by Greg Dragon
Of course, she could easily avoid being sent back here if it ever came to it, but that would mean never going home again, never seeing her brother. And that just wasn’t possible.
The chief investigator pushed himself off the table and nodded once, briskly. “One of my officers will escort you back to your hotel, where you may recover the rest of your belongings. He will take you to the airport and wait with you until you are on the airplane.”
She got up to leave.
“We know you did it,” he said, and he looked at her with deep contempt, as if he truly believed that she was no better than a common thief. Then he spun on his heels and left the room.
* * *
Alvin Cheong was waiting in the lobby when Angel arrived at the hotel. She saw him the moment she stepped through the front doors. He pressed his cigarette into the crystal ashtray beside him and stood up to meet her. He nodded once and, without a word being spoken, her police escort immediately dropped back. Angel was surprised when the officer didn’t board the elevator with them, as the CID chief had instructed.
“How did you know I’d be released?” she asked.
“Chief Inspector Liu is an acquaintance,” Cheong explained, leaning forward to press the button for her floor.
“Acquaintance,” she mumbled. “How convenient.”
“He takes a particular interest in my activities.”
“You mean 6X’s activities.”
Cheong shrugged.
“He disapproves.”
He laughed in surprise. “No, my dear.”
Angel was silent as the elevator passed between the third and ninth floors. No one got on with them, but at this early hour of the afternoon, she knew that there were probably more guests checking out than in; the elevators would be filled going down. She’d noticed, for example, how the hotel lobby had been lousy with businessmen, all standing about in their tight secretive groups, smoking their cigarettes. There had been only one family present, and they looked like they were heading out for an afternoon of shopping or sightseeing. The absence of police, indeed of any sign of last night’s mishap, was conspicuous only to her.
“I’ve been ordered out of the country,” she said, turning to him. “I’m sorry, but—”
“Liu requested only that you leave the city. You do not have to leave China.”
Angel gave him a sharp look.
He sighed. “This whole affair has been a rather unfortunate distraction, drawing more attention on you than I would have preferred. It would have been easier for you to start your investigation without the spotlight. Alas, the photographer’s death will—”
“You didn’t want DeBryan anyway. And now he’s out of the picture. Funny how it worked out that way.”
He frowned at her, but didn’t rise to the challenge, which only made her more suspicious of him.
“In the matter of your release,” he quietly told her, “I had to pull some strings, smooth some ruffled feathers. The police were ready to process you.” It was a veiled threat, and Angel readily saw through it.
The bell rang, indicating they’d arrived on her floor. The doors opened onto an empty hallway.
“I’m the victim here,” Angel whispered. She didn’t know why, but it felt wrong to keep shouting, just a few meters away from where her colleague had died. “I didn’t do anything to DeBryan. Why would I? I barely knew the man.”
“That’s exactly what I told Liu. It was just a random crime; that’s what I said. You just happened to get caught in the middle.”
“It wasn’t random.”
He ignored her. “It took some convincing, but I finally managed to assure him that you were innocent.”
“I am innocent!”
“According to him, the blood evidence was quite compelling, telling a very different story.”
“That’s not true!”
“As I said, he was ready to charge you.”
“He said the hotel video confirmed my story.”
Alvin sighed. “Perhaps it did, but it won’t help you now. I’ve just been informed that the video has gone missing.”
“In the space of an hour?”
“It happens. The City Police are overworked and understaffed.”
He stopped and turned to her. “But enough about that. It’s immaterial now. You are free, and the police have suspended any charges against you. There is, however, still the matter between us to be addressed.”
Angel felt the hair on her scalp prickle, which it did when she sensed someone was railroading her. She didn’t know what this man’s intentions were beyond getting her to look into a mysterious train derailment in Inner Mongolia, nor could she figure out how it might be related to a group of crazies who were convinced that the end of the world was coming. She didn’t think he’d tell her if she asked.
More tellingly, she found she just didn’t care.
“You expect me to work for you now, after all this? How can I even trust you?”
They arrived at her door, and Angel couldn’t help but stare at the one across the hall. There was no police tape on it, no indication that a man had died here less than twelve hours before. What exactly had happened in there? It seemed pretty clear that DeBryan had interrupted the intruder and gotten a taste of the man’s blade for it. But had the man been anything more than just a common thief, as Cheong suggested? It was just too coincidental to be dismissed.
She also wondered what might have happened if they’d returned just a few minutes earlier. Would she now be the one zipped inside a plastic bag and slid into a refrigerated drawer in whatever passed for a police morgue in this country? Somehow, that just didn’t seem to be part of the script.
And what exactly is the script?
She wish she knew.
She sucked in a sharp breath when the door suddenly opened and DeBryan stepped out of the room dressed in one of the hotel’s plush robes. Except, she realized a half second later, it wasn’t him but a tall elderly Chinese gentleman.
He nodded once at them, avoiding eye contact, and hurried down the hall toward the elevator, his thongs slapping the bottoms of his feet as he went.
“Things happen for a reason, Missus de l’Enfantine,” Cheong quietly said. “I truly believe that. Mister DeBryan would only have distracted you from your work.”
Distracted?
She spun on him. “I think you dismiss the dead too easily, Monsieur Cheong! But then again, what is one man’s death when you’ve already written off millions? Or billions? That’s what 6X is doing, isn’t it? Writing them off? Writing us all off! You make me sick.”
“You would not be so flippant if you knew the things we know.”
“I don’t care! I’ve already decided not to take your offer. We both had. We were going to return to Huangxia, but that’s clearly off the table now.”
“I’m afraid you’re mistaken. Mister DeBryan texted me last night. He had every intention of working for us. Of course, it was contingent on you agreeing. He indicated that he would work on changing your mind.”
“That’s a lie!”
“See for yourself,” he said, holding out his phone.
She slammed her cardkey into the slot, then rammed the door open with her shoulder. “Here’s what I’m going to do, I’m going to collect my things and I’m going to leave this screwed up country of yours. I believe that’s what your acquaintance, Chief Inspector Liu, wanted me to do.”
Cheong sighed and shook his head. “Very well, but when you change your mind—”
“I won’t.”
“When you do, you’ll find my number already programmed into your phone.”
Chapter Nine
She almost chickened out and booked a flight to New York instead of Charles de Gaulle, but with her brother on her mind, she decided she needed to spend some time at home. Despite the terrible childhood memories that the family estate held for her, they were tempered by her concern for Jacques. She’d neither seen nor heard from him in over a week, since she’d
come across that random tweet about Huangxia, and knew that he could sometimes get himself into trouble if she didn’t remind him every couple days to take his medicine. Her calls from the airport had likewise gone unanswered.
She boarded the plane feeling agitated. She didn’t like the feeling of retreat, of unfinished business. It troubled her being forced to look away from the Huangxia situation, troubled her equally that it upset her more than did DeBryan’s death. But, she reasoned, she had only known the man for a few days, and they all knew the risks of their work. Reporters died on assignment from time to time. The riskier the job, the more likely it was that an accident would occur.
She tried to distract herself by doing the crossword puzzle in the airline magazine. A previous passenger had started it, but then gave up after the third clue. Soon after the plane departed, however, she passed out from exhaustion, and so the next ten hours slipped by her in a sort of blissful oblivion, even if her sleep was filled with disturbing visions.
Arriving by taxi at the family house, she wasn’t surprised to find the place empty. She called Jacques’ name, but all was silent save for the echoes of her voice off the Calacatta marble walls and floors of the expansive entryway.
Feeling lost and helpless, she wandered into the kitchen. It was designed for preparing meals for large gatherings, and when her father had had it redone, he’d had all of the appliances replaced with stainless steel. The modern look clashed with the old in a way that always set her teeth on edge.
The milk in the fridge had soured but not yet clumped. She dumped it down the sink and rinsed the glass bottle before setting it aside. The dishes in the basin were crusted in a petrified layer of something unidentifiable, which looked like her brother had prepared it himself. Angel made a mental note to give the service a call and ask them to do another shop and cleaning. They were supposed to come weekly, but sometimes Jacques would send them away.
There was no note for her, no message on her phone or email to tell her where he’d gone. Or when he’d be back. She muttered under her breath that he was fine, trying to convince herself that he really was, then forced herself to prepare some tea. But she only got so far as to set some water on the stove before she broke down and hurried upstairs to check that he wasn’t in his room lying in a pool of his own vomit.
She knocked, and by the hollowness of the sound she sensed the room really was empty. When she tried the knob, it yielded, confirming her suspicions. He always kept the door locked whenever he was inside.
She checked his bathroom next and found the line of medicine bottles on the counter, all in a row. Everything seemed in order.
Some months before, after he’d finally relented to her pleas that he go see a new doctor, she’d gotten him a pill organizer. There were so many different kinds of medicines now, so many different ways that they needed to be taken, that she had feared he’d make a mistake and regress. They’d worked so hard to get him to this point, to where he was able to begin to function halfway normally again, that it felt like standing at the top of a high narrow ridge with the wind howling about them, constantly shifting, testing their balance. She kept expecting to fall. One moment of lost concentration and they would.
And Jacques would be right back where he was a year ago.
He insisted that it wasn’t her job to hold him steady, even deeply resented her for it. She told him that no one else would catch him if he fell. But he just shut her out more the harder she tried.
She flipped open the lids and saw that the pills from Sunday through Tuesday were gone. It was now Wednesday, which meant either that he was precisely on schedule or he’d missed an entire week’s worth.
The dishes in the kitchen sink forced her to accept the less favorable possibility that her brother had indeed relapsed. The last time it happened she’d found him lost and wandering around in the city unable to remember who he was or where he belonged. Lyon wasn’t a terribly unsafe place, not unless you were an obvious tourist and unaware of your surroundings, but it still held the usual hazards, even for locals. And if her brother was off his meds, then he could get too wrapped up inside his own head to recognize the risks.
With a vague sense of resentment and a creeping sense of dread, she placed a call to the local Préfecture de Police, as well as to several of the hospitals in the area. They were familiar with her brother’s case, but none reported seeing him in recent days.
“Oh, Jacques,” she said, cursing him in French. “As if I don’t already have enough to worry about.”
* * *
The accident had happened more than three years ago, a few months before she and David returned to Manhattan. It was like the place was cursed, as much for Jacques as it was for her. Whether or not she wanted to leave, Lyon kept drawing them both back, sucking the life out of them both.
Had it not been for David, would she have ever returned at all? She wanted to believe that her flight to the States, her medical schooling and licensing there would have been enough of an anchor to keep her there. But maybe not. Maybe it was inevitable that she came back. Maybe she blamed David too much.
Shortly after marrying, he’d begged her to give it a go. He loved the idea of life in “the old country,” as he put it, not realizing how much that description grated at her. David was an incurable romantic, attacking everything he did and believed in with religious zeal, whether it was a scientific pursuit or some entirely impractical one.
So that was how they’d taken up residence in the family house that July four-and-a-half years before, his countering her resistance with the promise that it would only be for the summer. But a few weeks turned into a couple months, and before long he was suggesting that they make it permanent. “Places die if they are left empty,” he’d told her with macabre solemnity. “Walls collapse without people to fill them and the sounds of their existence to hold them up. Laughter to buttress against the eroding effect of silence.” She had once thought of him as much poet as scientist, had fallen in love with the dichotomy he presented. But from that point forward, it had become something about him to resent.
How could she argue? The house had stood empty for some time. Her parents were buried over a year by then, and Jacques had officially left two years before with no desire to ever return, just like her. For all practical purposes, her brother’s claim to the estate had ended long before, once he became old enough to attend lycée at Saint-Étienne, about sixty kilometers away. Their mother had begged him to live at home, to which he always replied, “How can one write on the plight of the bourgeoisie if blinded behind the gilded walls of a citadel?”
He immersed himself completely in the concerns of the common man, choosing to take up residence in a crowded boarding house with several other students in his literature program. He could have taken a private room anywhere, lived in the type of luxury he had grown up used to. But he had soured of it. They both had.
The house should have made the perfect setting for a writer’s pursuits — quiet, expansive, filled with history — but Angel knew that it was history which chased Jacques away, just as it had her. After receiving his baccalauréat, he moved even further away, settling into a small apartment in the Reuilly arrondissement of Paris.
He would never have returned either if she hadn’t married David.
David, her David.
Of course, her ex had no such history with the place. He could not know the indelicate position he was putting Angel in. She tried to tell him, but he was intractable on the matter, deaf. “It’d be a shame for Chèvrefeuille to turn to dust and the gardens overgrown with brambles.”
Chèvrefeuille.
It gave her the creeps hearing the name her parents had christened the place slipping so fluently through his lips. And now, the echoes of his voice seeming to sound more like her father’s.
She should never have relented! If she’d just refused from the beginning, Jacques would not have fallen.
They had been arguing, she and David. She couldn’t even reca
ll exactly how it started, nor could she even be sure if her growing unhappiness was the cause. But she did remember clearly telling David that she couldn’t live another week in the place. The memories were just too painful.
They were in the master bedroom at the top of the grand staircase, the room Jacques now called his own. David was begging with her, pleading, convinced that she was blowing it all out of proportion, and she had run blindly out of the room, not expecting anyone to be standing there. Jacques had come to pay them a surprise visit. It was the second anniversary of their parents’ passing.
Had that been what triggered the argument, put her into a black mood? The moments leading up to the accident eluded her.
He’d had his hand raised to knock when she hit him with the full force of her body, sending him reeling across the landing.
Never would she forget the surprised look on his face as he tumbled over the railing. Or the sick, wet smack of his body hitting the floor four meters below. She screamed then and ran for the stairs. But by the time she came around the corner enough to see below, convinced that he was dead, Jacques was already struggling to stand up.
Somehow, he’d hit with his feet first. The impact caused his knees to buckle — luckily in the anatomically correct way — and then he landed on his side. His head hit too, but by then the majority of the energy had been lost. The cut on his temple was small, the bump nothing to worry about. Miraculous. Or so they’d all believed.
“I’m okay,” he’d insisted, and refused her attentions. She remembered chastising him, telling him to stop being such a child. And of course he’d responded by telling her he wasn’t her little brother anymore, that he’d grown up and was an adult now.
