found out what was going on, this was the only link that could help prove that her father was murdered. And help Toran, the little voice inside her head whispered, but Leah thrust it away impatiently.

  She couldn’t let this evidence fall into the wrong hands. Leah looked around the room. She couldn’t hide here forever and she wondered how long it would be before the man would pick up her trail again. They hadn’t tried to yet—perhaps they were biding their time, waiting to see what she would reveal—but if Warne’s men knew that she had found her father’s incriminating evidence, they could easily corner her and overpower her, forcing her to give it up.