Beautiful Lies (17 page)

Stanford spoke quietly. “Did you know he was coming?”

“I knew.” Liana realized it was true. Of course she had known, way down deep inside. Except that some time in the past years, she had disconnected her instincts from her mind. Inside, where feelings dwelled, she had known that Cullen would come to San Francisco to help find their son, she just hadn't acknowledged it.

“It's better he's here,” Stanford said, as if he understood. “And now, at least, it's clear Matthew's not with him.”

“But where is he, Stanford? Where is our son?”

It was only after the words had escaped that she realized what she had said. Not her son, and not, for this one isolated month of the year, Cullen's.
Their
son.

Our son.

Liana closed her eyes. Cullen Llewellyn had been gone from her life for ten years. She had exorcized him from her heart, from her thoughts, from the passing moments of every day. She had made a new and better place for herself in the world.

And now, despite everything, she, Matthew and Cullen were a family again.

M
ei Fong was an imperious matriarch in a withering body. She did exactly as she pleased, and at ninety-seven, it pleased her to do everything she could. She thought nothing of inspecting the homes and lives of her family without invitation, and reordering their schedules to suit herself. She controlled her sons and grandsons and exasperated her daughters-in-law, but she was still loved by all for her warm generosity and loyalty.

Mei lived on Waverly Place in Chinatown, two short blocks that were replete with temples and family associations. For decades she had resisted all attempts to move her away from the tourist crowds and commercial clutter of a culture under siege. She gladly suffered the smell of American-style chop suey and fried prawns from a basement restaurant on the corner. She tolerated the sidewalk stands on nearby Grant Avenue, with their plastic cable cars and T-shirts that shrank in heavy fog.

Once, as a young woman, Mei had stood on a corner of her block and beaten off a gang of local toughs who at
tacked her oldest son, Sam. She had given birth to three more sons in the apartment in which she still lived, played mah-jongg with neighbors in the tiny living room, and made offerings of oranges and vegetable oil in the temple to the goddess Tien Hon, protector—among others—of sailors, fishermen and prostitutes.

Waverly Place was home, and most recently, when Sam, in ill health himself, had insisted that she move into a nursing home, she had promised she would cease breathing immediately if anyone tried to evict her. Since the family knew Mei never made idle threats, she remained in her apartment with a live-in helper. And she had only submitted to that indignity a year ago when her vision failed so dramatically that she couldn't cook and clean properly, or read the labels on her prescriptions.

As the limo pulled up Clay and stopped on the corner, Liana leaned forward and peered around Cullen at her aunt's apartment. “This could kill her.”

“I don't think so, Lee. She'll want to be certain Matthew's all right before she dies.”

“Even Aunt Mei has limits.”

Cullen touched her hand, one brief brush of his fingertips for reassurance.

Liana leaned forward to speak to the driver. “You'll probably have to circle. We'll come back here and wait for you.” She opened her door before anyone could do it for her. She told herself that she wasn't far from the door into her aunt's building. She had less than half a block to walk. She would be all right.

Her own platitudes failed, and the familiar trembling began deep inside. And today there was someone other than a stranger to witness the panic. Cullen was right beside her.

“You'll have to lead the way,” Cullen said.

She didn't speak. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Then she began to walk toward the building, silently counting steps and breathing carefully each time she reached five. She felt a hand at her elbow, though Cullen didn't comment. He didn't ask how she was feeling, or mention the sweat misting her brow, the colorless hue of her cheeks.

“So this is where Mei lives.” He spoke as if nothing was wrong. “Now I can see why she likes it so. She told me about this place in her letters. I'm glad she's still here, that her family didn't cart her off somewhere that would never be home.”

He continued to talk, his voice low and soothing. She sensed that somehow he understood exactly what she was feeling. She wanted to shake off his hand, to scream at him to leave her alone. But all she could manage was one breath, then another.

Inside the building, at the bottom of the stairwell leading to Mei's apartment, Liana leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. “How did you know? Did Matthew tell you?”

Cullen didn't pretend confusion. “He mentioned it.”

She was so drained, it was all she could do to stand erect. She tried not to imagine her son telling her ex-husband about his mother's weird bouts of fear, about the difficulty she had going outside, how the panic got worse with each passing month. She had tried to keep the truth from Matthew, to medicate herself or play it down when her fear was too obvious to ignore, but clearly she hadn't succeeded.

“I try not to let it affect our lives. I…I go with him anywhere he has to go, even if…” She shook her head.

“That's above and beyond the call of duty, Lee. You don't have to be Superwoman, do you?”

“Yes, I do.” She opened her eyes. “I have to be his mother and father.”

“He has a father.”

“Don't try to use this against me, Cullen. I can still be a good mother. I'm fighting this thing, and I'll beat it.”

“I've known about the panic attacks for some time. If I planned to use them against you—meaning, I suppose, another custody battle—then I would have done it already.”

“Would you?” Anger blazed inside her, a flame that had smoldered for years. “Oh, I doubt it. Because if you try to get custody, I'll expose
you.
I'll tell Matthew what you did and why I finally divorced you, and that's the
only
reason you haven't tried to take him away from me!”

His eyes didn't waver. “I will never take him from you.” When she attempted to start up the stairs, he put a hand on her shoulder to hold her against the wall. “But just for the record, I reckon you would never hurt our son that way, so you don't have to make empty threats. I made a bargain with you when we parted, and I intend to honor it.”

He straightened and dropped his hand. “And now that we've finished that, let's get on with telling Mei, shall we?”

Liana knew Cullen was perfectly capable of using all her weaknesses against her. But he
was
absolutely right that she would never tell Matthew why she had divorced him. She was just surprised that Cullen, who had so few scruples of his own, would be so certain of hers.

She drew herself up to her full height, as if those fractions of an inch would make her more of a threat. “We'll get on with finding Matthew. But once we find him, don't underestimate what I'll do to keep him.”

“Let go a bit, Lee, why don't you? If you try so hard to control everything and everybody, the world's just going to get more and more terrifying, isn't it? There's only so
much impact any one of us can have. Then we have to trust the universe.”

“Our son is missing, and you're telling me to trust the universe?”

“You have to trust me and everyone else who's trying to find Matthew. You can't do this alone.”

She was furious that Cullen, of all people, would lecture her. “When did you get all the answers, Cullen? Between a full house and a straight flush? Or maybe somewhere in between win, place and show?”

“I can see what's right in front of me. You're so tightly strung you're going to shatter into a million pieces. And I don't want that to happen.”

His expression was understanding, almost compassionate. Despite everything she had said to him, he didn't seem angry. This was not the man she had known.

“If I weren't so tightly strung, I
would
shatter.” She looked away. “But there's no chance of that. I'm going to do everything to find Matthew. And right now I'm going to talk to my aunt.” She started up the stairs, and this time he didn't try to stop her.

 

Cullen watched Liana prowl Mei's tiny sitting room like a convict in a jail cell. The room was unseasonably warm, as if the windows hadn't been opened in months and the radiators had sucked away every molecule of fresh air, leaving a residue of sandalwood and jasmine. The walls were freshly painted, the furniture recently reupholstered, but the rest of the room was in a slow state of decay. Gilt on picture frames was flaking into dust; nap on the patterned carpet was wearing thin. Even the lilies in an onyx vase on a sideboard were thinning at the edges of their fragile petals. In another day they would be compost in an urban rubbish tip.

And what of Mei? he wondered. Mei Robeson Fong. The twin sister of Thomas Robeson, the stabilizing force in Liana's adolescence, the joy in Matthew's. Cullen had known Liana's aunt only through her letters, but she had surprised him with her quiet warmth, her acceptance of this Llewellyn in her life—despite the history that had nearly destroyed their families. She had talked of the good luck they would have, of the future—never of the past—of children he and Liana would raise, of joys anticipated and horizons conquered.

Now he was here to tell her that the only child born of their union had disappeared.

“She naps frequently,” Liana said from the window, where she was staring down at the street below. “And it takes time to get her up and dressed.”

“No worries. Where else would I go?”

She moved restlessly to the second window, as if the few meters between them might change her view. “I don't know what to say to her.”

“I think it's best we not point out all the possibilities.”

She seemed about to snap at him again, but she contained herself, giving a short nod instead.

Gazing at Liana wasn't easy. She was thirty-eight now, moving into midlife. In his experience, women who cared most about what was in their hearts were the ones who grew more interesting with age. Even tangled in her own emotions, Liana was still more interesting than younger women Cullen knew. The woman he saw in the curve of her cheek and chin, the soft lines at her lips, was the woman he had married. Free-spirited, generous, loving, a woman who would fight to the death for those in her care, a woman who contemplated her own fragility and tried in every way to overcome it.

Not the angry, rigid, frightened shell she had presented to Cullen since their reunion.

“Lee?”

She faced him, her arms locked over her chest.

He searched her face. “I'm asking this because it might matter. Is there a man in your life? Somebody Matthew's close to? Or even someone he doesn't get on with?”

For a woman so filled with emotion, she was a dab hand at hiding it. Her expression didn't flicker. “This has nothing to do with any man in my life.”

“I'm trying to sort through the possibilities.”

“Well, that's one less to sort through.”

“Matthew mentioned someone named Jay….”

“Yes, and last time he came home from his month with you, Matthew mentioned someone named Sarah.”

“I doubt Sarah nabbed him. She's too busy managing my office to nick off to California and steal our son.”

“Jay moved to Honolulu about six months ago to marry his childhood sweetheart.” She paused, and her expression softened. “A guy named Max.”

Despite himself, he grinned. “That must have given you a bad moment.”

“I knew about Max. Jay and I were just friends. I miss him.”

“Friends are rare enough, aren't they?”

She seemed surprised. “How would you know? You always had dozens.”

“Too right. A bloke who loses more than he wins is always in demand.”

“Is there someone you owe money to right now, Cullen? Someone you can't pay? Someone who might have taken our son in retaliation? Or for blackmail?”

“No one.”

“Stanford's looking into your activities.”

“If he doesn't, he's not worth a whoop, is he?”

“It would help everyone if you'll be absolutely honest. Matthew's life could depend on it.”

“I don't owe money. I don't have a mortgage on my house, a loan on my car. I don't even keep credit cards. I don't need that temptation.” She looked as if she didn't believe him, and how could he blame her? “That doesn't mean tomorrow I won't go straight out and lose everything I have on the toss of a coin,” he added.

There was a noise at the door. They both looked up as Mei, leaning on her young attendant, shuffled slowly into the room. Cullen rose to his feet. As he had expected, Mei Fong was old, skin spotted, hair thinning, spine bowing under decades of burdens. But his strongest impression was that Mei's body seemed too fragile to contain life. He would not have been surprised to see her disappear between one blink and the next.

“Liana-ah,” she said, her voice low and quavery. “Who have you brought to see me?”

“Auntie.” Liana grasped Mei's hands and kissed her cheek. “Cullen…Matthew's father is here from Australia.”

Mei turned, continuing to hold Liana's hands as she did. “Can it be?”

He moved closer, giving her time to get used to the idea that he really was in her sitting room, that after all these years of estrangement, he and Liana were standing before her together.

“This is a wonder,” Mei said.

“Auntie, may I help you sit?”

Mei's eyes were unfocused, but he knew that she saw him clearly, if not precisely in the flesh, at least in her imagination. “Why?” She turned back to Liana. “This is a lucky thing, but why?”

“Let me make you comfortable first,” Liana said.

The attendant, a Chinese-American woman in a bright flowered dress, helped Liana tuck Mei into an overstuffed chair and cover her legs with a white knitted afghan. Cullen noted a stunning sunburst spray of silver and onyx on the old woman's collar. He suspected it was one of Liana's first designs. He wondered, as he so often had, if Liana designed even the occasional hobby piece now. He'd seen no sign of a workspace in her apartment.

“Will you need me?” the attendant asked Liana, after Mei was settled. “I have errands I could do.”

“Just don't be too long,” Liana said. Cullen watched her signal the woman with a raised brow. “She may need your help to go back to bed.”

The attendant seemed to realize that all might not be well after their visit. She nodded. “I'll be back in a few minutes.” She checked Mei once more, squeezed her hands and spoke to her in rapid Cantonese, although Mei's English was excellent, then she disappeared out the apartment door.

For a moment the only sound in the stuffy room was the arrhythmic hiccuping of a clock that couldn't possibly keep accurate time. Cullen listened until he realized that his own heart was beating unevenly, too. He had pictured discussing Matthew's disappearance, but now he couldn't imagine this woman surviving the news.