I’m about to hang up when the line clicks open.
“Detective Amherst,” comes her familiar voice from the other end.
“Hey, Armhurts, just calling you back,” I say.
“Is everyone all right?” she asks, and that gives me a little comfort.
“We’re hunky-dory here.”
“That’s good,” she says, then huffs. “But I have some bad news. The local force is canceling your twenty-four-hour watch after tonight and I can’t get up there for another two days.”
“Oh, that’s fine! No need,” I say, perhaps a little too quickly because there’s a brief pause and then…
“Why?”
I pace from my bedroom door to the window. “We have been putting some of our own protections in place around the café, and I just don’t think we need cops watching, or for you to come up. We’re good, honestly.”
“Protections? Jiahui, your grandma’s mysticism is not going to protect you from a man with a gun.”
“Well, I don’t know if he had a gun, just that he was reaching for something at the back of his pants, but that’s beside the point. My grandma’s mysticism has nothing to do with it. We’ve gotten some pepper spray and there’s a big, muscled local who’s been watching out for us.”
Armhurts gives a long, withering sigh. “That is not appropriate protection. But I’m not at liberty to force anything upon you. Please just know that the soonest I could get to you is two hours if you needed me.”
“I’ve got you in my favorites,” I say with a chipper smile.
“Has Lei Zhao contacted you again?”
No, and that’s the problem…
“He hasn’t. I’m guessing he scurried home to Boston,” I say with a chuckle.
“There’s no confirmation of that,” she’s quick to say.
Good, so he’s still here. But I need him feeling confident enough to come pay me another visit. Hopefully with the cruiser gone from across the street, he’ll be ready for another try. If not, I’ll just have to tempt him.
“It’s strange that he hasn’t sent you any follow-up messages, more threats,” she murmurs to herself. “Oh, I wanted to tell you we were able to get the location data off that picture you sent me. It was taken near the city…Schuang Dzuh, in the Hunan region. Do you know it?”
She botched the name, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t know anything about China…
“No. I’ve never been—I mean, I was born here. So was Zixin.”
“Would Mrs. Feng know anything about the location?”
“Maybe?” I say with a shrug. “It’s been a long time since she lived there.”
“I’ll give her a call, and we’ll hash it out.”
A little relief comes fluttering into me. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
A lump swells in my throat and I cough to clear it. “For trying to find my parents.”
“I said I would.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t really…”
“Think I meant it,” she asks, her voice carrying understanding more than question.
