The Captive Within (A Prairie Heritage, Book 4) (21 page)

We have received a note from Mr. O’Dell. He has taken
rooms in Seattle and is now looking for Mei-Xing’s family. It has now been
eight weeks since her disappearance. Oh, if only she had confided a little more
in Breona or Joy. If only we had pressed her a bit to tell us of her past, her
family!

Emily tells me that Martha Palmer has taken Mei-Xing’s
loss very badly. She does not go out or receive visitors. Lord, please comfort
us by your Spirit. You promised to never leave us comfortless.

—

Yaochuan Min Liáng hung back to study the large house on the
corner. He noted the distinct air of disrepair about the place, but also the
visible efforts recently undertaken to improve it.

The grounds showed evidence of sharply trimmed back
shrubbery. The tall, wrought iron fence surrounding the grounds was newly
painted. The house, of a magnificent design, was set far back from the street,
sheltered by tall Ponderosa pines and shrubs that softened the look of neglect.
Liáng turned resolutely and followed Flinty up the house’s walkway.

Flinty nodded at a man standing on the front porch. The
guard Flinty had told him of? Flinty removed a key and opened the locked front
door. Liáng followed him into a large entryway and then through a set of closed
doors on the right into the house’s great room.

A slender woman, her ash blonde hair caught up in a braided
knot at her neck was working at a desk in a corner of the room. She looked up
and smiled when she saw Flinty.

“My dear friend!” She left the desk to come and greet him.
The woman, perhaps in her sixties, took his hands and gave him a soft kiss on
his cheek. And then saw Liáng in the doorway behind him.

Flinty nodded at Liáng. “Miss Rose, this here’s Mr. Liáng.
Mr. Liáng, this here’s Mrs. Thoresen, what I tole ya ’bout.”

Flinty’s eyes were alight with hope. “Met Mr. Liáng here up
in Corinth, I did. Ya won’t b’lieve who he’s a-lookin’ fer.”

Liáng stepped fully into the room and extended his hand to
Rose. “Madam. I am Minister
Yaochuan
Min
Liáng. My church is in Seattle.” He smiled, his manner placid. “I am honored to
be pastor to Mr. and Mrs. Jinhai Li.”

Rose gripped his hand. “Seattle! Mr. and Mrs. Li. Do
they . . . have a daughter?”

Liáng, still smiling softly, bowed in assent. “Yes, Mrs.
Thoresen. Her name was Mei-Xing Li.”

“Was? Her name
was
?” Rose’s eyes filled.

“Ah! I am so clumsy and insensitive! Please, may we sit
down?” Liáng apologized, compassion showing on his face.

Rose was trembling as Liáng handed her into one of the great
room chairs and took another near her. Flinty stood by Rose’s chair, waiting to
hear Liáng tell his story again.

“My dear lady,” he said gently, “Sadly, I used a wrong word.
Mr. Flynn has told me that, until several weeks ago, Mei-Xing was living
happily in this house. Is this so?”

“Yes,” Rose replied. “Are we speaking of the same young
woman? Just 16 years old? A tiny, beautiful girl?”

Liáng sighed in relief. “I believe we must be. Please let me
show you and tell you what I know.”

At Rose’s anxious “Yes, please do,” Liáng removed a
newspaper clipping from his coat’s breast pocket. He unfolded it and handed it
to Rose.

Rose took the clipping from his hand and stared into a
grainy photo of her beloved Mei-Xing. The image, not recent, was of a child on
the cusp of womanhood. Beside it was her obituary.

“But, but I don’t understand,” Rose muttered. Her shocked
face told Liáng what he needed to know.

“So this
is
the Mei-Xing you know?” he had to ask.

“Yes! Yes, it is her! Please tell me what this means!” Rose
demanded.

Minister Liáng bowed his head. “I can tell you. I didn’t
believe it when it was told to me. Did not wish to believe it. I came here to
prove it an unspeakably evil falsehood, but now I must face the truth.”

“It is a story of two families,” he began.

—

Edmund O’Dell reread what he had scrawled the night before.
He had written down every detail he could recall of the confrontation between
Mei-Xing and Su-Chong on that infamous night in Corinth last year. And then he
had fallen asleep with his face on the paper.

He wiped the sleep from his eyes and read it again. They had
hurled the words at each other while Su-Chong Chen held Rose Thoresen by the
throat. Su-Chong threatened to end Rose’s life if the U.S. marshals and Pinkerton agents did not allow him and Dean Morgan to escape their
custody. O’Dell could remember, could clearly hear, every word from that night
being spoken and yet . . .

He growled in frustration. Some
piece
of what they
had said eluded him.
And a blamed important piece
, he remonstrated with
himself.
I need coffee
. He heard a thump as something hit the bottom of
his hotel door. O’Dell hoped it was his requested copy of the
Seattle Daily
Times
.

He retrieved the paper and began reading it from front to
back. He reached the society section and studied the announcements and black
and white photographs.

Would Mei-Xing’s family have moved in these circles? It was
obvious to those who knew her that she came from wealth and had been carefully
educated and brought up. However, she was Chinese. Would Seattle society mingle
with and acknowledge the Chinese elite?

O’Dell finished the society pages and moved on. When he
reached the obituaries he perused each one, looking in particular for Chinese
names, finding some, but not the name Li or Chen. He finished and turned the
page.

And stopped. That “thing,” that forgotten tidbit, tugged at
his memory again. He slowly turned back to the obituaries although his eyes
were focused elsewhere, his mind on that night . . .

They said you were dead
.

He sucked in his breath. Su-Chong Chen had said that!

Mei-Xing’s voice floated in his memory.
She hated me.

Who? Who hated you, Mei-Xing? O’Dell ground his fists into
his forehead trying to recall the elusive conversation.

Nothing more came. O’Dell stepped out onto the room’s
veranda. He could smell the tang of salt water from the nearby wharves. Could
hear gulls circling overhead crying to each other.

Placing a cigar to his lips, his mind raced to process the
new tidbits of information his incomplete memories had provided. He
automatically lit the cigar’s end and sucked repeatedly it to make it draw.

As sparse as those bits of memory might be, he could
reasonably conclude two important facts from them.
One . . . Mei-Xing was believed dead.

He glanced inside his room at the crumpled newspaper. The
obituaries. If she were believed dead then—

O’Dell nodded to himself. He would visit the
Times
,
search the obituaries, find those persons at the paper who could help him find
what he looked for.

And two . . .
she hated me.

Hated me.
Someone hated Mei-Xing. Hated her enough to
arrange her “death” and consign her instead to a life of living hell?

O’Dell’s expression darkened and a hot fury sparked within
him. He didn’t know how long he stood there lost in his dark thoughts. He only
knew that when he shook himself into action and brought the forgotten cigar to
his lips, it was broken, crushed within his clenched fist.

~~**~~

Heat radiated from the red swelling of Su-Chong’s leg. He
lay on his side on the edge of her bed. Mei-Xing had cleaned the infection from
the wound as best she could, her stomach revolting as it drained its poisons.

Although he flinched, Su-Chong had made no sound when she
poured the alcohol over the wound. She caught the alcohol and what flowed from
his leg in the basin then repeated the process until, finally, she could see
the edges of the wound more clearly.

Her hands trembled as she threaded the needle. She took a
small dish, poured alcohol in it, and placed the threaded needle in the
alcohol. As she stared at where she must pull the edges of the wound together,
her whole body began to shake uncontrollably.

“I can’t do it,” she whispered through chattering teeth.

Su-Chong grasped her wrist. She tried to pull away, but he
held her firmly.

“Look at me,” he commanded.

Unwillingly, Mei-Xing did. Su-Chong’s eyes may have been
glassy with fever, but his voice was adamant.

“You must do this, Mei-Xing. I have seen your embroidery and
needlepoint, remember? You excel at needlework. Think of this as only simple
mending. Nothing more.”

He gripped her wrist so tightly that Mei-Xing gasped in
pain. Still he held her wrist and his eyes commanded her compliance.

Wild thoughts pummeled her mind as he stared at her.
What
if he dies? What if he dies outside this locked door? Who would know? How long
would it be before anyone found him? Found me?

His grip on her wrist did not lessen. Reluctantly, she
realized,
O God, please help me!
I must do this.

Finally she nodded and he released her. For a moment she
wavered, unsteady on her feet. Then she gathered herself and pulled the needle
and thread from the dish of alcohol. She knelt beside the bed and took a deep
breath. And began.

He stayed within her room that day, sleeping fitfully on her
bed. In her heart Mei-Xing was glad. If he were to die in her room, at least
she would be able to take the key and escape!

However, after several hours of sleep he awakened and,
although feverish and weak, forced himself to rise and leave, locking the door
behind him. When he returned she saw he had stacked jars of water—enough for a
week at least—on the floor just outside the door.

He leaned heavily against the door frame and motioned to
her. She brought the jars, two at a time, into the room. Then he left again.

He returned a bit later and pointed to a tray on the floor
piled with food: crackers, cheese, canned fruit and soups. She understood. She
dragged the heavy tray into the room, but he left once more. This time he
returned with a pillow and a stack of blankets.

After locking the door and tucking the key within his shirt,
he collapsed on her bed and fell into a restless sleep. As his fever increased,
Mei-Xing huddled on the floor, watching, waiting, listening to his groans. Once
he called for water and aspirin and Mei-Xing gave them to him.

She had no real sense of time because the light was always
on. When she grew hungry, she ate. When her eyes would stay open no longer, she
made a bed on the floor and slept. When she awoke, she cleaned and re-bandaged
his wound, watching their supplies carefully.

Twice more he called for water and aspirin and she gave them
to him. After what Mei-Xing guessed was three days, he began to improve. The
fever broke and he sweated profusely.

Mei-Xing bathed his face with a damp rag. The wound,
although puckered and dreadful looking, drained clear fluids.

He would live.

On the fifth day he left the room, limping and unsteady.
Mei-Xing looked about her. The room and bed linens stank. Only a bit of food
and water remained.

When she heard him return a few hours later, she was
relieved. He had bathed and changed his clothes.

He gestured to her. “Come out here.”

Mei-Xing froze, unsure of his direction to her. He gestured
again.

“I have clean clothes for you, but you should bathe first.”

He was right about that. Mei-Xing had not bathed in going on
two weeks now. But he was asking her to leave the room? She was suddenly
afraid.

She walked slowly into the little sitting room she had
glimpsed once before. A hip bath sat by the sink, filled with clean, hot water.
Su-Chong’s rank-smelling clothes lay in a pile off to the side. Clean clothes
for her lay stacked nearby.

“I couldn’t carry the tub into your room and bring the
water, too,” Su-Chong murmured. He was weak, Mei-Xing could see. He had lost
more weight.

He placed a cushioned chair against the door of the small
apartment, the effort clearly taxing him. “This door is locked,” he said
wearily. “No one else is in the building right now. I will sit here while you
bathe.” He gestured weakly. “The door in the hallway. A commode.”

He sank into the chair and she soon heard deep, regular
breathing. He was asleep, his head resting on the back of the chair.

The water in the bath steamed, and Mei-Xing tested it with
her hand. With a glance to where Su-Chong slept, she quickly threw off her
filthy clothes, tossing them into the same heap as his.

She sank into the steaming water until it covered her
completely. She had never felt a pleasure as exquisite.

—

O’Dell found the sprawling
Seattle Daily Times
building and asked to see the archives. After showing his Pinkerton credentials
and receiving permission from the managing editor, a receptionist led him down
damp stairs and a dimly lit hall to the vault.

Casually, O’Dell asked, “If I were to need some assistance,
perhaps from a long-time employee, whom would you recommend?”

The receptionist, a too-blonde blonde with frizzed tresses,
studied him for a minute, her hand on her hip. “Ya might try Hank,” she finally
offered and started back the way they’d come.

“Hank, huh?” O’Dell called after her. “Where do I find Hank?”

“Here,” a voice spoke from behind him. O’Dell saw a
middle-aged man wearing an ink-stained vest over his shirt.

“Hank, I’m O’Dell. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?” O’Dell
asked.

Hank, as it turned out, managed the vault and archives. “I
was a crack reporter until I broke m’ hip,” he explained. “Since I can’t chase
stories anymore, they offered me this job down here.”

Without giving too much away, he hoped, O’Dell told him what
he was looking for.

“Sure, I remember that girl. Quite a sad story,” Hank mused.

“Can you help me find the obituary?” O’Dell hid his
excitement, but it was difficult. Finally, he was catching a break!

In addition to the obituary Hank found two issues that
reported Mei-Xing’s disappearance and then the finding of a suicide note and the
location where she was presumed to have jumped to her death.

“Never found a body, though,” Hank told him. “The tides
below the bluff she jumped from are pretty nasty. And they never could figure
how she got there. Was pretty far from her home.”

O’Dell scanned the details of the articles:
Daughter of
Mr. and Mrs. Jinhai Li. Suicide note discovered. Believed drowned
.
Tragic
romantic association
.

His eyes returned to the last sentences:

Miss Li’s death by her own hand is said to be attributed
to a tragic romantic association. According to close acquaintances who do not
wish to be identified, Miss Li had been engaged to be married last year to Mr.
Su-Chong Chen, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Wei Lin Chen, long-time family friends
of the Li family. Miss Li had unexpectedly broken off the engagement resulting
in strained relations between her family and that of her fiancé.

Su-Chong Chen!
He had found the connection at last
.
O’Dell quickly read the rest of the article and then carefully copied both of
them word for word.

—

Mei-Xing roused herself from her reverie. She again studied
the scratches representing her time in this place. She carefully added the
first line of a new group. Her accounting would not be entirely accurate. She
had lost track while Su-Chong battled his fever. But it was close enough.

She pushed the bed against the wall. Sat down. Wrapped
herself in the bed’s blanket.

The room had no heat but what worked its way up from below.
During the day her room was a little warmer; in the evenings she had to wear
all the clothing Su-Chong had provided for her and wrap herself in blankets.

Occasionally, when a winter storm was blasting Denver, Mei-Xing could hear its wailing through the thick walls and bricked over windows.
Although Mei-Xing did not know where she was, she had the sense that this room
was not on a ground floor.

She walked across the room and back again, picking up the
threads of her thoughts.

It had taken several more days for Su-Chong to regain his
strength. While he rested she washed their clothing and the linens, hanging
them about the rooms wherever she could. She wore one of the too-large dresses
he had left for her because she had nothing else. At least it was clean.

She prepared canned foods she found in the tiny kitchen,
worrying when she saw the stock diminishing. Then the flour ran out and they
ate the last of the stale crackers in the cupboard.

That night, he had led her back into the little bedroom.
Later he had turned off the light and she had slept. But something had wakened
her in the night. The creak of the apartment door. Su-Chong opening and closing
cupboards.

The next morning he unlocked her door and gestured for her
to come out. “Please fix us something to eat.” He was fatigued and limping
again.

Mei-Xing almost said there was nothing to fix but then she
remembered the noises in the night. When she opened the cupboards they had been
refilled—not fully, but with enough to last a few days. Her mouth watered when
she found fresh bread, fruit, and cheese.

“Where did you get these things?” she asked. She felt no
immediate fear of him after the amount of time they had been together.

He stared at her.

Mei-Xing remembered the noises. “Have you also become a
thief in the night?” she demanded.

His face flamed but still he said nothing.

So. That answered her question.

“How long will you keep me here?” Mei-Xing demanded again,
tears clogging her voice. “How long will I be your prisoner?”

Again, he did not immediately answer. When he finally did,
her blood ran cold.

“I am sorry.” His words were spoken softly. “I am sorry I
had to take you, but I had no one else to turn to.” He sighed. “I cannot let
you go, Mei-Xing. Not without endangering myself.”

He gestured to a tin of bacon sitting near the small gas
burners. “Please.”

Mechanically, Mei-Xing turned to preparing a meal for them.
He sat at the table and waited for her. When she placed his food in front of
him he gestured to the other chair.

“Please eat with me.”

“I-I would prefer not to,” Mei-Xing replied, not meeting his
eyes. “I will take my food into my . . . room.”

“No. You will sit with me.” It was not a request.

Reluctantly, Mei-Xing placed her food on the table. Su-Chong
did not pick up his fork until she seated herself. Then he ate ravenously. When
he finished he watched as she picked at her food.

“Will you tell me what happened?” His question stunned
Mei-Xing. What she heard
unspoken
in his question stunned her more.
Compassion. Pain.

“I cannot,” she whispered.

He was silent. Finally, he replied, “I understand.”

He did not ask again. The days dragged by and settled into a
routine marked by shared meals and few words.

Every night he would lock her in her room. When supplies ran
low, Mei-Xing would arise in the morning to find more food in the kitchen.
During the day they would both read, Mei-Xing her little testament and Psalms,
Su-Chong from the volumes that lined the shelves in the sitting room.

Often Mei-Xing would look up from her reading to find his
eyes on her. She read many things on his face. Loneliness. Regret. And longing.

The open longing nearly destroyed her composure. How she had
loved him!

As they sat at the meager dinner she had prepared one
evening he asked her again. “Will you not tell me what happened?”

This time Mei-Xing hesitated. In her heart she heard a soft
warning.
Do not open this door
, the voice whispered. She hesitated.
Finally, she nudged the warning aside . . . and the story she
had never spoken of—to anyone—began to trickle from her lips:

Breaking her engagement to him. The anger and disbelief
of her parents and other family members. Su-Chong’s abandonment of home and
family. Fang-Hua’s public vilification and ostracism. The continuing shame and
strain.

Su-Chong’s eyes narrowed as she told of his cousin Bao’s
friendship, his compassion and understanding shoulder.

The ticket and the late-night train. The long ride to Denver.

Mei-Xing knew she should stop. That voice within her was
warning her. She thought she could tell the tale without feeling much emotion,
but she was wrong.

She was reliving the horror all over again:
Not the
loving adoptive family she expected to find. Instead, Darrow, his meaty hand
easily spanning her arm, clamping across her mouth, dragging her. Corinth. The house. Roxanne Cleary. Drinking what they forced on her. The man they gave
her to and . . .

Mei-Xing stopped, her mouth open on unspoken words. Her eyes
were wide reliving the terror and shame.

And then Su-Chong’s arms were around her and he was holding
her, rocking her, whispering comforting words into her ear, across her neck,
along her jaw, into her mouth.

His lips moved upon hers until she responded. The warning
voice in her heart grew softer and more distant as she allowed Su-Chong’s
solace to altogether drown it out.