Max nodded. “I believe so.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“Unfortunately your birth mother passed away a short while ago.”
M.J.’s hand came to her mouth and her eyes held temporary shock and regret. “I wish I had known her,” she said in a trembling voice.
“Can you keep our meeting quiet for a time?” Max asked. “It was only luck that we found you so quickly. But there is more to this. A possible inheritance.”
“An inheritance? What?”
“We don’t know yet,” Andra replied. “You’ll have to be patient. When we’ve confirmed some facts we’ll contact you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Apparently your birth mother has charged us with solving the mystery and a big part was finding you. Because there were others with an interest in the inheritance, she provided the answers in a lost language and codes.” She smiled softly.
“What are you talking about?” M.J. looked as if she was about to bolt. “I wish you’d stop it, you’re frightening me.”
“No worries,” Andra assured her. “I don’t think any of this is bad. You’re just going to have to be patient.”
Max stood up. “Is the orphanage where you work near here?”
“Yes, actually it is. I walked.” She fumbled in her purse and pulled out a tissue and blew her nose.
“We’d like to see where you work.” Andra turned to Max and he nodded. “If you don’t mind.”
M.J. clutched the tissue as she glanced at first Andra and then Max. “I’m sorry. This has just been so unexpected.”
“It’s all right,” Max assured her. “Take your time.”
M.J. wiped her eyes with the corner of the tissue and then folded it and put it in her purse before giving them her full attention. “Look, you might want to take a cab. It’s not a short walk, ten blocks at last count.”
Max zipped the daypack up before turning his attention to M.J. “A short hike,” he assured her. “Let’s go, shall we? I’d like to see these children of yours.”
But Andra noticed there was an odd expression on his face, a tightness that reflected in the line of his lips and a slight flare of his nostrils. He was like a man heading to war and forced to show no fear to those he left behind.
The walk went by rather quickly as M.J. regaled them with stories of a rather idyllic childhood in rural Vermont. A childhood where there had been extended family galore, a middle-class existence that had lacked for little and one that seemed to have resulted in a very poised and directed young woman.
Fu would never meet the daughter she had always longed for. There was no justice in the world, Andra thought.
They turned the corner and a large gray four-story stone building with straight institutional lines and no architectural thought took up a quarter of the block. The building was surrounded by packed dirt and a play structure that was so small the surrounding space and building overwhelmed it.
“M.J.!” a child’s voice shrieked as a side door opened and other children streamed onto the playground.
A small boy ran full tilt toward them, stopping only at the last moment before crashing into M.J.’s leg. She reached down and tussled his hair, saying something to him in whispered Cantonese.
Andra drew back at the look of discomfort on Max’s face. Did they remind him of his own childhood? Were the memories that difficult? She couldn’t imagine it. It was clear now that children and childhood was a place of pain he wanted no part of, whereas she would be lost without children. As sure as she was of that, she now knew that he was lost among them.
Lost, just as she soon would be without him.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Max dreamt that night of the face of a child who had haunted him since they had visited the orphanage earlier that day. A skinny little girl with long straight hair who had remained half hidden behind the others, yet her eyes had sought him out.
Who was she? It didn’t matter, he told himself as he rose in the early hours and made coffee with stale tapwater and fought to choke down the tasteless brew.
But as daylight crept across the room and any remaining chance at sleep faded away, he knew that he couldn’t forget her. It had been a tangible energy between them. A child needed him. It was a feeling that was so instinctive there was no need to question its truth. The child’s need had reached out to him like no one had before. And despite everything he knew, he had to go back to the orphanage—if for nothing else, than to dispel these foolish thoughts.
“Max?” Andra woke and looked at him bleary-eyed. “Where are you going?”
“I’ll be back in an hour or so,” he said as he picked up the daypack.
She sat up, the sheets pooling around her. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Just a personal issue I need to deal with.”
“What?”
“Nothing, the orphanage . . .” He dragged a hand through his hair. “Nothing.”
“I’m going with you,” she replied as she got up, pulling a T-shirt on and a ball cap over her tangled hair. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but I’d like another opportunity to speak to M.J.”
“Andra.”
“No, Max. Keep your secrets if you will, but we will have no inheritance to deliver to M.J. if we don’t move any further forward in this mystery. We’ve gone as far as we can into the website. I’d like to get a copy of M.J.’s tattoo. Maybe there’s something there that we missed.”
“You’re right. I should have thought of that yesterday.”
She went into the bathroom, rinsed her face and came out pressing the towel to her face. She folded the towel and replaced it on the counter. “Let’s go.”
And in the long drive across town by cab, Max was relieved that she was there and that she didn’t ask any of the questions he knew burned between them. She was just there and she made it, like she always did, so much better.
The exterior of the orphanage was as drab as he remembered. A military line of yellow marigolds camouflaged a crumbling foundation and a wilting row of petunias surrounded a waterless fountain. The remainder of the hard dirt-packed yard contained a swing set and a small set of monkey bars and nothing else.
He looked up as a door slammed and a group of children emerged. They came out in a crowd, a herd really, like wild animals, and he took an involuntary step back as they flooded the previously empty yard. Like yesterday, it seemed like his arrival cued them to emerge from wherever they had been within the building.
But the children ignored him except for one girl, whose seemingly thoughtful pace made her last in the group. She was out of synch with the rest of the children. He smiled softly. Out of synch had been a familiar feeling for him throughout his childhood. While the other children played, he had watched their childish games with a mix of derision and longing. And now he saw that same look reflected on this child’s small face as she took in the antics of the other children. He mused about that and as a result didn’t notice when she closed the distance between them.
“Who are you?” She looked up at him as if she was the authority and he was the interloper.
He looked at her, surprised that she was standing right next to him, and yet disconcerted that she was. He considered taking a step away from her.
“Why are you here?” she asked when Max said nothing. “You were here yesterday.” Her English was perfect. “You don’t understand English? French maybe?”
He held up his hand. “No, I mean yes. I understand both.”
“Me too.” A grin broke the too serious look on her face. “French I’m just learning. So, why are you here?”
He shrugged. He wasn’t sure what to say to the child.
“You’re here to adopt, aren’t you?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Of course not?” Her arms folded across her thin chest. “Why not?”
“Why are you here?” It seemed that the only way to escape the questions was to turn the conversation on her.
This time the grin faded and he almost wanted to pull the question back.
“I live here.”
He looked around. “Seems like a good place to live.”
“It’s an orphanage.” Her tone indicated that he might be slightly dim-witted.
Max looked over his shoulder, as if someone would come up behind him and save him. It had been a mistake, coming here.
“You don’t know much about kids, do you?” She scuffed her foot along the concrete pad, where a basketball hoop might once have been. She looked up at him. “You don’t like kids, do you?”
“That’s not true.” Despite having been the one to initiate the visit, he was becoming desperate to escape. And at the same time he wanted to erase the pain in her dark eyes.
There are other ways to have children.
“I’m too old.”
“Too old for what?” She couldn’t be more than nine.
“To adopt.” She twirled around, her flower-patterned skirt lifting and wafting around her. “A lady gave me this.” She fingered the skirt. “She took home a baby instead.” Her attention drifted across the yard. “The babies always go home first.”
Max put his hand on the child’s shoulder. He wasn’t sure if that was more a comfort to the child or to him.
“Would you adopt me?”
He dropped his hand. “I. No. Of course not, you need a mother.”
“And you have no wife.” She held out her hand. “My name’s Xiang.”
Lucky. The name fit the child like a badly fitting shoe. The child hadn’t seen much luck. Max looked down at the small sun-dusted hand and reluctantly took it, his hand folding over it, hers disappearing within his. He shook it gently.
“It was nice meeting you,” she said softly. “Maybe one day you will return and we can compare languages. I speak Cantonese, too.”
He raised his brows.
“Mandarin too,” she added. “In Latin I’ve just begun.”
He was still thinking of the child as she walked away.
“Max?” Andra was beside him. “Got it.” She held a paper with what he assumed was a copy of the tattoo. She looked up at him. “Max, what’s wrong? You look dreadful.”
“I’d rather not talk about it right now. I’m not quite sure what happened myself.”
“Nothing to do with M.J. or . . .”
“No, nothing like that.” He took her arm. “Let’s go get something to eat.”
She nodded quietly, folded the sheet she had so proudly waved at him only seconds earlier and placed it in her bag.
He was quiet. There wasn’t anything important enough to say, or maybe it was all too important. There was only one thing he knew. Something in his beliefs, the core of who he was, had shifted with the plea of one small child. He just wasn’t sure that it had shifted far enough.
Chapter Twenty-nine
“Any time you want to talk about what happened at the orphanage, Max. I’m here,” Andra said later that evening. It had taken all her willpower to make it through supper without lobbing questions at him. Now they stood in the hallway as he uncharacteristically fumbled with the door card before finally getting the door open.
She saw the expression on his face as he’d spoken to the young girl. She’d heard enough of the conversation to catch her name, Xiang. She’d also heard the girl ask Max to adopt her. The scene wouldn’t leave her head and she was dying to know more.
“I know and I appreciate that.”
Andra hesitated and then changed the subject. “I suspect that there may be more answers in M.J.’s tattoo. She let me take a picture of it.” She pulled her phone out and scrolled through her pictures before handing it to him. “Every level of Fu’s program has led us further into the mystery by using a variation of a numbered code.”
“There was nothing after the journal, Andra. It was the end of the program. No other door appeared.”
“No,” she replied softly, thinking back to that final screen. “But there was a window.” She looked at him. “Literally.”
“I don’t remember any such thing.”
“It was tiny, hidden really behind a lotus. I didn’t think it meant anything at the time. Now, I’m not so sure.” She took the phone from him. “I wish I could enlarge this further but . . .” She handed it back to him. “If you look close, there’s a lotus entwined in the heart of M.J.’s tattoo.”
But an hour later, despite a closer examination, they still had no idea what it meant.
Andra rubbed the heel of her hand against her forehead. “Le’s heart was just that, plain. Yet M.J.’s is very detailed.”
“My heart, the numbers of the letters in ‘heart’ add up to eighty.”
“Drop the zero and you have eight,” Andra replied.
“Meaning?”
“I think a confirmation of some kind. Maybe not eight but definitely the possibility of a key to get to another level.”
“We need a computer.”
After a quick search of the area, they sat in an Internet café in frustrated silence. None of the combinations of eight or any other number was taking them any further.
“It’s as if the program ends here,” Andra said. “Exactly like you thought.”
They walked quietly back to the hotel, stymied by the latest dead end. In the hotel lobby, Le rose from a thickly padded wicker sofa with a self-satisfied smile. He said nothing but a brief flick of his finger told them to follow. Minutes later they found themselves in one of the hotel’s two dining rooms. The thirty or so tables in the room were each partially covered with a grouping of navy placemats and boxed in by the usual placement of cutlery. The navy was an odd choice of color that seemed to fade against the heavy gray drapery and carpet. Along one wall was a line of ladder-backed chairs, their seats upholstered in a rich, flowery, and again, faded material. “Sit.” He indicated one of the chairs. “At least there’s some privacy here.”
“I’m not sure . . .” Andra began, but she perched on the stiff chair as directed. She glanced at Max and saw the same doubts reflected in his eyes.
“Let us set this straight. It is my daughter you seek and a fortune for which I have no need. I’d like to help.”
Andra looked at Max and he nodded.
“I don’t know if this means anything at all but there’s a lotus flower entwined in the heart of M.J.’s tattoo,” Andra said with some concern. “None of the possibilities we can come up with take us any further in the heart of our dream site. We’re dead-ended.”
Le nodded.
Andra looked at Max and he shrugged.
“I have many business ventures,” Le finally said. “Fu sent her sworn sister here to Beijing, where unfortunately she was killed.”
Andra frowned. Where was this going? She looked up at Max and he looked just as puzzled.
“The Lotus Bank here in Beijing is one of my many ventures.”
Andra started. “What are you suggesting?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure. Only that Fu would know that her secrets were safer in my hands than those of strangers.”
“But if you didn’t know?” Max was puzzled. “What good would it do to safeguard a fortune in a bank where the very guard you trusted was unaware?”
“Maybe the sworn sister was expected to do more. Notify me possibly.” He shrugged. “Who knows. Unfortunately, fate intervened. Whether my hunch is right or not, I do know that there are many things hidden in anonymous safe-deposit boxes.”
Max and Andra looked at each other as understanding registered. “Brilliant,” Andra breathed. “I hadn’t thought of a safe-deposit box.”
“The Lotus of Beijing. Whether my hunch is correct or not, I will ensure our daughter’s safe passage when the time comes—anonymously, of course. In the meantime I think you have your work cut out for you.”
“You’re right,” Andra agreed. “But so far what we have is speculation.”
“Is it just speculation?” Le’s eyes narrowed. “When you have looked c
loser at the evidence Fu left I suspect you will call me.” As he turned to leave he reached into an inside pocket of his jacket. “I believe this is yours, or more aptly, my daughter’s.” He handed a sheaf of papers to Max.
Max unrolled them and looked at them quickly. “The doll’s plans that were stolen from me at the factory.”
“Where did you . . . ?” Andra began.
“Where or how is irrelevant. Listen carefully. This is what you need to know. The women in Fu’s village can run things for now. While the Hong Kong factory has shut down out of necessity, I have ensured that it will be back in operation shortly. Meanwhile, there are enough funds from current operations to keep the village for years to come. Any future funds I will invest for the girl’s future.”
“And M.J.’s involvement?” Andra asked, surprised at the extent of Le’s involvement.
“She only needs to oversee from a distance. Fu never expected that she would take the reins unless that is what she wishes. She has created a team for the interim. No one woman in charge. Always a group to rely on and no one with any idea of Fu’s past dealings or her future plans—there I believe lies the inheritance. I find it ingenious.”
Max sank into a chair as the door closed behind Le.
“That man drains me,” he said as he dusted the sleeve of his shirt.
“He is a little intense,” she agreed. “But, Max, I think he’s onto something. Now it’s just a matter of figuring out what’s going on with M.J.’s tattoo. Is there another code or is it as simple as he suggests?”
In their room she rotated the phrase “my heart” a number of different ways, using the same technique as before, letters against numbers.
But despite the excitement of impending discovery it was his nearness that seemed too close, too hot, too challenging. She sat back. She loved him and the irony of that was that she could never have him, not without giving up a dream.
• • •
“Your doll,” Andra said as she took the doll from Max’s hands and placed it in M.J’s, “is the prototype that has built an empire, at least that’s what we’re presuming.” They were back at the orphanage where M.J. worked.
Legacy of Fear Page 17
