Chapter 11 #4
She looked down, and her lips twitched as if she couldn’t decide if she should smile or frown. “I am sorry.”
“Mei Lin. Look at me.”
When she looked up, he held her hands against his chest. “You did a brave thing, and I’m so proud of you.
You did the right thing, even if I would have told you not to.
You were trying to save those women and protect others from their fate.
I’m so, so proud of you. It’s just that a very selfish part of me wishes you’d never discovered any of it. ”
Her eyes shone. “I think I understand.”
He squeezed her hands and stood, needing to move and think. He fixed two glasses of ice water, drained half of his, then refilled it and set them both on the kitchen table. “How did he figure out you were onto him?”
She took her glass and held it in her hands.
“I am not sure. I was careful. But my supervisor… Her name was Nurse Wen. She was an older woman, and in addition to telling the nurses what to do, she was in charge of records access. I had to log in to see certain files. I tried to cover my tracks, but maybe she knew.”
“You think she told Lu Feng?”
“Perhaps. They weren’t friends, of course. He was a doctor, and she was a nurse.”
“That would be scandalous.” Ethan added a wink.
She smiled. “China is not Canada or America. Most doctors hold themselves above nurses. It is less so in the village, but Dr. Lu was very formal with subordinates, and Nurse Wen was the same way—very formal, very subservient to all doctors.”
“Dr. Lu couldn’t have done what he did alone, right?” Ethan asked. “Someone must have helped him.”
“Yes. He could not have done it without help. The transportation alone—drivers, paperwork, people on the receiving end. I found some names, but I didn’t know them.”
She’d collected serious evidence. Maybe she should’ve tried to forward it to someone who could act on it.
Or maybe that wouldn’t have helped at all.
“I have a question,” Ethan said.
“Okay.”
“When you called me, you were going to leave without getting the evidence.”
She looked down. “It was not very courageous of me.”
“It was smart of you,” Ethan said. “I’m still on board with that plan. But I’m curious. What changed your mind?”
“Lu Feng was a local doctor with local people six years ago. He had money enough to have me put away, but I never had the sense that he was part of a big…what is the word? Like a…not surgery, but…”
He chuckled. “Operation?” She so rarely struggled with English, but when she got confused, it always amused him.
Her eyes flashed, though not with true anger. “Do not laugh at me.”
“Who’s laughing?”
She reached across the table and smacked his shoulder. “You’re mean to me, after so much time apart.” She shoved her lower lip out in a pout, and he had the almost irresistible desire to kiss it.
He swallowed. “I’m enjoying the fact that you can’t hurt me. I’m sure you’ll get back into CrossFit, and then your playful little smacks will leave a mark.”
“Hmm. A goal worth fighting for.”
As much as he loved sparring with his wife… “You think Lu Feng has a big surgery now?”
“Shut up.” Her smile didn’t last. “He must have, no? To find me on the train, and then to find us—”
“Wait. The train?”
“I didn’t tell you? I was on the train to meet you, but at one of the stops, he was on the platform. He was looking for me. If I hadn’t gotten off, he’d have boarded and found me. I barely escaped.”
“You were in Changsha?” That explained why she’d gotten off early.
“Yes. The next morning—the morning you found me—he tracked me to a church.” She explained how a kindly minister had let her sleep.
He’d been the one to provide the delivery-driver uniform and scooter.
“And then Lu Feng found us again yesterday. His operation is large. And the women must be smuggled out of the country, at least I think, where they would be worth more money. So that means he has connections outside of China. And if that’s the case, then he’ll find me. Or he’ll tell someone else to find me.”
“Maybe.”
She sat back and folded her arms. “I don’t want to take him to America with us. I must get the information to use against him so he can’t destroy our lives.”
She wasn’t wrong. Taking down Lu Feng was a goal worth fighting for.
Which meant… “We have to get into the hospital.”
“Yes.”
“Where you worked for years. People will recognize you.”
She considered that, then nodded. “Yes.”
“Where everyone knows your face. And the face they remember is a healthy woman, so any one of them who took a second look would—”
“Yes.” Her jaw set. “I understand the risk.”
He ran it through every angle his tired brain could find, and there was only one solution.
He’d have to leave Mei Lin here and go on to Fuyin alone. He hated to let her out of his sight, but there was no way she was going anywhere near that hospital.
Outside, the sky had turned dark blue over the distant mountains. It was going to be a beautiful day in Zhangjiajie. If only he could spend the day here with his bride instead of trekking deeper into China alone.
Ethan took a breath, picked up the burner, and called Michael.