The Red Heart of Jade

by Marjorie M. Liu

  “There’s been a lot of activity,” he said. “So much, I’m having trouble locking in on any one current event. All the people who have been in this space in the past two hours have scattered. I’m seeing everything from dumpling shops to a television to … sex. Oh, wow.”

  “Wow yourself later. Do you see Owen in any of those locations?”

  Dean moved around the lab, arms outstretched. He looked like a wannabe, somewhat crazed, ballet dancer. “Give me a description.”

  “Older. White. Wears a lot of tweed.”

  “Older, huh? You two close?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You and this Owen.”

  Miri stared at Dean’s back. She did not know what to say, except for a somewhat exasperated Are you crazy? but she kept her mouth shut. Over her silence he said, “I don’t see anyone that matches that description.”

  Giving Dean one long last look, she left his side and pushed her way into Owen’s office. Or at least, she tried to. The door was blocked, but Miri shoved hard and Dean put his shoulder next to hers and they opened a large enough crack for Miri to slip through.

  There was a lamp on that illuminated, in warm light, disaster. The floor was covered in spilled papers and broken glass, glittering like ice, while books and bone fragments and large stones lay in scattered piles, priceless objects broken under overturned tables and cut leather and torn floors. Nothing had been left in peace. Miri felt as though she stood before actual physical wounds, terrible holes and scars in what had been a place of temporary comfort.

  “Dean,” Miri said hoarsely. “Dean, get in here.”

  “I already am,” he said, and she jumped, startled. He touched her shoulders, drawing her close against his side.

  “I see darkness,” he said. “He’s in a container or a room. I feel movement around him, but I can’t make out who’s with him. I’m also picking up bits and pieces of what happened in here. Three men, all in suits.” Dean pushed deeper into the room; glass crunched underfoot. “They rushed him. He fought. But that’s all I see. The men aren’t with him now. They’re doing regular stuff. They went home to their families.”

  “I don’t give a shit about their private lives. Where’s Owen?”

  “Still in Taipei, but moving fast to the east. He must be inside some kind of vehicle.”

  “We need to catch up.” Miri moved to the door. Dean grabbed her arm.

  “You said there was an artifact. That’s what Robert wanted, right? That’s what he said these guys were after?”

  It took her a moment to remember; the jade was the last thing on her mind. As far as she was concerned, it did not matter.

  Think, she told herself. If people want the thing, then it’s leverage.

  Miri took a deep breath. “The last time I spoke with Owen, he was carrying the damn thing on him. He probably still has it. It’s too big to swallow, but I wouldn’t put it past him to stick the thing in his underwear if it meant keeping it safe.”

  Dean grunted. “What’s so special about the jade?”

  “I wish I knew.” Miri rubbed her face, leaning up hard against the wall. “If it were any other situation, I would say money. That its only value is cold hard cash. Private collectors pay ungodly amounts for things like that, and Robert admitted that he was hired to steal the stone and kidnap me. But the timing is all wrong, Dean. Owen only discovered the jade this morning. Do you understand? The timing is impossible.”

  “Lots of things are impossible. Think about what you’ve seen tonight.”

  “I’m talking logistics. There just hasn’t been time to launch the kind of effort that’s taking place here. Not to mention that Robert knew personal details about my life.”

  “And then there’s that photograph of you,” he said grimly.

  “That kind of thing takes time, research.”

  “Planning.” Dean briefly closed his eyes. “Fuck. Why you, babe?”

  “I don’t know, but if someone wanted an archaeologist to analyze the jade, Owen would be the better choice. He’s one of the smartest men I know.”

  “Really?” he said, and it was funny how his focus could turn so fast. Good old Dean. Miri did not know whether to laugh or kick his ass.

  “Just say it,” she told him. “You’re jealous.”

  “You bet,” he said. “I’m so green I’m putrid.”

  “Wow. Sexy. You’re such a caveman.”

  “You better believe it, sweetheart. If I wasn’t supposed to be an enlightened, politically correct male of the twenty-first century, I’d have you by the hair right now.”

  “You couldn’t catch me.”

  “And this Owen can?”

  “Owen is almost seventy.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel better.”

  “Jesus Christ.” Miri covered her face. “I’m not sleeping with him, Dean. He’s like a father to me. In fact, he’s a better father than my own father. He’s like … like Ni-Ni. So just … shut up.”

  Silence, and then she heard him move close, shuffling through the debris. His body felt warm. He touched her hands and pulled them from her face.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “It’s a compliment,” she said. “But poorly timed.”

  Dean grunted. “Is there something here that belongs to him? Something he handled a lot? We should take that with us so I can keep tracking him.”

  “Yes.” Miri pushed past him. Her nose was runny and her eyes felt hot. She tried to ignore both as she searched the floor in front of Owen’s desk. She dug around until she found, with great relief, a small brass object the length of her finger. She brushed it off and pressed her lips against it. Dean peered over her shoulder.

  “Is that Glen Campbell?” he asked incredulously. “With a guitar?”

  “Owen’s a fan.”

  “So am I, but I don’t run around with statues of him.”

  Miri looked at Dean’s T-shirt. “And I suppose you’re going to tell me you don’t own your very own Optimus Prime. With accessories.”

  Dean frowned. “That’s different. He’s collectible.”

  Miri rolled her eyes and handed him the tiny statue. “Is there enough of him on there for you?”

  “Yeah,” he said, after a moment spent rubbing the smooth surface. “I’m totally channeling ‘Gentle on My Mind.’”

  He helped her stand, but Miri hesitated, still searching the floor. Just beneath some scattered papers, she glimpsed something that made her go very still. She bent down again and pushed aside the debris.

  There was blood on the floor.

  “No,” she breathed. The stain in front of her was the size of her head, and that was more than enough to make her mouth go dry, her heart squeeze and squeeze.

  “He’s still alive,” Dean said quietly, speaking in a rush. “He’s still alive, Miri. I saw it. We’ll find him. I promise.”

  She nodded, drawing in a shaky breath. She could not stop looking at the blood. She could not help but imagine the injury that could have caused it. She wondered if Dean could see that particular act of violence—if he had seen it, and simply kept the truth to himself.

  Don’t ask. You don’t want to know.

  Dean tugged her toward the office doors, but just as they reached them he stopped, cocking his head as though listening to something. He swung around to face the office.

  “What?” she asked, alarmed.

  “Owen didn’t have the jade on him,” Dean muttered. “Son of a bitch.”

  And then, as though the room had strings on him and were tugging, tugging, he lurched back through the chaos, swimming into a distant corner where there was a tiny bathroom for Owen’s private use. Miri clambered after him, but Dean was faster. He switched on the light and lifted up the toilet seat.

  Taped to the bottom, wrapped in plastic, was something small and flat and red.

  “No,” Miri said. “He hid it in the toilet?”

  “I hide things in the toilet all the time,” Dean said. “But usu
ally in the watery part.”

  She scowled at him and bent close to strip off the tape. “I’m surprised they didn’t look here.”

  “Old guy wears tweed, I wouldn’t think about the toilet, either.”

  “But?”

  “I passed through a trail—Owen’s, I guess—that showed him walking to the bathroom with something in his hands. I deduced.”

  “Deduced,” Miri echoed, peeling away the plastic to reveal the jade. “That used to be your favorite word when you were thirteen.”

  “Sherlock Holmes is a god,” Dean said. “Right up there with Kermit the Frog.”

  “They would make beautiful babies,” she replied. The jade felt smooth and warm in her hands and she held it out to Dean. He did not touch it, but peered close, his gaze roving over the lines. He rubbed his chest.

  “Okay,” he said after a moment. “Okay, put that away and let’s get out of here.”

  Miri frowned, but did as he asked. And then, once again, Dean went very still. He put a finger on her lips. His eyes were bright and hard.

  She heard voices. Sharp, a mix of Mandarin and Taiwanese. Very familiar. She pushed against Dean, but he did not let her go.

  “Wait,” he breathed.

  The voices grew louder. It was difficult to hear everything going on inside the lab, but wheels rattled—one of the exam tables, pushed—and she heard the storage chamber open.

  “Hurry,” someone said, and Miri’s focus slammed down upon that nasal voice, eating it up and spitting it out. She heard plastic rattle.

  Kevin. Kevin Liao was on the other side of those doors.

  “Hurry,” he said again. “The instructions were explicit, and we are running out of time. He could be here any minute.”

  “Dean,” Miri breathed. “Do you have a fix? Have they been in here?”

  “Yes,” he whispered. “Recently, too. I’m standing right in the middle of their trails. They’re handling dead people, Miri. Really old and shriveled dead people. Doing a shitty job of it, too. Three men and a woman. You can hear that guy giving orders. Slicked-back hair, glasses. Dirt stains on his—”

  “—goddamn son of a bitch—”

  “—pants. So. Bad guys.”

  Miri moved. Dean held her back.

  “No, no, no,” he said in her ear. “Breathe, little cricket.”

  “Cricket, my ass,” she hissed. “It all makes sense. There’s only a handful of people who would have known almost immediately that Owen extracted something from the bodies he uncovered in Yushan. And that man out there is one of them.”

  “You know him?”

  “Kevin Liao. He’s the head of this department.’

  “Oh yeah,” Dean said sarcastically. “That’s pure evil.”

  “You have no idea.” She rammed her elbow in his gut, but he did not release her. Just made a grunting sound and tightened his arms.

  “Let me go,” she said. “I’ll get nasty.”

  “You know what I like.”

  “Dean.”

  “Have you forgotten what we just left behind at your hotel? We need to get out of here, all quietlike, and find your friend. We don’t have time for a fuss.”

  “That man in there may have contributed to Owen’s kidnapping and my assault. Black market thieves, Dean. An inside job. And now they’re stealing those mummies. Stealing them.”

  “No,” he said, eyes going distant. “I don’t think they’re stealing them, Miri. I think they’re destroying them.”

  Her mouth fell open. “You’re not serious. Dean—oh my God. I have to stop them.”

  “Maybe you should be thinking about running instead. Whatever is going on here is bigger than just some black market buyout. You don’t hire a guy like Robert for a simple snatch and grab, you don’t kidnap archaeologists over old pieces of rock, and from looking at your face, you sure as hell don’t destroy something like those mummies out there unless you got a hard-on for crazy.” Dean hesitated. “And maybe my Chinese is rusty, but I could have sworn I heard that guy say the word instruction. They’ve got a time line. They’re working for someone.”

  “What are they doing now, Dean?”

  He hesitated. “We should go, Miri. The only one left in the other room is the woman.”

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  But instead of answering, he shook his head and said, “You’re not going to pull some shit on me, are you? I know you’re angry about what they’re doing.”

  “Kevin is a weenie. I can kick his ass on the way out and not even break stride.”

  “Good times. Resist the urge.”

  “Spoilsport.”

  “Miss Gung Ho. I thought you were an intellectual now.”

  “With you, I’m all crazy.”

  “Wooo,” he said, and reached under his shirt, revealing a nice hard stomach that was far more muscular than she remembered. No longer sixteen and scrawny, that was for sure.

  “Now is not the time to fondle yourself,” she said.

  “I might not get another chance,” he said, unclip-ping a gun from the rig beneath his shirt. He stuck it in the back of his pants, alongside Robert’s stolen weapon. Miri stared. So many firearms. It made her uncomfortable, and not just because she had once been shot. Getting caught with a gun in Taiwan was a crime almost equivalent to drug possession—which usually meant jail or the death penalty.

  Worse, she couldn’t imagine the kind of life Dean led that would make him need or want that much fire power within easy reach.

  Not the boy you knew, she told herself again. And maybe her face showed her doubts, the question. Dean reached out and slid his hand, warm, against the nape of her neck. Miri stopped breathing, her entire focus narrowing to the feel of his skin, the strength in his fingers as they entwined, ever so gently, in her hair.

  “I’m no criminal,” he said in a low voice. “I grew up good, Miri.”

  “Yeah?” she breathed, finding it difficult to speak. “What happened to you, Dean?”

  He hesitated. “A lot.”

  His hand lingered. Miri touched him, holding his hand, being held, trying not to shiver as his fingers transferred from her neck to her wrist, tracing a path over her palm.

  “Dean,” she whispered, unable to pull away, but afraid, so afraid of what would happen if she did not. His eyes were so pained that for an instant she believed he had missed her, that the past twenty years had been just as difficult on his own heart.

  “I’m not going anywhere this time,” he said quietly. “You’re stuck with me, Miri. Call me psycho, a stalker, whatever you want. I’m here.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she said. “You left me before. You died.”

  “So did you.”

  “Then it’s been too long. Twenty years, Dean.”

  “That’s not long enough to forget your best friend, Miri. Some things don’t fade.”

  “Maybe not,” she said. “But they do change.”

  He let go and smiled, lopsided, which was enough to transform his face into something rueful and exquisitely boyish. “I can live with that,” he said, and then leaned in quick and kissed her cheek. “Come on, babe. Let’s get into trouble.”

  He opened the door, and pushed Miri through.

  Chapter Five

  Moving dead people was always a delicate business, especially if the deceased were four thousand years old. Bodies tended to disintegrate rather quickly at those ages, and at a rate that could be calculated with a certain degree of accuracy, especially if the handler of said body was a complete and utter boob. Or a coldhearted son of a bitch. It was a toss-up.

  Miri smelled Kevin as soon as she entered the lab. He wore a particularly malodorous brand of cologne manufactured by an Italian company that, as Miri had recently discovered, lived by the motto that every woman should be able to know when her man was coming. So to speak. Kevin loved it.

  He was not, however, anywhere to be seen. The lab was a mess; Miri saw flakes of the mummified remains all over the f
loor, which was enough to make her dig nails into her palms and contemplate the swift removal of Kevin’s body parts. Maybe there were men with guns hunting her, men who would not die, and maybe it was stupid to be so angry with all of that behind her and more, but Miri had her limits, her principles, and this was one of them. The dead had to be treated with respect. And the very ancient dead, treated with a great deal more than that.

  But the bodies were gone and there was only one other person in the lab. A woman. Miri recognized her.

  It was one of the assistants, a graduate student who called herself Ku-Ku. She sat at a computer, typing fast, but she broke off as soon Dean and Miri entered. Her pigtails swung as she turned around, little plastic Hello Kitties clacking around her shining black hair. She wore street clothes, latex gloves. She did not look happy to see them. Miri saw a thin flashing bar on the computer screen. Deletion program. Already in progress.

  Calm, calm, calm.

  Ku-Ku pushed away from the desk and stood. She had a pink purse slung around her slender body and her purple tennis shoes had platform soles that made her taller than Miri. She held herself straight, with a tense line in her arm that suggested she was ready to move, fast. Good. Because if Miri got a hold of her, hell was gonna be paid like, whoa.

  Miri said, “Hello, Ku-Ku. Late night?”

  Ku-Ku said nothing, which was unusual. She was the bouncy member of the department, always cheerful, with a sly word, a smile. But now her eyes were wary, her mouth set in a hard line, and when she glanced down the hall toward the exit, Miri thought, You are so in the shit, little girl.

  Dean touched Miri’s elbow. He edged her with his hip in the direction of the hall. His fingers thrummed against her arm, three times in quick succession. Their old code.

  Hurry, he said. Hurry, get out. Hurry, run. Hurry, stop talking.

  Miri heard voices at the end of the hall. She met Ku-Ku’s gaze for a brief instant, and it was as though all those lunches and long hours and occasional girl talk meant nothing, jack squat, just notches on a belt of betrayal. No one in Miri’s life was safe. She was surrounded by liars and thieves.