“Go ahead, they won’t talk to me. I’ve called to ask about the kids, and they just hang up,” she said.
I didn’t know she’d done that. Channing gave me Edison and Austin’s mother’s number, and I phoned her right away. The call went to voicemail. I texted a message that explained who I was and then how she might check her smoke detectors because they might be surveillance ones that Kent installed. Was she aware? Channing watched and listened with a skeptical look on her face.
A text came back immediately telling me not to contact her again. I showed Channing the message, and she pushed her hair off her forehead. “We tried.”
“Okay, that’s a dead end. Let’s focus on Ames telling us Kent has a camera in his bedroom.”
“Good idea. But I don’t trust Ames. If it’s her idea, it’s a trap.”
“I know you feel that way about her, but she didn’t have to tell me. It was after I told her what you said about your dad. The details of that day, I explained them to her.”
A flash of fury streaked through her face. I said, “Channing, listen. Writing this article about what happened years ago to the Korean community and the beach club means a lot to her, I can tell. It’s the same way you are about your computers. She cares about it, even if what she said about your dad is wrong. Let her find out for herself what happened to that money. We know your dad didn’t steal it. No one has ever really looked into it. And no matter how you feel about her, she was trying to help you with Kent. We know he’s the key to freeing you.”
“She would negotiate with him to turn us in so he’ll fund the newspaper.” She glowered.
“It didn’t seem that way to me, Channing. I talked to her for a while. What can she really do? How could he trap us if you break into his spy camera in his own bedroom?”
“He’s always a step ahead. I’m telling you we can’t trust Ames,” she insisted.
“This is all we have to go on right now. Let’s try,” I pleaded.
“Kent is smart. He would have deleted that footage of what he did to me.”
“He’s cocky as hell. Why would he? But if he did, then maybe there’s something else on there we can use. We have to get him to drop these charges.”
Whether it was the coolness of the evening air that was now descending or my impatience with people like the Ahns who didn’t know when helpwas being offered to them, I was suddenly exhausted when Paul called up to us from the bottom of the stairs at that moment.
“The grands are cooking, come eat,” he said.
I was going to turn him down, but Channing surprised me by agreeing right away. “Paul,” she called to him, “let me ask you a question about cloud storage. You worked in security, didn’t you? Minjae told me you did.” She brought her laptop with her, running down the stairs in her bare feet. When I caught up to them, I heard her say, “It’s like the smoke detectors Kent installed. The footage will be stored somewhere remote. Not a hard drive in his actual house. If his house ever caught on fire or if he was robbed, then he’d lose it, so he probably has it stored in some other kind of way. A cloud service most likely,” she said. “I just have to break into that.”
Paul didn’t have time to answer because a voice interrupted from across the yard. It was Mrs. Yun waving us over. “Come, join us, I made geotjeori.”
Chapter 40
In the Yuns’ yard, birds with blue hoods had a meal at a green metal feeder hanging on a branch of a tree. The lawn was clear of leaves. The Yuns were on top of their landscaping, that was for sure. We were eager for fresh kimchi, which was a rarity for those of us who bought our kimchi from the store. My mother never had time to make it, and Harabeoji seemed to be the recipient of his friends’ homemade kimchi, which he’d share with us. Geotjeori was kimchi that wasn’t fermented. It was more salad-like than other forms of kimchi. We ate it with rice and some grilled bossam. The pork bellies were not salty, letting the salt from the geotjeori supply the custom amount we wanted for each chopstickful.
Mr. Yun sat with us outside at the table. “This weather is still good. We have to take advantage. I want you to know this house is your second home, both of you.” He peered at me and then at Channing.
Mrs. Yun agreed and patted my back as she walked around, setting various banchan before us. She had a heavy hand, but I appreciated that she was emphasizing her welcome.
“Thank you for letting us stay here. You, too, Paul, since we’ve been in your space. We don’t know how long this trial is going to take,” Channing said.
“It can’t come to that, will it?” Mr. Yun exclaimed. “We don’t want the media coverage. Kent will come to his senses. What’s a watch? Yourgrandfather has died. We can give him money to buy another. This seems like insult to injury; we can’t let this happen to you.”
“He wants to be mayor. I hardly believe he would want to go to court. A big scandal can’t help him,” Mrs. Yun said.
“It’s all such a delicate balance here. Kent could be mayor. Maybe even governor someday,” Mr. Yun said, inspecting a piece of pork. “I think we need to crisp this up more on the grill.” He stood up.
Paul offered to help. It seemed unfair to make him do it by himself while the rest of us sat around and waited, so I volunteered to assist. I realized I hadn’t asked how he was doing lately.
“Have you applied to grad schools?” I said as we watched the meat sizzle.
“The test is next week, so I’ll focus on schools after that,” he replied.
“Sorry we’ve kicked you out of your space,” I said.
“Hey.” He smiled. “It’s not your fault. I still have questions for you about what to put on those applications, so don’t worry, I’m getting something out of this, too.”
