Chapter Forty-Eight
Forty-Eight
Angie
The days passed by in a blur, and Angie spent the day going through the motions. Breakfast, feed Lulu, help Bàba, lunch, and calling the divers from Ken’s list.
None of them called her back.
Rosie was at school, Mia was at work, and Jack was taking his afternoon nap.
After lunch, she walked to the porch, where Bàba stood with his crutches overlooking the banister at the townscape before him. She donned her jacket and stepped outside. “Bàba?”
“Yes, Beibei?”
“How are you feeling?”
“Okay.” Bàba gave his non-weight bearing leg a quick stretch. “Just took my painkillers. I can’t wait until I’m off them. They’re giving me stomach aches.”
Angie gave him a half-smile. He was only taking the painkillers because if he didn’t, he spent his nights cursing and groaning in bed and complaining of extreme agony during the days.
She thought back to when Bàba kept blood pressure medication around “just in case”.
Angie knew better. He never intended to take it, believing Western medicine was for emergencies only.
“I’m glad. I wanted to ask you, though, do you have access to the security tapes from the night the Mer-Queen died? ”
Bàba’s crutches clicked as he hopped on his good leg, turning to face Angie. “No, but I can ask the security team to send footage from their cloud systems. They should be able to access it from their computers at home.”
Outside of spending time with her family, if there was a singular thing Angie had to be grateful for, living downtown with Mia, it was that they had Wi-Fi and could receive the footage.
She followed Bàba inside and helped him sit on the living room couch and handed him his phone. “Do you want anything to drink?” she asked, heading to the kitchen.
“Could you brew some báiháo yínzhēn chá? I’m emailing the security team now.”
“Sure thing.” Angie reached for Mia’s cupboard full of loose-leaf teas and pulled out the box of white tea Bàba wanted, aptly named ‘white hair silver needle’.
She could go for a cup herself. Angie scooped a spoonful into a cast iron tea pot, from the set she and Bàba had gotten Mia as a birthday present one year and poured boiling water inside.
She waited for the security team to answer Bàba while the tea steeped.
“Here you go. I logged on Doudou’s laptop so you can look at them. They gave us the footage from the week,” Bàba said two hours later. Angie reached the bottom of the stairs after checking on Jack, who was still asleep, sprawled on his back like a little starfish and his mouth wide open.
She thanked Bàba and gave him a hug. With a second cup of white tea at the ready, she sat and searched through the footage from that night, and the night before and after.
Mia knocked on the study door hours later. “Mèimei? You want to help me with dinner?” The door creaked open, and Mia’s reflection came onto the computer screen. “Bàba’s trying to help and won’t listen to me when I tell him to sit down.”
“Yeah, give me an excuse to get away from this damned computer for a bit.” Her vision was bleary from watching the footage nonstop, and she paused the shot.
Mia leaned in and stared at her sister. “How long have you been in here for?”
“Four hours?” Angie fumbled. She peered at the time on her phone. It had been over four hours. “Feel like my eyes are going to fall out of my face.”
“You haven’t found anything?”
“No,” she mumbled. “But let’s get Bàba out of the kitchen.”
“Okay, now I’m glad I came to get you.” Mia led the way downstairs. When they got to the kitchen, Bàba was struggling to reach an overhead cabinet.
“Need help?” Mia sidestepped around him and reached over his head for a glass.
“I could have gotten that,” Bàba mumbled between heavy breaths.
“Yeah, but let us make it easier for you.” Angie put her hand on his arm, steadying him as he turned toward the stove. “Why don’t you rest, and we’ll take care of dinner?”
“No, I have to do these things myself. Or else I will never get stronger.”
Angie exchanged a glance with Mia but stayed back as Mia carried his tea to the family room. Bàba had always hated the notion of becoming dependent on someone else, and if he said he didn’t want help, nothing would convince him to accept it, even from his daughters.
She chewed on her lower lip. Bàba hobbled around the kitchen, grabbing a packet of frozen fry bread from the freezer and tossed it on the countertop.
He grunted with effort as he reached for a canister of dry white rice from Mia’s pantry, and a packet of seasoned and alder smoked reindeer sausage from the fridge.
“Bàba.” Angie lunged forward to grab the packet of sausage when his face contorted with pain, and it slipped from his hands.
It was a kick in the stomach to see her vibrant, healthy Bàba struggling to make a simple meal, and in so much pain.
If she had to guess, he didn’t take his second dose of painkillers.
“Why don’t you focus on the rice, okay? I’ll get the fry bread and sausage. ”
He said nothing as he stared at her for a moment, his shoulders sagging as he relented.
When dinner was ready, Angie carried out the dishes to meet with Mia, who held a fire poker and fiddled with the burning logs and rolled up newspapers. After setting the table, Mia went to help Bàba while Angie got Jack and Rosie downstairs.
After dinner, Angie’s eyes still didn’t feel better, but she only had an hour left of footage to go through.
Angie kept going, still seeing nothing of note, even with the footage from up and down the shoreline. There was only one dive point from the docks, unless they had taken a boat out.
When her eyes burned and she was about to resign herself to becoming a blind cavefish, a flash appeared from the corner of the screen. She froze, looking closer and squinting.
A glint.
She zoomed in at the glint and stifled a gasp.
Her face wasn’t visible, but moonlight bounced off a woman’s nose ring. The same nose ring she saw in the photo Mia showed her just days ago.
Celia.
Angie checked her phone for what felt like the hundredth time the next afternoon, seeing if Celia had responded to her texts, or called her back from the night before.
Nothing except for messages between her and Ken, about her discovery that Celia was the missing diver.
She still hadn’t wrapped her mind around that the young woman was the one who might have betrayed them, and a slew of reasons flickered through her mind as to why.
But all she saw was a nose ring. Celia wasn’t the only person with a nose ring who was a diver, and she still had no definite proof.
But if it was Celia, why? To avenge her mother, Eva? It would make the most sense. But why now? Eva had died over two years ago, and Angie had bonded with her over losing their mothers. Last Angie heard, Celia was moving on and processing her grief with friends, family, and a therapist.
Then why would she choose to strike and break their peace agreement?
Treaties in war were such a fragile thing.
She checked the time as she finished her walk around the neighborhood. The sun was setting in an hour, and Angie tried one more time to dial Celia.
As she expected, her voicemail picked up, and Angie waited for the beep, wiping away a snow flurry brushing past her nose and eyelashes.
“It’s Angie again. Listen, can you call me back? I have to ask you something. It’s urgent.” Was Celia avoiding her? What if something bad had happened? Without answers, she ended the call and headed back inside Mia’s house.
Mia was coming home any minute now, and Angie waited for her, so she could ask to borrow her sister’s car.
Ten minutes passed, and Mia pulled into the driveway with Rosie in the backseat.
Angie stepped outside as Mia and Rosie stepped out, and Mia handed her car keys to Angie.
She had Celia’s address saved from when she visited for dinner twice before she left for Seattle, and she turned her GPS on, driving the forty-five minutes northeast.
Please be home.
After parking in Celia’s short driveway, she hurried up to the front of the single-family home and rang the doorbell. She waited, intertwining her fingers over and over and tapping one boot on the ground.
“Who is it?” Celia’s soft voice came through the door, and Angie perked up.
“It’s Angie. Can I come in?”
For an uncomfortably drawn-out moment, there was no response.
Then the door clicked open, and Celia stood before her, wrapped in a thick sweater and thermal sweatpants, her mid-back length hair pulled back into a messy bun.
“What’s up?” She opened the door wider so Angie could step in, and she absently placed an index finger on her nose ring.
She had the fireplace going, and the warmth was a welcome change from the chilled evening winds that had picked up as the sun sank into the horizon.
“Can I talk to you? About the Mer-Queen?”
Celia froze. “What about her?”
Angie wanted to ask her flat-out, but Celia’s guarded posture and voice told her to tread lightly. “I wanted to find out who killed Serapha. So, the mer stop their attacks.”
Celia raised an eyebrow, folding her arms across her chest.
Angie stood straighter. “Do you have any idea who did it?”
“No.” Celia didn’t meet her gaze.
“Please, if you know anything about it, tell me. The mer have already destroyed the docks, again, and my school. They won’t stop there.” Angie curled her arms over her head, her mouth growing dry.
The other woman stepped backward. “I think you should go.”
No, she couldn’t leave now, not after she had Celia here. What if she didn’t get another chance to talk to her? Her next words tumbled from her lips before she thought to hold them back. “Can you at least tell me why?”
“I need you to leave.” Celia’s voice was thick. “Please.” She strode past Angie to the door and opened it for her. “I don’t like thinking about the mer and my mom’s passing.”
Angie gave her a silent nod, and acquiesced.