Chapter 3 - ELEVEN LETTERS
I flew to San Francisco the next morning.
No private announcement.
No assistants.
No Samuel.
For the first time in twenty-seven years, my chief legal counsel didn't know where I was going.
Lily came too.
She sat across from me on the plane.
“You don't have to stare.”
“Sorry.”
“You keep doing it.”
“You look like her.”
“So I've been told.”
“By whom?”
“My mother.”
Fair.
I wanted to ask the question.
I didn't.
Lily noticed.
“If you're wondering whether you're my father, I don't know.”
There it was.
Direct.
Like her mother.
“Do you want to know?”
She looked out the window.
“I spent twenty-five years not needing to.”
That hurt.
But it wasn't about me.
“I understand.”
“No, you don't.”
She looked back.
“But I appreciate you pretending less than most people would.”
When we landed, Mei was waiting.
She was fifty-four.
Silver had begun appearing in her black hair.
She wore a navy cardigan.
No makeup.
No dramatic entrance.
And she was still the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.
We stopped ten feet apart.
“Nathan.”
“Mei.”
Then she slapped me.
Hard.
Lily gasped.
I touched my cheek.
Mei burst into tears.
Then hugged me.
I held her.
Twenty-five years.
Gone.
Not forgotten.
Stolen.
Later, in her small house in the Richmond District, we spread twenty-five years across a kitchen table.
Letters.
Photographs.
Old envelopes.
Professor Lee's notebooks.
Mei had kept everything.
Including the ring.
My ring.
Not the engagement ring.
A cheap brass ring I'd worn in San Francisco.
“How?”
“You left it beside my sink.”
“I thought I lost it.”
“You lost many things.”
“Apparently.”
Lily made tea.
Then Mei told me about Daniel Carter.
He wasn't her lover.
He was Professor Lee's nephew.
When Mei discovered she was pregnant three weeks after I left, Daniel helped her.
When I supposedly abandoned her, he offered Lily his surname so she wouldn't grow up answering questions.
They never married.
Daniel died in a motorcycle accident when Lily was six.
“He was her father in every way that mattered,” Mei said.
I nodded.
That distinction mattered to me too.
Then Mei placed a photograph on the table.
Samuel Reed.
Twenty-five years younger.
Standing outside Professor Lee's office.
“What was Samuel doing there?”
“James discovered something about Whitmore Logistics.”
My company didn't exist yet.
“The company that funded you,” Mei corrected.
The Chicago logistics firm that gave me my first break.
Northstar Freight.
Samuel had been its outside attorney.
Professor Lee discovered Northstar was using immigrant-owned trucking companies as fronts for customs fraud.
He planned to expose it.
I had unknowingly built software that made their operations more efficient.
Samuel approached James.
Then approached Mei.
“What did he want?”
“For me to convince you to stop asking questions.”
“I wasn't asking questions.”
“You were about to.”
She handed me one of my own old notebooks.
Inside was handwriting I recognized.
Mine.
Shipping anomalies.
Invoices.
Container numbers.
I had noticed discrepancies.
I simply hadn't understood them yet.
Samuel had.
If Mei and I stayed together, Professor Lee would eventually tell me.
So Samuel separated us.
A fake phone call.
A forged letter.
Intercepted correspondence.
Two young people who trusted communication more than coincidence.
And it worked.
I sat back.
“Why keep doing it after Northstar collapsed?”
Mei looked at me.
“Because you became rich.”
I understood.
Samuel attached himself to me.
My company grew.
His influence grew.
The fraud became irrelevant.
Access to Nathan Whitmore became priceless.
Then Lily brought out a sealed envelope.
“Professor Lee left this for Mom.”
Inside was one sentence.
Nathan is not the danger. The man beside him is.
I stared at it.
My phone rang.
Samuel.
This time I answered.
“Nathan.”
“Where are you?”
“San Francisco.”
Silence.
Then Samuel sighed.
“You found Mei.”
“Yes.”
“I can explain.”
“Good.”
I looked at the woman I had lost and the young woman who might be my daughter.
“Start with the eleven letters.”
Samuel said nothing.
Then the line disconnected.
Five seconds later, Lily's phone rang.
The Jade Room manager.
She answered.
Her face changed.
“What?”
She looked at me.
May you like
“The restaurant's on fire.”
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