by Naomi Paul
About this Book
The first detail Lian noticed was the saccharine Sanrio pink fingernail polish. Then her eyes focused and she saw that the corpse's left forearm was pinned between two rocks, mooring the body in the shallow water. The hand was small and feminine, slightly bloated, and an ugly goose-pimpled blue-gray hue. Against it, the nail polish stood out in sharp relief.
Lian stayed focused on that bright pink as she made her way down to the rocks at the water's edge, stumbling and skidding a little on the patchy terrain. She dimly heard Mingmei's voice behind her, calling out for Lian not to get too close.
But there was no way Lian could keep away. . . .
"They were looking at a dead body . . ."
On the surface, sixteen-year-old Lian is a serious student and dutiful daughter, destined for a fine career as a concert violinist. But Lian has a secret identity. She is part of 06/04—a band of cyber-investigators who work to expose injustice and corruption. In this virtual world, Lian goes by the code name "Komiko."
Lian has no trouble keeping her daily life separate from her secret one—until a dead body washes up in Big Wave Bay. Lian investigates, with help from 06/04. Soon, she meets Matt Harrison, the new kid at her school. She learns that Matt's dad, Rand Harrison, is a corporate goon, whose clothing company exploits its workforce. And she finds a connection between the dead girl and Mr. Harrison. Lian and the 06/04 team are thrust into their most dangerous investigation ever—and Lian will learn that no one is ever quite who they seem to be . . .
About the Author
Naomi Paul is a pseudonym for an American writer who lives in Texas.
Contents
Cover
About this Book
About the Author
Title Page
Dedication
* * *
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
* * *
Note to Our Readers
Copyright
More Books from Scarlet Voyage
With special thanks to Dave Justus
ONE
Sunday
“The Dragon’s Back is broken,” Lian repeated, marveling at the poetry of the phrase.
“Seriously, you’re being a weirdo,” Mingmei said, rolling her eyes. “That’s not even what he said, Lian.”
True, that hadn’t been exactly what the lifeguard had told them. He’d just said that the section of the Dragon’s Back hiking trail adjacent to Big Wave Bay Beach was temporarily closed. It was no big deal; the girls hadn’t come here to hike anyway but to bask in the late August sun on the last day before school started again. The mythological image had taken root in Lian’s mind as they’d trekked across the white sands to stake out their tanning spot, though, and, as always, she found it hard to shake a good mythological image.
“You knew I was a weirdo when you signed on for this friendship,” Lian said with a smile, smearing a big dollop of zinc oxide onto her nose. “Besides, who’s around to hear me embarrass you?”
Mingmei lowered her sunglasses and shot her friend a withering look. “Everyone,” she said, gesturing to the crowded beach on either side of them. “Everyone’s always around to hear everything. Especially when you’re being a weirdo.”
Lian laughed. Mingmei wasn’t far wrong. Hong Kong had a population density so high that there were barely six inches between Lian’s towel and that of the fat guy to her right. She kept her back to him and his snoring and watched Mingmei checking out the university boys emerging from the water, surfboards under their arms.
“One more year,” Mingmei said wistfully, “and then we’re done with high school boys forever.”
Now it was Lian’s turn to roll her eyes. “Well, it’ll be nice to get rid of that burden at last.”
“Sorry,” Mingmei said. “I forgot who I was talking to for a second. I promise you, Lian, we’ll find you a boyfriend by October so you can be sick of him by Christmas.”
“That’s a pretty ambitious timeline.”
Mingmei shrugged. “I’m a pretty ambitious girl. Of course, we’ll have to find a guy who’s willing to overlook that gigantic hickey that Zheng gave you.”
“Very funny,” Lian said sarcastically, but her hand went self-consciously to her neck—to the pink welt where her violin nestled against her for two hours each day. Mingmei liked to joke about the “intense love affair” between Lian and her instrument. She’d nicknamed the violin after its maker, master Zheng Quan, and teased Lian about the “beautiful music” the two made when they were alone.
Lian didn’t mind the jokes. Mingmei’s relationships—if you could call afternoons spent watching a boy chase a ball around the park with his friends a “relationship”—tended to last a matter of weeks, so how could she understand the lifetime of dedication Lian had given to her violin, or the joy she felt when she drew a flawless performance from its strings? Lian had her doubts that any first kiss could rival the highs of Bartók’s sonata.
Which is not to say that she wasn’t a little curious.
“Not to mention,” Mingmei said, catching Lian gently by the wrist, “all these calluses. Nobody wants to hold hands with a rock monster. You’ve got to ease up on the violin and spend a little time moisturizing.”
“Hey,” Lian said, pulling back her hand as Mingmei laughed. “These aren’t all from violin practice, you know.”
Mingmei did a double take. “Really?”
“Yeah. Some of them are from typing.”
Now both girls were laughing. Lian felt easy and free today, set loose from her responsibilities for a few hours before family and school obligations came crashing down on her head once again. She wished she had more opportunities to hang out with Mingmei like this, just soaking in the sun, sights, and sounds of the Southern District.
She wanted to make the most of them now, while she could. Their final year of high school, with all its attendant exam prep and school activities, would make it hard for them to get together as much in the months to come. This year they shared only a single economics class, the rest of their time being spent pursuing their individual interests—biology for Mingmei, arts and music for Lian.
Not to mention another extracurricular pursuit that Mingmei knew nothing about.
“It’s going to be strange, not sitting next to you for half the day,” Lian said. “We’ll have to spend the whole lunch period catching each other up on our mornings. There’ll hardly be time to eat.”
“Suits me fine,” Mingmei said. “I’ve been looking for excuses to skip a meal or two, anyway. I just can’t shake these last few pounds.”
“Oh, shut up!” Lian scooped up a glittering handful of sand and tossed it playfully at her friend. Those “last few pounds” were nowhere that Lian could see; Mingmei could have been clipped right out of Teen Vogue, Cosmo, or any one of the beach magazines being read all around them.
“I am dead serious,” Mingmei said, in a tone that was far from it. “Since that stuc
k-up Xiuying’s finally graduated, I have to be the new standard-bearer for fashion in the hallowed halls of Island South High. I’ve got to be tanned, toned, and always dressed in the latest styles.” Her cell phone’s alarm chimed, and she stretched and rolled onto her stomach. Mingmei adhered to her tanning schedule with the kind of dedication Lian wished she would apply to her studies.
“How you don’t crack under all that pressure, I’ll never know,” Lian said with a smile.
“I have you to keep me grounded,” Mingmei said, winking over the top of her sunglasses. “Speaking of which, you’re coming shopping with me in Causeway Bay next weekend. If we get there first thing, we can make it all the way through Fashion Walk before they lock up for the night. You can spend a whole day telling me what looks amazing on me, and what looks merely incredible. And of course, I’ll find you some killer outfits, too. This is going to be the Year of Lian. The boys will all get whiplash when you walk down the hall.”
Lian knew that Mingmei was sincere in her offer and that she had an uncanny knack for fashion—but being someone’s dress-up doll was low on her to-do list right now.
“I think I’ll take a rain check, Mingmei,” she said. “It’s, uh . . . next weekend’s no good for me.”
Mingmei sighed theatrically. “You always do this. What, is it about money?”
Lian widened her eyes and hissed at her friend to hush.
“I mean,” Mingmei continued, pressing ahead but in a whisper, “your dad is loaded. And, despite all my efforts, you’re a good and responsible daughter—so you must be earning some kind of allowance, right?”
Lian said nothing and rolled onto her stomach, burying her face in her towel. Her parents were generous, to be sure, but she had better things to spend her money on than the latest styles from America or Japan, or wasting a day in search of the perfect accessory to complement a dress.
“I’ve been saving,” she said at last, mostly into the terry cloth. She turned her head toward Mingmei. “I need to upgrade my hard drive, you know. Get a new wireless trackball, network cables . . . um . . . Ethernet transponder uplink dongle.” She was just making up tech terms now; Mingmei wouldn’t know the difference as long as it sounded important—and expensive.
“You and your computer,” Mingmei said, sighing again. “Does the violin get jealous?”
“Look, I just need this stuff, okay?” Lian said. “For school.”
“For gaming, you mean.”
Lian tried not to look too relieved. If that’s what Mingmei wanted to think, she was content to let her.
The truth was messier than she wanted to get into.
“Honestly,” Mingmei said, “you’ve got to unplug from those online games. They have this thing called ‘reality’ now. It’s just like virtual reality but a little less virtual.”
Lian made a show of grimacing. “Sounds awful.”
“And, side note, you’re never going to meet a hot guy in the World of Wargames or wherever it is you’re spending your lonely nights playing. You’ve got to stop chasing down bad guys with your keyboard and join the rest of us here in the real world.” Mingmei brightened as an idea struck her. “Why don’t you drop the joystick tonight and come out with me? I’m meeting Jun for ice cream at Appolo. I’m sure he could bring a friend for you.”
“Don’t tell me how you’re shedding pounds when you know you’ve got a crippling Magic Cone addiction,” Lian teased. “Besides, I have to go to some boring business dinner with my parents tonight.” Her lack of enthusiasm for the dinner was real, but it was also nice to have an excuse to avoid a blind date.
“Wow,” Mingmei said. “If you can’t be tempted by cute boys and Tiramisu Monaka, you may be beyond all hope.”
“You’ve got your vices, and I’ve got mine,” Lian said, hoping to end the discussion.
“Okay, okay,” Mingmei said, springing up onto the balls of her feet. “You win this round. Let’s go for a swim.” Mingmei silenced her phone as the alarm chimed again, and they took off from their towels in a hurry.
Big Wave rarely lived up to its name, but today there was a pronounced choppiness to the water. It was warm where it lapped against the sand but colder than Lian expected as she and Mingmei swam farther out, avoiding the surfers and wakeboarders who rode the crests until they broke.
Soon, Mingmei was pulling away. She was such a good swimmer, Lian was sure she had a mermaid somewhere in her ancestry. Before long, Lian could barely see her friend knifing across the roiling surface, angling against the swells to decrease resistance. As she watched, Mingmei climbed effortlessly to the peak of a wave and seemed to pause, suspended, for a long second before disappearing over its backside.
Lian stopped giving chase for a moment and found herself in the wave’s periphery, a brief sinking sensation capped with a short wet slap against her face. She blinked the salt water from her eyes and craned her neck; she was farther from the beach than she’d intended to go. A jaunt like this was nothing for Mingmei—who was nowhere to be seen now—but Lian wasn’t so confident, and the continued rise and fall of the swells was doing nothing to help settle her nerves.
The waves had looked blue and inviting back on the shore; once they’d lured her into their domain, they’d turned gray and aggressive. Lian felt herself lifted again and bit her lip against the inevitable plunge. The South China Sea seemed needlessly angry with her in it, and she would have been more than happy to get out if she could just take a second to get her bearings.
She bobbed to the crest of a wave, trying desperately to find Mingmei in the distance, but it was no good. As she began to sink, Lian called out again—but she doubted her friend heard her. She could barely hear herself over the roar of the surf.
In contrast, a sudden sharp, loud voice hit her ears like something physical: “Move! Get out of the way!” A male, ferocious and bellowing; Lian couldn’t tell where he was coming from until suddenly he was nearly on top of her, a fierce figure in an oil-black wet suit, riding a blood-red surfboard that scythed through the water inches from her face.
She twisted her body and jerked back her head in shock, just as the wave broke over her. Suddenly, the sea was everywhere, and she was nowhere. There was nothing to breathe but the cold leaden water.
Lian fought to the surface, her chest on fire, and spat out sea foam. It felt like the water had a hand around her neck; she coughed and sputtered, desperate to draw a single lungful of pure air. Her sense of direction had abandoned her as surely as Mingmei had, and through stinging eyes, she saw the next wave—larger and darker and coming straight for her. She was powerless in its shadow.
And then all at once there were two arms hooked under hers, and she was propelled out of harm’s way, arcing up and over the wave’s peak as Mingmei spoke close behind her.
“You got in a little too deep, huh?”
Lian had never been so grateful for their friendship. She took a few greedy breaths and then feebly admitted, “Yeah. Maybe.”
Mingmei kept an arm around Lian and kicked her legs like pistons, steering them both toward a cove. It hadn’t been that far away from her, Lian realized. She’d just been so panicked that she’d lost perspective.
“Lian, there’s never any shame in turning back around when it gets too rough. Sometimes you’ve got to know when it’s time to quit.”
Mingmei didn’t let go of her, even when they’d reached the shallows and could walk, rather than swim, up to the rocks at the water’s edge and climb out. A path meandered up from the cove, festooned with bamboo and shrubs; the terrain was much rockier here on the outskirts of the bay, and nobody was tanning this far from the sand. They took their time, Lian feeling stronger and steadier with each step on dry land.
“Okay,” she said at last, casting a wan look out at the water and the gray clouds slowly moving in from the south. “That sucked. I mean, that truly, madly, deeply sucked.”
“No doubt,” Mingmei said, pushing an overgrown bamboo stalk out of their way. “But yo
u’re fine now, and if that’s the worst thing that happens to you today, then there’s nothing to worry about.”
Lian didn’t really hear her, though; she was distracted by a dark shape at the edge of the water, in the craggier rocks a little way down from where they had emerged.
“You see that?” she asked, directing Mingmei’s gaze. “What is that, a surfboard?”
She stepped off the path, moving the brush aside, and made her way back down to the sea. Whatever the thing was, it was bobbing in the rippling water, thudding against the rocks. It was too irregular in shape to be a board, she realized. Maybe a wet suit? Maybe some abandoned snorkeling gear? Or maybe—
Just behind her, Mingmei shrieked, and suddenly there was no “maybe” about it.
They were looking at a dead body.
TWO
The first detail Lian noticed was the saccharine Sanrio pink fingernail polish. Then her eyes focused and she saw that the corpse’s left forearm was pinned between two rocks, mooring the body in the shallow water. The hand was small and feminine, slightly bloated, and an ugly goose-pimpled blue-gray hue. Against it, the nail polish stood out in sharp relief.
