Chapter 2 - THE LETTER I NEVER RECEIVED
Samuel left before dessert.
That alone told me something was wrong.
Samuel Reed never left a room first.
He believed departures surrendered information.
I called him from the car.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
My driver glanced at me through the mirror.
“Home, sir?”
“No.”
“Where?”
“Chinatown.”
Manhattan's Chinatown wasn't San Francisco's.
But that night I needed narrow streets, signs I could half read, and the smell of roasted duck hanging behind glass.
I needed to remember who I had been before Nathan Whitmore became a name people whispered.
At twenty-nine, I had been nobody.
My father died when I was eleven.
My mother cleaned hotel rooms outside Pittsburgh.
I went to Stanford on scholarships and loans, then failed spectacularly at my first startup.
By twenty-eight, I had less than nine hundred dollars.
That was when I met Mei.
She worked at Professor James Lee's community legal center translating documents for immigrant families.
I rented the apartment above it because the plumbing was terrible and therefore cheap.
Mei laughed at my Mandarin.
I fell in love with her four months later.
She never cared that I was broke.
That terrified me.
I had spent my entire life believing worth had to be earned.
Mei behaved as though I possessed it already.
Then Chicago happened.
A logistics company offered me a six-month contract.
If I succeeded, they would finance my software.
Mei told me to go.
“Six months,” she said at the station.
“Five.”
“Six.”
“Five and a half.”
She kissed me.
I had the ring in my pocket that day.
I almost proposed.
Instead I decided I'd return successful.
I wanted to deserve her.
Five months later, I called.
A man answered.
Then everything ended.
Or so I believed.
My phone rang.
Lily.
I answered immediately.
“Hello?”
“My mother wants to speak to you.”
My heart stopped.
“When?”
“Now.”
Silence.
Then another voice came onto the line.
Older.
Softer.
But unmistakable.
“Nathan?”
Twenty-five years disappeared.
“Mei.”
Neither of us spoke.
Finally she laughed once.
But it wasn't happy.
“You still say my name incorrectly.”
I started crying.
No warning.
No dignity.
Just tears.
“I came back.”
Silence.
“I came back, Mei.”
Her breathing changed.
“What?”
“I returned to San Francisco.”
“When?”
“December seventh, 2001.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I was there.”
“So was I.”
We compared memories.
I had gone to her apartment.
Empty.
Professor Lee's office.
Closed.
The tea shop.
New owners.
A neighbor told me Mei had moved.
Mei said she had moved because her landlord claimed I had canceled the lease and requested her forwarding address remain private.
I had done neither.
Then she said:
“I wrote you eleven letters.”
I closed my eyes.
“I received one.”
“One?”
“The goodbye letter.”
“I never wrote a goodbye letter.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“I never received the others.”
“You changed addresses.”
“I had mail forwarding.”
“I sent them to your office too.”
“Samuel handled my correspondence.”
Silence.
Mei asked quietly:
“Samuel Reed?”
“Yes.”
Another silence.
Then:
“I know that name.”
My blood chilled.
“How?”
“Professor Lee kept notes.”
“About what?”
“Nathan…”
Her voice trembled.
“The last person Professor Lee met before he died was Samuel Reed.”
Professor Lee had died twenty-two years earlier.
Heart attack.
At least that was what I'd been told.
“When did you last see Samuel?”
“Tonight.”
“With Lily?”
“Yes.”
“Get away from him.”
“Why?”
Mei took a breath.
May you like
“Because James didn't think his death was going to be natural.”
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