4
Changi Airport / Block 9, Singapore General Hospital
August 26, 3:05 p.m. SGT
I landed at Changi Airport in Singapore with eyes heavy with fatigue. Despite the alprazolam I’d taken to calm my nerves, sleep had been fitful. Every bit of turbulence had shot me upright in my seat, wondering whether this was when the plane would go down.
I sent a text to Cass that I’d landed but got no response. I cleared customs, then looked for her familiar figure, which was so like my own: long brunette hair and a tall, willowy form—to quote the industry mags.
But if Cass was here, she was doing a good job of hiding.
I checked my phone. Nothing. Fatigue washed over me. It was after midnight, Seattle time. I groaned.
“Damn it, Cass.”
Someone spoke my name. I turned.
“You must be Nadia,” a Chinese woman said. The trace of a smile appeared on her lips. “You look so much like your sister.”
In the bright lights and tropical greenery of the airport, the woman stood out like a rare bird of rich plumage. Petite and slim, she wore an elegant yellow sheath dress, drop earrings of gold and pearl, and a cool expression. She held out her hand.
“My name is Tan Mei Ling, but in Singapore I am called Emily Tan. I’m your sister’s assistant.”
I smiled. “Of course. Cass has mentioned you.”
As we shook hands, a thin gold bracelet glittered on Emily Tan’s slender wrist. Her skin was like silk. I caught a whiff of her perfume—something exotic and flowery.
As I towered over her, tall and willowy felt suddenly more like gangly and awkward .
I picked up my briefcase and grabbed the handle of my carry-on. “Where is my sister?”
The faintest break appeared in Emily Tan’s porcelain veneer, then vanished as she slid on a pair of sunglasses.
“If you will come with me,” she said, “I’ll explain everything.”
She’s in a meeting, I thought. Or there was an issue with the build.
I trailed after Emily through the automatic glass doors and out onto the sidewalk. The light was dazzling, the tropical heat a blade that pinned every living thing to the earth. In the short stretch of pavement that we crossed toward a waiting SUV, sweat gathered under my breasts and along my ribs.
“I’d forgotten the heat,” I said.
Emily didn’t look back. “It is severe. But you will adjust. Most everyone does.”
A driver took my case and loaded it into the back of the white SUV, then held the passenger door open for us. Inside, the interior was cool and dry. I leaned back in my seat.
Emily turned toward me, as if in preparation for an intimate conversation. But instead of meeting my eyes, she stared down, perhaps at her hands, which were folded in her lap.
“I did not wish to tell you in public,” she said as the driver pulled away from the curb and joined a stream of cars heading toward the exit. “But I am afraid I have terrible news.”
My breath caught. I glanced away, out the window. Emily said nothing more, perhaps waiting for me. The thought flashed through my mind that this was my last normal moment. The instant before everything changed.
I shook off my doomsday thinking and pulled my gaze back to the SUV’s interior. My eyes were still dazzled by sunlight, so that Emily and the driver were mere shadows.
Think first. Act second. Panic only when it’s all over. “Is Cass okay?”
“I am so sorry, Nadia. There was a terrible accident.” Emily made a small sound in her throat like a faint cough. She pushed her sunglasses up on top of her head. Her gaze was on the floor. “Your sister fell to her death. Please accept my condolences.”
My pulse throbbed in my neck, a metronome cranked up to prestissimo. “There’s been a mistake.”
“No mistake. I am so very sorry.”
I pressed the tips of two fingers to a spot just above the bridge of my nose, as if forcing Emily’s news into my skull.
Cass, dead.
It wasn’t possible. I’d just seen Cass on the video screen twenty-four hours ago. Spoken with her. She’d sent me texts.
And miss Guy and Uncle Rob fight? she’d typed. Ha!
I heard Guy’s voice in my mind. Think, Nadia. Assess.
Then act.
I hugged myself. “What happened?”
“Her body was found on the grounds of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. I have been told only a little about the circumstances.”
I felt myself falling, too, as if the seat had vanished. The SUV, the road, the ground beneath the road, the entire island. I was sinking into the sea. Distantly, I picked up a few words spoken in Emily’s soft voice.
Fortieth floor. Marina Bay Sands. Possible suicide.
“She’d never,” I said. “It’s a mistake. Maybe she had to go somewhere. Out of town. They found a body, and for some reason they think it’s her.”
Emily’s voice was gentle. “There is no mistake, Nadia. Her body was found last night. The police took fingerprints and positively identified her from the prints taken for her entry into Singapore. DNA will confirm it.”
The police? DNA? Oh my god.
Outside, traffic rushed by on the expressway, the tropical sun winking on mirrors and hoods. Everything was suddenly moving too quickly, like a black hole sucking us into its depths.
The driver signaled and took an off-ramp.
I pinched myself. Hard. Focus. “Where are we going?”
“Your Seattle office booked a room for you at the Raffles. Isn’t that where you stayed on your previous trip? I thought you’d want to go to the hotel to rest and recover a little. Tomorrow we will go to pay our respects and collect Cassandra’s belongings.”
I shook my head. “Now.”
“Now what?” Emily asked.
“To the morgue. We’ll go now.” I leaned forward and touched the driver’s shoulder. “Please.”
The look Emily gave me was filled with pity. “Nadia, you do not want to see your sister. It was a long fall. The ... injuries are extensive. It’s not how you want to remember her.”
It took a moment to process Emily’s words. I filled my lungs and breathed out as I spoke. “I understand. But I still want to go.”
“They close in an hour,” Emily said. “And I do not yet have Cassandra’s papers. The state coroner requires her passport and work visa for their reports and for ... processing the body. It is better if we go tomorrow. The authorities will expect us then. They will phone when they’re ready for us.”
“We’ll go now,” I said again, trying not to think what a fall from the fortieth floor would do to a human body. “I don’t care what the authorities expect. If you don’t want to take me, I’ll get a taxi.”
“It is not how things are done here. We don’t have—”
I held up a hand. The pulse in my neck had slowed. Visible composure was my superpower, learned at an early age. Never let them see you sweat. Or cry. Or yell.
Or grieve.
I was back in control.
I said, “We can go back tomorrow with whatever the state requires. But I need to be with Cass.”
Emily gripped the handles of her purse and stared at me. Perhaps she saw my determination. Perhaps she pitied me. After a time, she said, “If that is your wish.”
She spoke to the driver, who nodded and accelerated through traffic.
The morgue of the Health Sciences Authority was tucked inside Block 9 of Singapore General Hospital in the southern part of the city. A young man with spiked hair and a lab coat greeted us in a waiting room where the air-conditioning had been set to polar. Forensic Medicine Division was embroidered on his coat in English and Chinese. Emily told him our names. In heavily accented English, he told us to leave, that our presence was against protocol. He tried to shoo us toward the door.
“Go, go, come back with appointment,” he said. “Not okay to have you here.”
But when it became obvious that it would take a natural disaster to force me out the door, he relented. He jotted our names on a clipboard and indicated we should remain in the waiting area—someone would be with us shortly.
We perched on chairs like two mourning doves, soft and still. Ten minutes later, another man appeared from the back. As the door opened, then closed behind him, the pungent whiff of chemicals washed through the room.
This man was middle aged and heavyset, with deep golden skin, a bald head, and the mournful manner of a priest who had just heard a cruel confession. He shuffled toward us, shoulders bowed, favoring his left knee. He wore a baggy blue suit and a wrinkled button-down shirt that was patterned on the front with small brown stains.
I blinked. Tea. It was just tea.
The man homed in on me. “Nadia Brenner?”
Emily and I stood. “I’m Nadia.”
He held out his hand. “I’m Investigations Officer Huang Lee with the Criminal Investigations Department of the Singapore Police Force. You may call me Inspector Lee.”
At the litany of official names, bile rose in my throat. I swallowed and accepted the investigator’s hand. His grip was warm and firm, slightly damp. He clasped my fingers for a moment, then released me and turned toward Emily Tan, who introduced herself as Cassandra’s assistant.
“We spoke on the phone,” she said.
“Of course.” Lee gestured for us to resume our seats. “I was about to return to the office when I learned of your arrival at the morgue. It is unfortunate we are brought together under these circumstances, but fortunate for us to be able to speak in person.”
I lowered myself into the chair as if the world might again vanish beneath me, leaving me drowning in open water. “What happened?”
I waited for Inspector Lee to tell me that there had been a mistake. Cassandra was fine. An unfortunate case of the wrong identity.
“I am very sorry to tell you that your sister jumped or fell or—and this is unlikely—was pushed from a fortieth-floor balcony at the Marina Bay Sands resort.”
Grief folded into horror. “Did you say ‘pushed’?”
“It is doubtful. Another client at the hotel, a reputable German businessman, signed a statement that he witnessed your sister jump. We’re looking at her death as most probably a suicide.”
“Jumped,” I whispered.
“Terrible news, lah ,” Inspector Lee said.
The room turned sideways. Every bone in my body dissolved as if grief were a bath of acid. Distantly, I felt Emily’s cool hand on mine.
My eyes skipped past the inspector’s concerned expression to the room’s mint-green walls and functional furniture. Without my wishing it, my mind raced through the math: forty floors came to more than four hundred feet.
I tucked my chin and focused on a square of linoleum. Black specks on green, like tiny rowboats on an artificial lake. I forced my gaze up. “Suicide.”
“I am only a few hours into my investigation, lah . But it appears so. Sadly, we have many suicides in our country among the young. Academic pressure. Relationship problems.” He produced a notebook and pen from a jacket pocket. “Was your sister troubled? Financial difficulties perhaps? A love gone wrong?”
“No. No. Cass was fine. She was good. She was working on the most important project of her life. It made her happy ...”
My voice trailed off as I recalled Cassandra’s text from the day before.
There’s something we should talk about.
I dropped my eyes. The square of linoleum wavered as my tears rose. Emily pressed a tissue into my hand.
“What project was your sister working on?” the investigator asked.
I wiped my eyes and lifted my chin to the level of the coffee table in front of us. Spread across the surface were copies of Tatler and Vogue Singapore . As if the grieving would seek solace in photos of wealthy homes and haute couture.
I cleared my throat. “Cass is managing the build of a superyacht called Red Dragon . Our family designs and builds yachts. Red Dragon is—was—to be Cass’s greatest accomplishment.”
“Perhaps this ‘build,’ as you call it, was not going so well?” Inspector Lee suggested. His voice had turned even more gentle. The mournful priest now offering absolution. “Perhaps there were problems.”
“It’s going exactly as it should,” I snapped, turning away from the glossy magazines. “I read her project reports just last night. Today, rather. On the plane. Tell him, Emily. The build is going fine.”
Emily’s porcelain face remained impassive. Her eyes, I now saw, were golden brown with flecks of jade around the irises. She removed her fingers from mine and folded both hands in her lap.
“No build goes perfectly,” she said.
“Of course not,” I said. “There are always hurdles.”
“Sometimes these hurdles are minor. Sometimes more.”
My cheeks grew hot, as if I’d been slapped. “Are you suggesting there are serious problems with Red Dragon ?”
Inspector Lee tugged on his ear.
“I do not know.” Emily gave me an apologetic nod and said to Lee, “Cassandra had become distracted. Often absent from the office and shipyard. When I asked if she was depressed, she told me not to worry. But I grew concerned after she began to disappear for hours and the build schedule slipped.”
“The schedule has slipped?” I stared. “Why haven’t I heard about this?”
Emily’s gaze met mine. “Cassandra was very specific. This was a private matter. It was not my place to share my concerns. Not with anyone.”
My mouth fell open. I struggled to regain my composure. “Our build supervisor. He must know.”
“Mr. Ewing believes Mr. Mèng requested additional security measures which have impacted the schedule. He does not know that the delays were due to Cassandra’s inactions.”
George Mèng, the wealthy Chinese man who had commissioned Red Dragon . An entrepreneur who specialized in the development of AIs—artificial intelligence software.
Inspector Lee scratched the side of his nose. “How long ago did Miss Brenner become”—he glanced down at his notes—“distracted?”
“I remember the date well,” Emily said, “because the first time she disappeared from the office without explanation was on the day of my mother’s birthday. Almost five weeks ago.”
My breath vanished. Five weeks?
A yacht build involved hundreds of contractors and millions of hours of hard work and talent. It was—essentially—a series of crises, one problem after another. Delays were inevitable. But five weeks? If this was true, then Cassandra had been lying in her reports. Lying to her family.
There’s something we should talk about.
No wonder Guy was concerned. He’d clearly sensed something about Cassandra that I had missed.
Or Emily Tan was lying. Which made no sense, either.
But Lee nodded as if her words confirmed a private suspicion. He jotted a few lines in his notebook. “Miss Tan, what do you think Miss Brenner was doing during these times she was away from the office?”
Emily’s dress rustled as she shifted in her chair. “Cassandra did not confide in me, other than to mention she was consulting an astrologist. But those meetings would not explain all her absences.”
“That’s absurd.” My voice rang like the slap of a metal ruler. “Cassandra was as superstitious as ... as a fish. She doesn’t buy that nonsense.”
“It is my belief that she went to an astrologist on the wishes of Mr. Mèng,” Emily said. “To ensure an auspicious build and a fortunate launch.”
“Conferring with an astrologist is common in Singapore,” Lee pointed out. “Everyone does it, whether or not they believe. It’s more like a social event.”
“But Cass went alone to see the astrologer,” I said. “Right?”
“I do not know,” Emily said softly. “She might have been accompanied by Mr. Mèng. Or someone else.”
“Was she seeing someone?” Lee asked. “A secret lover would explain a lot. Perhaps she threatened to leave him. Or to make their relationship public. Sometimes with government officials, they get entangled with women they shouldn’t and ...” His voice trailed off.
“And the women get murdered?” I said.
“No, no. But it can be shameful for the woman to be rejected. Sometimes she does not take it well.”
Emily ran her palm along the surface of one of the magazines. A handsome model stared back. “It is possible. But if I am completely truthful—”
“Please,” Lee interjected.
“Then the truth is that Cassandra never acted like a woman in love. She was not happy. Although she was often energetic when I saw her at work or the occasional dinner. Overexcited. Almost ... frenzied. As if she were, I do not know, maybe taking something.” She glanced at me, and I was surprised to see the shimmer of tears.
“Drugs?” Lee asked.
“Perhaps.”
This time I saw the words Lee wrote in his notebook in English: Vic into drugs.
He didn’t add a question mark.
Lee cleared his throat. “Miss Tan, Miss Brenner, do you know why the deceased might have checked into a luxury resort? If she wasn’t meeting a lover, I mean. Is it possible she had taken up gambling?”
Emily looked at her folded hands. “Anything is possible. As I said, she did not confide in me.”
I snapped my fingers. “Cameras. Singapore has cameras everywhere. They will show us what happened. Who came and went from her room.”
Lee pulled out a sweat-stained handkerchief and patted his broad face. “Unfortunately, the cameras on the fortieth floor, where your sister was staying, were not functional at the time of her death. But we will be able to track her in the lobby and elsewhere. The casino, if that is where she went. And we will discover if anyone was with her. I have people working on it.”
“Don’t you think that’s odd?” I asked. “For the cameras to be conveniently broken on her floor?”
“It happens.” Lee shrugged. “The forty-first floor was also affected. These particular cameras were nearing their maximum number of usage hours and were on a list to be replaced. Ah so suey. Bad luck. It is all too common in Singapore. But, of course, I will investigate the possibility that the cameras were tampered with.”
“Cass wouldn’t jump,” I persisted.
Yet even as I spoke, I recalled a time when we were in university together—Cass had fallen into a depression after her boyfriend left her. It had taken counseling, antidepressants, and equine therapy to bring her back.
“It can be very hard to hear this kind of news,” Lee said. He reached a hand toward me, and I swatted it away, along with my doubts.
“It’s not that it’s hard,” I said. “It’s false. Someone did this to her.”
Lee stared down at the hand I had struck. “Miss Brenner. We have that witness. According to him, your sister deliberately climbed over the railing and stepped off the balcony.”
“It was dark, wasn’t it?” I pointed out. “How well could this witness see?”
“The tragedy occurred just after midnight. But there are many, many lights in Singapore. True darkness doesn’t exist in our city.”
“It seems like it does.”
Lee hitched up his pants. “If the state coroner finds anything unusual during the autopsy, if I see something suspicious on the cameras, or if guests on the fortieth floor heard or saw anything out of the ordinary, then I will conduct an investigation. If not ...” He spread his arms. “Then I will close the case, lah .”
I absorbed this news.
“And now, Miss Brenner. Would you be kind enough to look at your sister’s belongings, see if anything surprises you? I am sorry to ask. It will make you buay song .”
“ Buay song means unhappy,” Emily explained.
“I am already buay song . Of course I’ll look.”
Inspector Lee’s face crumpled into creases like a well-worn pillow. “Okay lor.” He stood. “Please wait here.”