by Rick Acker
His shoulders sagged with relief. Billy had told the truth. These girls would be safe. This ship would be seized. The captain and officers would be arrested, and each faced very long prison sentences. He had finally busted Lan Long’s Oakland operation.
And that was only part of what was going on tonight.
CHAPTER 107
Nate watched the local news with satisfaction as he rode a stationary bike in the building’s gym. Fox 2’s Dave Clark was describing last night’s raids while jumpy, grainy cell-phone videos showed scenes of running police officers and handcuffed men being loaded into police vans. “Forty-six people, including an FBI agent, were arrested in raids last night,” Clark said. “Authorities also rescued dozens of women and girls. The US Attorney is holding a press conference right now. Let’s hear some of what he has to say.”
The scene shifted to a man in a gray suit standing at a lectern. Nate recognized him: Bill Pohl, Al Francini’s boss. Like many US Attorneys, Bill had his eye on higher office, and he stood in front of a microphone whenever he had a chance. “Last night represented the culmination of years of careful investigation and planning by law enforcement, targeting several organizations that engage in human trafficking and victimize girls and women. Yesterday, my office obtained warrants for the arrest of—”
Nate’s cell phone went off, interrupting Pohl’s self-aggrandizement. He recognized the number, and wasn’t entirely surprised by the call. He stopped pedaling and got off the bike, then answered when he was sure he couldn’t be overheard. “Hello, Jade.”
“Hello, Nate. I’m calling in that favor you owe me.”
Also not a surprise, based on the morning news. “What did you have in mind?”
“I was arrested last night. I just got out. I want you to help me negotiate a plea deal. It’s going to be . . . complicated.”
“How so?”
“Did you see the news this morning?”
“Yes, I was watching it when you called.”
“They didn’t only arrest Lan Long people,” she said. “They picked up a lot of other people—including me and the people who paid me to help you.”
“Were those people competitors of Lan Long?” Nate asked.
“Yes. That’s why they wanted Lan Long out of business,” she said matter-of-factly. “Lan Long’s girls were cheap and pretty—they flooded the market and drove down prices.”
Nate frowned. “This plea deal you’re thinking of, does it involve these Lan Long competitors, or just you?”
“It involves them too.”
“Then I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.”
“We had a deal!” she snapped. “You owe me a favor, and this is the favor!”
“I don’t owe your friends a favor,” he returned.
To his surprise, she laughed. “Oh, you won’t be doing them a favor, and they’re not my friends. They say they give me protection, but they’re just thugs and extortionists.”
“Perhaps I misunderstood.”
“Yes, you did,” she said, still chuckling. “The plea deal I want is that I go free and they go to jail. For a very long time. I have a lot of evidence against them. I’ve been collecting it for years.”
“Years,” he echoed. “You plan ahead.”
“I thought it would be useful to have someday,” she replied. “Just like it would be useful to have you owe me a favor. So, you will do this for me?”
He chuckled. “You are a formidable woman, Jade Li. Yes, I would be happy to do this for you.”
CHAPTER 108
December
When Nate called, Jessica was in the back of the antique store, washing wine bottles from a century-old trash pit found behind a building two blocks away that was once a saloon. She had been working extra hours to make up for the time she took off during Brandon’s trial, so she was here six days a week. Her only day off was Sunday, when she went to church in the morning and then made the two-and-a-half-hour drive to High Sierra to visit Brandon.
She wondered what Nate could be calling about. After the Lan Long arrests three weeks ago, she had called Eric Jameson at the Public Defender’s Office, hoping that the FBI had found new evidence that might help Brandon. But they hadn’t—or if they had, they weren’t sharing it with Eric.
She wiped her hands and answered the call. “Hi, Nate. What’s up?”
“I just talked to the FBI, Jess,” he said. His voice sounded odd. “They arrested one of their agents a few weeks ago. I asked them to search his apartment carefully, and they did. They found a hair in his hide-a-bed. The DNA on it matches the DNA found under Linc Thomas’s fingernails. It’s a perfect match—all thirteen loci.”
Excitement bubbled up in Jessica, but she had been disappointed too often to give in to it. “Do they think it’s Brandon’s?”
“No. The hair is black, not blond. And the agent was working for Lan Long—that’s why he was arrested.”
“So . . . what exactly does this mean?” she asked, trying very hard to stay calm. Or calmish, anyway.
“They are going to send a letter to me, Eric, and the DA. It will say that they have concluded that the DNA found on Linc Thomas came from the individual who left this hair, not Brandon. We’ll file a collateral attack on Brandon’s conviction, and I don’t see how the DA’s Office could oppose it.” He paused for a heartbeat. “Brandon’s coming home, Jess.”
Tears started streaming down Jessica’s face, but this time she was smiling through them. Smiling so hard her cheeks hurt.
CHAPTER 109
Brandon’s last day at High Sierra passed in a bright blur. The judge signed the order for his release a little after nine in the morning. By ten, he was stuffing his belongings into a bag while a guard watched. By eleven, he was walking out, his bag slung over his shoulder. A smaller bag, holding the belongings he had when he was arrested, was stuffed inside it. He wore stiff no-brand jeans and a scratchy blue shirt that didn’t fit well. They had handed him two hundred dollars with the clothes, and that was now wadded in his front right pocket.
It didn’t feel real. He kept waiting to wake up, or for the guards to call him back and tell him there had been a mistake. The back of his neck tingled as he walked down the sun-washed cement drive and out the gate. But no one stopped him and he didn’t wake up.
His mom was standing outside the gate. He dropped the bag and hugged her. She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him back so hard he could hardly breathe. They stood like that for a long time, not saying anything.
It wasn’t until they were driving back home in her SUV that he finally believed it. She said, “So, do you want to stop for lunch? I saw an In-N-Out on the way up.”
He shook himself like he was waking up, then gave a little laugh. “I can actually go to In-N-Out, can’t I?”
She glanced over at him with a smile on her face. “Yes, you can. And you can have a three-by-three and a Neapolitan shake if you want,” she said, referring to two of his favorite off-menu items.
His mouth watered. “That would be absolutely awesome.”
CHAPTER 110
Jessica took Jade out to lunch the next weekend. Ostensibly, the purpose of the lunch was to thank Jade for her help over the course of Brandon’s case. But Jessica had an ulterior motive as well.
Jade picked Bund Shanghai, one of a cluster of restaurants lining Jackson Street in San Francisco’s Chinatown. “It’s good, authentic Shanghainese food,” she explained after they ordered. “It reminds me of home.”
“Do you go back home much?” Jessica asked.
Jade shook her head. “I don’t have any family there now. My mother died when I was seventeen and my father remarried and moved to Beijing. That’s when I decided to come to America. That was a mistake, but it’s one I can’t reverse. I’m an American now, for better or worse.” She smiled. “Mostly for better, particularly now. I’m completely free for the first time since I came here, and so are a lot of other girls. I can finally leave the business.”
&n
bsp; “Will you?”
Jade shrugged. “I don’t have much choice. I’m on probation as part of my plea deal, so I can’t afford to get arrested again. Besides, I’m forty-five. I’d need to find something else in the next five years or so anyway. This just moves up the timetable. At least I’ve saved enough money that I can take my time figuring out what I want to do. I could probably even retire if I wanted to.”
Jessica took a sip of green tea. She was a little unnerved by the casual way Jade talked about the business of selling her body. She must be nothing like the vulnerable teenage girl from Shanghai. Jessica tried to imagine what the intervening years had done to her, but couldn’t. It was remarkable that Jade had come through it as well as she had.
“You don’t seem to be the retiring type, if you don’t mind me saying so,” Jessica said.
“Not at all. I’m not even sure I could retire. I don’t know what I’d do with myself.”
“You sound like our mutual friend, Nate Daniels.”
“Nate is an excellent attorney,” Jade replied smoothly.
“It’s all right,” Jessica said. “I know about the two of you.”
Jade’s teacup paused for a split second on its way to her mouth, then resumed its journey. She said nothing.
“He and I have been friends for decades,” Jessica went on. “He told me about you and him a month and a half before the trial.”
Jade looked into her tea. “You choose your friends well.”
“My husband, Tim, actually chose him. They were best friends before I met either of them. Then Tim and I married, and Nate married a woman who became a friend of mine. The four of us were very close until Nate’s wife died and then my husband passed away.”
“Her name was Sarah, I think,” Jade said. “He missed her very much.”
“I know. I missed her too.”
“It was hard on him,” Jade said. “I didn’t meet him until more than a year after her death, and he was still . . . not grieving, exactly. Emotionally exhausted. He said he wanted ‘no-strings companionship’—which is what I specialize in, of course.”
“Of course.”
Jade looked her in the eyes. “That’s not just a euphemism, Jessica. I really did get the impression that he was lonely and mostly just wanted someone to spend the evening with—so he could have a date to try a new restaurant or go to the opera with, but without any risk of commitment.”
“But that’s not all that happened.” Jessica didn’t mean it to sound like an accusation, but it did.
Jade’s eyes flashed. “Don’t judge him. Or me. Did you know that he ended our relationship by apologizing to me? It was the most surreal thing I’ve ever had happen—and he had nothing to apologize for. He’s a gentleman.”
“I didn’t know that,” Jessica said. “And you’re right—I shouldn’t judge. I’m sorry.”
Jade softened. “He’s a good man—and you’re a lucky woman.”
Jessica’s face went hot. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Jade smiled impishly. “I thought you were an honest person, Jessica.”
CHAPTER 111
Kevin was happy.
The Fang family’s exile in Andorra had only lasted a few days—which was a relief, because the Internet connection in their hotel had been terrible and Kevin’s mother hadn’t been able to make any of the foods he liked.
When they got back to Pleasanton, Kevin discovered that his crime-fighting skills were in demand, which he found very gratifying. The FBI asked him to help investigate other crimes that might have been committed by Lan Long, and he had been happy to comply. He had already found email and text traffic that led to an arrest for the murder of an investigator named Ernesto Gutierrez, who seemed to have been connected to Brandon Ames’s case.
Much of the demand for Kevin’s services came from China, especially the People’s Liberation Army. Several of the men arrested on the Lan Long ship were PLA veterans. Also, Nate informed reporters that all of the Lan Long leaders in China were PLA officers or veterans, and he provided selections from Kevin’s hacking to prove it. He hoped that would lead to arrests in China, which it did. Many news articles said all of this “embarrassed” China.
Chinese embarrassment turned into consulting work for Kevin. The anticorruption wing of the PLA contacted Nate to ask how he had found the Lan Long members in China and whether he could help them ferret out similar criminal gangs. He referred them to Kevin and negotiated a consulting agreement that would pay for the construction of Kevin’s new house and still leave money for the new Legos and ten-gig-per-second Internet connection he planned to put in the second basement.
The house itself would be built by Brandon Ames—or, rather, the construction company he would work for after graduating from Berkeley in the spring. Construction would have to wait until then, but that was all right. Kevin had the blueprints, and he was halfway through constructing a one-tenth-scale cutaway model of it in his basement. His mother hadn’t complained once.
CHAPTER 112
Nate slipped back into his routine. Up at six, in the gym by quarter after, and at his desk by eight. He’d put in ten hours at the office, more if he didn’t have a client dinner or bar function in the evening. Then back to his apartment for a late dinner while he scrolled through the news and checked for any emails that had arrived since he left the office.
He had landed two new clients since he got back—including a Fortune 500 company that had run afoul of Chinese anticorruption officials. Apparently, Nate now had “juice” with the Chinese government. Peggy had congratulated him on the new business, though it clearly pained her to do so.
In short, Nate had his rhythm back. And then Jessica messed it up. Again.
She texted him while he was trying to focus on dull-but-important discovery responses: I’m in SF & I’d like to talk. Time for coffee?
Well, he wasn’t going to be able to focus on those discovery responses now. Sure, he texted back. When & where?
Five minutes—meet @ Starbucks outside your building?
See you there.
Five minutes later, he walked into the Starbucks and found her by the door, holding two cups. She handed one to him. “Black coffee, right?”
“Yes, indeed. Thank you.”
“Good—I hope you like their coffee of the day.”
“I always do,” he said. “So, what would you like to talk about?”
She cocked her head and smiled. “Let’s take a walk.”
She led him out the door and down to the Embarcadero, two blocks away. It was cold along the waterfront, and a brisk wind blew in from the Bay, driving away all but the most hardy. He was glad to have the hot cup in his hands.
“How have you been?” he asked. “Is your life back to normal?”
She lifted her shoulders slightly. “A new normal. Before Brandon was arrested, I’d been planning to go back to school, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. Now I am. I’ve registered for the classes I’ll need to become a victim advocate. I’m also volunteering on Saturdays at a shelter that takes in a lot of trafficking victims.”
“That’s terrific, Jess. You’ll be a natural.” They walked for a moment in silence. “Would you mind if I came with you some Saturday?”
She looked up at him and smiled. “I thought Saturdays were business days for you,” she said with a wink.
“Maybe I should make it my business to sometimes help people who can’t afford to pay twelve hundred dollars an hour.”
She stopped when they reached a spot he remembered well. The place where he’d confessed the truth about Jade and him.
“We never finished the last conversation we had here,” she said.
He looked out over the gray water. “I didn’t have anything else to say.”
“But I did,” she said. “Or I do now, anyway.” She took a deep breath. “I care about you a lot, Nate. You were there for me when I needed you most—when I lost Tim and almost lost Brandon. Now I’m going to be there f
or you. I’m going to stand by you while you work through whatever made you see Jade. I’m not going to judge you. And I’m definitely not going to let you crawl back into your lonely shell again.”
Fear and hope warred in his chest. After so many years of being just friends, after knowing his darkest secret, could she really mean . . .
He swallowed and put the cup down on a newspaper stand. “Jess, I . . . How do you feel about me?”
She smiled and put her hand on his cheek. “I’m being as obvious as I can.”
“I don’t deserve you,” he said, his voice rough.
“Let me decide that.”
Could he love her? The agony of his two past loves had left deep, indelible scars in him. Was he able to give his heart to another woman? But he realized he already had.
The wind blew a strand of auburn hair across her face. He brushed it aside. Then he slipped his hand behind her head and drew her mouth to his.
CHAPTER 113
A week after Brandon’s release from High Sierra, Father Vicente called. They chatted briefly about how Brandon was readjusting to life on the outside. Then Father Vicente asked whether Brandon would be interested in accompanying him to a nursing home on Sunday afternoon. In addition to his duties as prison chaplain, he visited hospitals and assisted-care facilities around the East Bay and Tri-Valley.
It wasn’t a particularly difficult job—he heard confession from residents and talked with them over coffee and cookies. But there was only one of him, and there were lots of residents who looked forward to a little outside company. Would Brandon be willing spend a few hours chatting with some old or disabled people? Maybe take one or two of the wheelchair-bound ones for a walk if the weather was nice?