The Red Heart of Jade (15 page)

“Oh yeah. The power of this van is a mighty thing.”

Dean snorted, rubbing his face. “Don’t worry about the police, Miri. They’re not the ones trying to kidnap you.”

“Yet.”

“Everyone and their mama, right?”

“It’s a conspiracy,” she agreed, then added, “I’m serious. Both Kevin and Robert had instructions, possibly from two different people. And if your serial killer is involved... Dean, that’s bad enough, but with all the other weird stuff?”

“Robert,” Dean said. “I’m still trying to figure him out. Someone found him. Found him or made him, either of which would take huge amounts of money. And power.”

“Everything comes down to the jade,” Miri said.

“The jade and you. Are you sure you don’t have any idea what this is about?”

“Yes, Dean, I’m sure. I’m boring. I have students, I teach, I do research, I run excavations with Owen, and that’s it. The jade, on the other hand, came straight out of a woman’s chest, so it’s already got a weird vibe about it.”

“A chest?” Dean rubbed the space above his heart. She remembered his glowing scar and touched her chest. The skin felt hot.

“The jade was placed there while the woman still lived,” she told him. “It remained long enough for her flesh to grow over its edges.”

“That’s some beauty mark. How much do you think she paid her plastic surgeon?”

“Not nearly enough. It would have been incredibly painful. I’m surprised the initial surgery didn’t kill her.”

“So why would someone go through that? Was it forced?”

“No idea. Owen and I were planning to go back to the dig site in Yushan to look for more clues. One thing we’re certain of is that the jade—and the writing on it—originated outside the region. Finding the other fragments, though... it’ll be almost impossible. Research can narrow the location, but discovering the first piece was a miracle. I doubt it can be repeated.”

“Maybe someone disagrees with you.”

“Then they know something I don’t. Or they have someone like you around.”

She meant it as a joke, but one look at Dean’s face and her smile faded. He said, “Money and power, Miri. If they can hire someone like Robert, what makes you think they don’t have a guy like me on standby?”

“Because the odds are—” She was going to say
impossible
, but stopped herself. “Men like you are rare, Dean. What you can do... it’s not normal. Don’t you think I’ve kept my eyes and ears open over the years? Looking for... for more?”

For
you
, she wanted to say, and maybe Dean heard it in her voice, in her hesitation, because he shifted in his seat and said, “Miri, we’re not exactly a public spectacle. At least, not the really talented ones. I mean, hell, can you imagine?”

“I don’t want to. I find it hard enough to believe everything that’s happened tonight, and I’ve even had some experience with... abnormal things. Thanks to you. But if the rest of the world knew? It would be a spectacle. A circus. Maybe even panic in some parts. People would get hurt.”

“Probably people like me.”

“Wuss. You’re bulletproof, remember?”

“That’s more of a problem than an asset, Miri. I’m also thinking it’s a one-time deal.”

“You were shot in the chest before tonight,” she said quietly. “You lived through that, too.”

Dean gave her a long, hard look. “That doesn’t count. The bullet went in. I bled everywhere.”

“But you still walked away. Did you even try to go to an emergency room or a doctor?”

“No. I was too scared. “ Easy, simple. Miri felt him watching her, waiting, but she did not ask why he had been scared. She remembered everything he had
not
said about the man who attacked them—about what happened afterward—and thought she knew why he would not want to go any place where someone might be obliged to report a gunshot wound to the police.

“So you treated yourself,” she said slowly. “What about the bullet? How did you get it out?”

“I didn’t have to. It passed right through me.”

“You still should have died.”

He blew out his breath. “Why are you focusing on this, Miri? You survived, too, don’t forget.”

“But I had medical attention. I can’t imagine what you had to go through.”

“It wasn’t easy,” he said. “I don’t even know what made me think I could do it, except that I was desperate and I’d watched too many Westerns. Cowboys were always patching themselves up, right?”

She shook her head. “And now this. I don’t like the timing.”

“I don’t like any of it. “ He rubbed his chest.

“Is that cut bothering you?”

“A little. “ He hesitated. “I know you saw it light up all pretty.”

“Very pretty. Very strange. How did you get it?”

“I don’t know. Not really. It happened this evening. I... was having a nightmare related to the case I’m working on, and when I woke up, voila.”

“Voila? That must have been some nightmare, Dean.”

“You’ve got no idea,” he muttered. Miri rubbed her throat, fingers trailing down to her breastbone. Her skin felt warm, damp with sweat. She tried to imagine a cut, a glow. Instead she pictured jade.

“You said it happened this evening?” she asked softly. “And that you were staying in the same hotel?”

“One floor beneath you.”

“Crazy,” she murmured, and then louder, she said, “I became very ill tonight. I felt like my body was on fire. Especially here. “ She tapped the skin above her heart. “Strange, huh?”

She looked at Dean and found him staring at her with an awful uneasiness that made her skin crawl.

“What?” she asked, alarmed. “Does that mean something to you?”

“You might say that. “ His voice was hoarse, strangled. “What time did you get sick?”

“Around seven thirty or eight.”

Dean closed his eyes. “Unbelievable.”

Miri stared at him, putting the pieces together. She shook her head. “No. No, Dean. It can’t be related.”

“Then why did you bring it up?”

“Because it was a weird coincidence.”

“I don’t believe in coincidence, Miri.”

“It’s easier than accepting that I experienced... whatever it was you went through.”

“Fire,” he said. “My dream was about fire. Me, burning alive. “

Burning alive. That’s how you felt. All torn up on the inside, like you had a nuclear furnace getting hotter and hotter inside your chest. Ready to explode.

Dean took her hand and cradled it loosely in his palm. His touch felt good, but strange. Still new.

“What is going on?” she asked him quietly.

“Don’t know,” he murmured. “But it’s got us all wrapped up.”

“Who’s the person doing the wrapping?”

“We gotta find that out, babe. Regroup, figure what to do next. Sitting in this van isn’t doing us any good. If I had a direction, I’d say chase after Owen. That’s a no-brainer. But I don’t, and we can’t. The only thing we do have going for us is that we’ve got the jade.”

“Leverage.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Problem is, we’re outnumbered. I can call my agency for help, but most of the others are stuck in America and it’ll take them a while to get here. For now the best plan of action is to evade and hunt.”

“Hunt what?”

“Kevin said there’s another piece of the jade. We might have an easier time finding that, given we already have one piece.”

“It’s old, Dean. I thought you didn’t take good readings of old things.”

“I don’t, but it’s the only clue we’ve got. I have to try.”

“And if you do manage to track it, what then? Four thousand years is an incredibly long time. The jade could have been destroyed, or lost within some utterly unreachable spot.
And
let’s say we do manage to retrieve it. How will that help us or Owen? More leverage? It’s like you said: they can just overwhelm us and be done with it.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I know my logic kinda sucks. But I can’t think of anything better to do, can you? I don’t want to just sit around, or throw ourselves out there without any direction. Hell, if they want the jade that bad it must be important. Maybe it’s not even something they should have. Like, for bigger reasons than just principle.”

“Because it’s magic?” she joked.

Dean smiled. “Might be. Besides, what’s better than finding treasure?”

“Finding hope,” she said. “Which I know must be painfully cheesy for you to hear.”

“Not really. I watch
Oprah. “

“Wow. You are lonely.”

“That’s what my action figures keep telling me.”

Miri laughed. Dean grinned, but his smile faded as he rubbed his chest. She watched him, sharing his uneasiness.

“Kevin recognized that scar,” she said finally, to fill the silence. “He gave you the jade.”

“He called me a monster.”

“You must have scared him.”

“He totally pissed his panties.”

“Books and flesh and jade and scars,” she mused. “What does it all mean?”

“Trouble. On the other hand, it brought us back together, so it can’t be all bad.”

“I’ll save my response until I’ve been around you for more than a couple of hours.”

“Ouch, babe. Be a little gentle. My heart’s already hurting.”

“It’s doing a little more than that. “ She frowned. “I think that cut is glowing again.”

“What? Shit. “ Dean slapped his hand over the light seeping through his T-shirt. He looked out the windshield and Miri followed his gaze. The old man was gone. Down the street, another body with a cigarette hung out in shadows. She heard wings flutter, saw beneath one of the distant streetlights, a crow sitting on a motorcycle seat. She wondered if it had golden eyes.

And then the person standing in shadows began to move. There was some light—a fluorescent bulb flickering cheaply against a slick concrete wall, its blue-tinted light half hidden by iron rails and hanging plants. The figure glided into the dim glow and she felt a jolt; it was the man in black. Dark skin perhaps, though it was hard to tell. She imagined a touch of green around his eyes, which was impossible, given the poor light.

“I saw that man earlier tonight,” Miri said. “Remember? When we were walking to the archaeology building and I stopped you?”

Dean reached for his gun. “Let’s get out of here, babe.”

“If we were followed—”

“No time, and this is not a good place to engage. Too closed in.”

Miri put the van in reverse and edged carefully back onto the road. Several motorcyclists veered at the last moment to avoid a collision.

She glanced back at the man in the alley; he had moved even closer, but something seemed wrong with his body, which flowed, shimmering and frayed and floating like smoke.

The crow turned its head, looked at Dean and Miri, and cawed.

“Go,” Dean said, frowning at the bird. “Just... go, Miri. Fast.”

“Crap,” she muttered, and hit the accelerator.

So he watched her. He leaned against the door and stared, without apology, drinking in her body and face and every movement like it was wonderful and sacred and necessary to his survival; some essential ingredient of the air he breathed.

And it was, though his heart still hurt, his head throbbed, his eyes played tricks. No, she was not here—but yes, she was—and no—and yes—and still, though she was so near and he had touched her and smelled her and felt her breath against his breath, he could not believe.

Miri was alive. Miri was here.

And she’s being hunted
, he reminded himself.
You both are
.

Which seemed oddly appropriate, given that the highs and lows of his day had thus far been so violently extreme—so incredibly bizarre—that
of course
the only girl he had ever loved would find herself in danger from extremely fucked up voodoo
just
when he found her again. Because really, that was his kind of luck.

Not this time. Not matter what it takes, I’m not losing her
again
. Because even if having Miri at his side still felt more like a dream than reality, it was a dream worth dying for. Melodrama was not his usual shit, but this... this was different.

“Can you stop staring at me?” Miri asked suddenly. “You’re making me nervous.”

“Sorry. “ Dean rubbed his palms against his thighs. “I’m still trying to get used to you being alive. I can’t believe how stupid I was.”

“You had your reasons,” Miri said. “And they probably felt right at the time.”

“Yeah. Still wrong, though. That’s not the way your grandma raised me.”

Miri smiled. “Do you remember the first time you met her?”

“It was the first time I met you. I was eight years old, lost, and hungry. And Ni-Ni’s shop had the best roast pork and dumplings in Chinatown. I smelled her cooking a mile away. I just followed my nose, that’s all.”

Followed it to Ni-Ni’s little corner shop with its old-time stone facade, bordered by a grocer and a Chinese pharmacy. Wandering down the street, trying to act like he knew what he was doing, and all the while thinking that grand adventures in exotic locales were not all they were cracked up to be, and that he was going to spend the night on the street, that he’d be lost forever and ever, and while that was miserable it still might be better than the alternative: going home to his uncle Pete, who had a date with a Jack Daniel’s and a Miller and God only knew what else. Maybe a hose jammed into a tank of gas. Couldn’t be any less harmful than knocking back the contents of all those bottles and cans, nursing another day of trouble at the steel mill, which was nothing more than the cumulative effect of a life made up of bad choices and lost opportunities.

Dean had not, even at that age, wanted to be anything like his uncle. His parents, who had also worked at the mill, were better role models. Only problem was that they were dead. Which sucked.

“I was playing on the floor,” Miri said softly, drawing his attention back to her. “I was building a fort out of boxes. And I looked up and saw you standing in the doorway, and you were so pathetic I couldn’t help but like you.”

“Thanks,” he said dryly. “I guess Ni-Ni felt the same?”

“You know how she felt. “ Miri glanced at him, a smile haunting her mouth. “After all, you were the only other child she ever took in.”

Dean leaned his head against the window. “I practically lived with you guys above that shop for eight years.”

“Give or take. More so when you got older. Not as many people were on your uncle’s case at that point.”

“Hit puberty in that town and you’re a man,” Dean said. “Shit, you know that my uncle’s friends used to give their baby vodka so he could hold his liquor when he got older? Kid was a total monkey. Way more hyper than me.”

“Probably not by much,” she muttered.

Dean grinned. “This is good, you know. Talking.”

“You act like you don’t do it much.”

“Not with chicks. Not like this. I mean, I love the ladies and all, but this is personal stuff.”

“And you don’t get personal with your girlfriends? Shame on you, Dean.”

“It’s not like that, Miri. It’s just different with us, that’s all. We got history.”

“With a big twenty-year blank spot.”

Dean shrugged. “You can harp on that as long as you want,
bao bei
, but eventually I’m gonna wear you down. Twenty years? Nothing. Or hell, think of it as a positive. It’ll keep the relationship fresh.”

“You’re the one who’s fresh. What makes you think we’re going to have a relationship?”

“I’m totally not going to dignify that with an answer.”

A light mist speckled the windshield. Rain. Dean kept his window partially rolled down. He needed the air, even though it was wet and humid and smelled dirty. The rain covered the streets with a slick reflective sheen that captured light and color against the darkness of the roadway. So much glittering light, neon fireflies caught in transit. Despite the late hour, nothing had dimmed. Shops were still open. Little restaurants, with cooks in the window chopping and frying, steam rising high. Business as usual. In a few hours, with morning, it would be booming.

“Sure you know where you’re going?” Miri asked.

“Got a map in my head.”

“And I’m supposed to find that comforting?”

“Faith, darlin’. You need to get some.”

“Oh, hallelujah.”

“Amen,” he said, and pointed. “You see that McDonald’s over there? There’s a side street on the other side. Go that way.”

She did. Dean watched the mirrors, the narrow road ahead of them, empty except for a stray dog, rooting through spilled trash. He did not see anyone following. But then, he had not seen the man in the alley tailing their car, though he wondered if he hadn’t had some warning. The skin above his heart, that cut, the burning. Burning until they put some distance between themselves and the alley, the man who Miri had seen at the university. Made him wonder if there wasn’t a connection. Which was so not comforting.

Priorities, priorities. Miri, first. Voodoo mark, later.

Dean said, “You can stop the car. Just park it wherever.”

Miri gave him a dirty look, which was a thrill—even when she was angry at him, it was a wonder; he loved it—and she said, “Do you want to tell me what we’re doing here?”

“Going some place safe.”

“Really?” she said, and he felt her questions, her suspicion, and did not know how to reassure her. How to answer, even, if she asked. But she did not, and they got out and started walking. Dean led Miri through parked motorcycles and bicycles to a small pathway tucked between two apartment buildings. The air was hot and still, and though the misting rain had stopped, Dean was wet enough from sweat to want nothing more than to strip down and take a cold shower. For other reasons, too.

The path curved, twisted and crossed, writhing inward, away from the bustle of the city, enclosing them in silence until Dean’s only reminder that he was still in Taipei was the 101 Building, the tallest in the world, which he could see looming when he looked up into the darkness at the narrow cut of sky. Dean thought it resembled a bunch of stacked take-out boxes. Very funky. It made up for the air, which smelled like a bad sewer, or the garbage rotting off to the sides; buffets for the stray dogs: little things with ratty white hair and big hungry eyes, a couple of larger ones, mixed breeds, ribs jutting.

Near the dogs, Dean found the door in the wall. Narrow, metal, and unadorned. In front, on the ground, Dean crouched and located a rough engraving in the stone. A skull and crossbones, surrounded by a heart. He felt the curving lines with his fingers and smiled. Roland’s mark. The boss man’s tattoo.

“We’re here,” he said. There was a keypad set in the wall. Dean punched in the sequence and heard a click. Below the door handle he found another pad, more buttons requiring another code. This click was softer. He opened the door and held it open for Miri.

She hesitated before walking through. “What is this?”

“Safety,” he said. “For now, anyway.”

“I have some questions for you,” she said.

He grunted, and gestured again for Miri to precede him. She did, still tentative, but after the first step she sighed, and Dean was glad for it. He locked the door behind them.

They stood inside a courtyard, a little touch of paradise in the middle of the city. Miri fingered a broad-leafed miniature palm, which leaned low over a tiny reflecting pool where water ran down a small series of stones around which grew sweet-scented bushes and climbing vines covered in tropical flowers. Even in the darkness, where the only light was an ambient glow from the overcast city sky, he could see the beauty of the place. Dean felt his muscles relax, his chest loosen. Even the air smelled cleaner.

“Dean,” Miri said. “Is this yours?”

“No,” he said. “Um, come on. There’s more.”

Miri followed him to another metal door, with yet another keypad. He typed in the sequence, aware that she was watching over his shoulder, probably memorizing all the numbers.

Inside, the air was so cool he wanted to cry. Lights came on immediately; the motion detectors were still working. Again, Miri gasped, and Dean let loose his own long sigh. He always forgot how good Dirk & Steele’s safe houses looked. No crap for the agency.

The main room was small but lush, with old furniture made of rich dark woods that gleamed under the track lighting in the ceiling. Velvet, silk, golden brocade— everywhere, lush—and while the furnishings and decorations bordered the edge of gaudy, Dean preferred to see the luxury for what it was: the perks of a kick-ass job.

“There’s a bedroom and bathroom down the hall,” he said to Miri, who continued to stare. “Kitchen, too, if you’re hungry. It should be stocked. Someone, uh, comes in every now and then to take care of things. Do you need a drink?”

She gave him a look like he was crazy, but said, “Juice. Something sweet. I feel like a wreck.”

“You look beautiful,” Dean said, and Miri blinked, all wide-eyed like an owl. A faint flush touched her cheeks. He smiled and said, “Come on. Let’s go and sit down. I need to have a beer and a nervous breakdown.”

“Talk first, then breakdown. I want answers, not drool.”

“You used to love my drool.”

“Ha. You funny.”

The kitchen was small and modern, covered in blue tile with stainless steel appliances and a stone floor. It was very clean. Dean thought about his own kitchen, which smelled like a garbage dump and was a breeding ground for a new strain of mold that he was growing in a series of smiley faces. By the time he got home, he expected speech and actual movement.

The refrigerator was stocked with drinks. Not much in the way of food, except for some fruit. The freezer had steak, but Dean did not feel like cooking. He certainly wasn’t going to ask Miri to lay out the skillet. In her mood, she’d take his gun and hit him over the head with it. He grabbed some mangoes instead, a bottle of orange juice and a beer, dug around for some knives, and perched on a stool beside Miri at the island counter.

He cracked open their drinks. Took a knife to the mango, dropping the peelings on the counter.

“Here,” Miri said, laying down a paper towel in front of him. She said nothing more as he cut the fruit for her and set it on the dish. Slow, easy, thinking about nothing but the sharp edge and the mango, about Miri sitting beside him, alive and not a ghost, about fire and pain and bullets, red jade and mummies. He thought about his life and the past twenty years. Time lost, time gained, time spent apart.

Dean said, “Remember when we were little we would sit in Ni-Ni’s shop, and she’d cut us down some of her hot roast pork? We’d eat it in strips and get all greasy, and then she’d come with her hot rags and wash our faces and hands. Scrubbed me raw.”

“She loved you. Said you were her
re xiao erzi
. Her hot little son.”

“That’s me,” he said, and then, quieter, “She taught me so much, Miri. Things about life that I would never have figured out on my own if it hadn’t been for her stories. She drilled them into my head.”

“You and me both. She made us her little survivors.”

“No fear,” he said, remembering. “Never show fear.”

Never show fear. And that from a woman who probably experienced more of it than any human should have to endure.

Because Dean still remembered her harrowing stories of life in China during the Second World War— fleeing to Nanjing because she thought it would be safe, only to live through one of the worst massacres in human history. He could still hear her soft accent, her passionate recitation of facts and lists of horrors: boiled babies and rivers of blood, gang rapes that left women cut on the inside with knives, men forced to eat feces and their own testes. The Chinese Holocaust of the Second World War, which she had witnessed within the embassy grounds of a German Nazi, who eventually radioed home to the Mother Country to plead that Hitler ask Hirohito to order the Japanese army to stop the massacre.

The world is a cruel place
, she had said, and compassion had to be tempered with a keen eye for safety, survival, because nothing was ever safe. Nothing ever sacred. Nothing, that is, except moments. Moments of joy, of love; peace and good food and warmth at a table surrounded by those you cared about. Moments like those could be counted on, each one precious. Beyond that, a mystery. Good or bad, lucky or not, cast in a shroud. But either way, you had to be prepared. Prepared to fight. Prepared to stay alive, to keep your friends and family safe, no matter the cost.