Summer Reads Box Set: Volume 1

by Freethy, Barbara

  "And you knew my grandfather didn't have the other dragon because you had his house searched," Riley said. "You probably had my grandmother watched, too, didn't you? I knew someone was tailing us that very first day we went to the store."

  Paige's eyes widened as Riley put together another piece of the puzzle that hadn't yet occurred to her. Wallace didn't confirm or deny the accusation, but Paige could see the truth in her grandfather's eyes. When he hadn't been able to get the dragon away from Riley and his grandmother, he'd had someone follow David until there was an opportunity to snatch the dragon back.

  "Why did you wait until now to come here?" Riley asked.

  "I don't have to explain anything to you. Where is the other dragon?" Wallace said turning his attention back to Lee. "I want it."

  "I don't have it," Lee Chen stubbornly repeated. "I never had it. And I didn't set the fire."

  "You were just the first one on the scene, is that it?"

  "Yes. I was there. I tried to put the fire out. I tried to save the store. I never saw the dragons. I don't know where they are."

  "You must know where one is," Jasmine said quietly. "It's here, somewhere in this apartment, isn't it?" Lee's face turned pale at his daughter's words. He started to shake his head, but Jasmine interrupted. "I saw it one night. A night like this."

  Jasmine had barely finished speaking when a loud crack rocked the room. Fireworks! The parade must be over, for there was an explosion of noise, flashes of light coming through the windows. Jasmine jumped, putting a hand to her mouth. "It was just like this," she said. "I remember now."

  "You remember nothing," An-Mei said fiercely. Suddenly the battle was between the two women and not the two men.

  "I was frightened. I ran into your bedroom?" Jasmine's gaze darted to the door behind her mother, and she gasped.

  Paige followed her gaze and saw the reason for the sudden horror on her face. Smoke was coming from under the door behind Mrs. Chen.

  "Fire!" Alyssa cried.

  An-Mei threw open the door to her bedroom, and they saw the curtains going up in flames. She ran into the room with a scream. Riley followed behind her, trying to pull her away from the fire. Paige rushed toward them both, while David, Jasmine, and Alyssa ran to the kitchen to get water to throw onto the fire.

  "Get her out of here," Riley said. "Call 911." He tried to push An-Mei out of the room, but she was surprisingly strong for a small woman of her age. Paige tried to take her arm as well but she shrugged it off. Jasmine came into the room and begged her mother to leave it alone, to get out. An-Mei wouldn't move. She looked at Jasmine with a gleam of madness in her eyes. "The curse. It has finally come true. We all die here tonight."

  "We're not dying," Riley said as he ripped the curtains off the rod and stomped on them until there was nothing left but smoke.

  An-Mei looked at Wallace with hatred in her eyes. "It is your fault. You make it all happen. You promise much gold and prosperity. But you curse us all."

  "I made us a fortune. I brought your husband to this country. He was nothing without me. Then he betrayed me."

  Wallace's eyes suddenly lit up, and as Paige followed his gaze, she saw the dragon on a table that was set up like an altar, the statue surrounded by dripping candles, one of which had fallen on its side, lighting the bedroom curtains that were now water-soaked and blackened. The dragon stared at them mockingly, as if wondering why it had taken them so long to come. Its jade eyes flashed through the lingering smoke, throwing colors across the ancient bronze.

  "Oh, my God," Paige said.

  "You had it all along," Jasmine said in a daze. "I saw it here before. You were praying at the altar. I came up to you and asked you about it. You threw me in the closet. You locked the door. It was dark. I could hear the fireworks. I was terrified." She looked at her mother. "And when you pulled me out, you almost broke my arm. You spanked me many times and told me I was bad, I must forget. I must never tell." Jasmine turned to her father, who stood in the doorway of the bedroom. "Did you know what she did to me? Did you?"

  Lee Chen didn't answer right away. He stared at his wife, who was holding her arms around her waist and rocking back and forth. "An-Mei," he said softly. "It's all right."

  "It's not all right," Jasmine said. "Don't you understand that?"

  Lee wasn't looking at his daughter. He was looking at his wife.

  "The dragons were not meant to belong to any of us," An-Mei said. "They should have been returned years ago."

  Wallace turned to Lee. "After all we had been through together, you betrayed me. You stole this dragon. But you couldn't do anything without the other dragon and the box. So you kept this one hidden away all these years. Did you know Ned had the other dragon?"

  "I wasn't sure," Lee said, coughing as he finished speaking.

  "We should get out of this smoke," Paige said.

  "She's right," Riley echoed.

  No one moved. No one wanted to leave the dragon on the altar. But no one seemed to have the nerve to touch it.

  Riley took a step forward. Paige called him back. "Don't," she said. "Don't touch it. It might really be cursed."

  He hesitated, then moved ahead in typical Riley fashion. He picked up the dragon statue and walked out of the room. There was a scramble to follow him, people bumping into one another as they made their way into the living room. Paige was the last one out, closing the bedroom door behind her.

  "Time for some straight talk." Riley set the dragon on the coffee table. "Where did the dragons come from?"

  "Tell him, Wallace," An-Mei ordered. "Tell him you steal dragons from China."

  "I didn't do it alone," Wallace retorted.

  "Then, how did you do it?" David asked his father.

  "It was Lee," Wallace said. "He found the crate in the woods. It must have fallen off a truck. It was just waiting there, a treasure to be discovered. I knew right away we should keep it. We might need to trade it for freedom. It was wartime. The enemy was getting closer every day. Lee agreed with me. So, did your grandfather," he added, looking at Riley. "We were good friends then, brothers. We smuggled the crate out of China and brought it back here to San Francisco. Inside, there were many artifacts from the museum."

  "More than just the dragons and the box?" Paige asked.

  "Yes," Wallace said shortly. "We knew we were sitting on a potential gold mine. We made a pact to sell the objects one at a time, discreetly of course, so no one would know. Ned and Lee worked at the store with me. We shared the profits from those sales equally. Until she…" He tipped his head at An-Mei. "She started worrying about the damn curse. She got Lee and even Ned all worked up about it. Stupid woman." He turned to Lee. "But you—I couldn't understand why you would steal the dragons and burn down the store. We were friends."

  For the first time, Paige saw a chink in her grandfather's armor, a sign that he wasn't as emotionless and cold as he pretended to be. He'd been betrayed by his friends. No wonder he'd never trusted anyone again.

  Lee didn't seem able to speak. His eyes were watering. His shoulders shaking.

  Paige wanted to tell her grandfather to stop, but she couldn't interrupt. This was between the two of them, and it was time they settled it.

  Lee put a hand to his heart. Jasmine ran to his side. "Papa," she said with concern.

  He waved her off. "I'm okay." He drew in a breath, then said, "When I set the fire, I thought I could take everything, but only one dragon was there. The other two pieces were missing. I set the fire to cover the theft. It was my fault."

  "No!" An-Mei cried. "Not you. Me."

  The tiny Chinese woman walked to the middle of the room and slowly but defiantly pushed back her sleeves. Paige saw the crisscross of scars that ran from her wrists to her elbows, and suddenly the truth was clear.

  "I start fire," An-Mei said. "I want to send dragons and box back to China. Break curse forever. I have no choice." She shook her head. "But only one dragon there. The fire jumped. Too late to stop." She looked at
her husband. "I hide it away. You don't see. You don't know."

  "I knew," Lee said heavily, meeting her gaze. "I saw it a long time ago, but I didn't want to speak of it."

  "And I saw it, too," Jasmine reminded her once again.

  "I tell you to forget. You never forget. You cursed."

  "I think it was the moment I realized how much you hated me," Jasmine said. "That's why I couldn't forget. I knew I was a disappointment, but I didn't know why—a disappointment long before David came along."

  "You first daughter, Jasmine. You born with no finger. The curse struck you because of him," she said, shooting another dark, stabbing look at Wallace. "He say they too valuable to send back."

  "They were too valuable, and it was too late to turn back," Wallace replied. "We would have had to reveal where we got the dragons in the first place. And we couldn't do that. The scandal wouldn't have just done us in; it would have hurt the entire country. The United States and China were not exactly friends." He looked at the statue on the coffee table. "And neither were we—after the fire."

  "I can't imagine that my grandfather ever went along with this theft, this plan," Riley said.

  Paige heard the pain in Riley's voice; it matched the pain in her own heart. It was hard to believe that the men they loved and respected had made a very bad decision a long time ago.

  "He went along with it," Wallace said. "You don't have to understand. It was a different time. We'd seen our friends die in front of us. We'd faced our own mortality, and when we got back to the States, times were hard. Those art pieces gave us a leg up. Lee and Ned were able to start their own businesses with the money they made, and I put Hathaway's back into the black. No one got hurt."

  "How can you say that?" Paige asked. "It looks to me like a lot of people got hurt, our families most of all."

  "I don't understand," Jasmine interrupted, looking at her mother. "If the dragon was cursed, why did you keep it all this time?"

  "I couldn't do anything else with it," An-Mei said. "The pieces were separated. I thought they were destroyed in the fire. So every New Year I pray to the Dragon God for forgiveness and a chance to make it right. When the other dragon came to light I thought—but then it was gone again."

  "How did my grandfather get the other dragon?" Riley asked.

  "I think Ned must have taken it to show some friends at the bar, to impress them," Lee replied. "He was always doing that. I didn't realize he hadn't returned it to the store before the fire."

  "But then the store burned down, and my grandfather probably thought he'd be blamed if Wallace knew he had one of the dragons," Riley said. "It makes sense."

  "You still have the box, don't you, Father?" David asked. "I saw it a long time ago. It wasn't in the basement when Mrs. Chen started the fire, was it?"

  Wallace hesitated for a long moment. "We kept the records of our transactions in the box. I had removed it to my house for safekeeping."

  "So, you have my grandfather's dragon and the box." Riley picked up the other dragon from the coffee table. "I think it's time we put the pieces back together again."

  * * *

  An hour later they were gathered together in the dining room of the Hathaway mansion with one more member of the family in attendance, Victoria. Paige's mother was furious at all that had transpired outside of her presence and had made that quite clear to Paige when the motley group, as Victoria referred to them, had descended on the mansion. But no one was paying much attention to Victoria. There were now three pieces on the mahogany table, the two matching dragons and a long narrow box with an ornate lock.

  "We should do it together," Paige said, motioning for Alyssa and Riley to come forward. "I believe we three were meant to put the pieces back together."

  "I agree," Riley said, handing Alyssa the dragon that had been kept in her grandparents' apartment for so many years. Then he picked up the one belonging to his grandfather.

  Paige picked up the box and held it out to them. She felt a shiver of excitement run down her spine as the box seemed to grow warmer in her hands. She could almost hear voices from the past, or was it music? For somewhere in her mind she could hear the distinct sound of a distant flute.

  Riley and Alyssa moved forward, joining their dragons together. With Paige's help, they inserted the back joint of each dragon into the box. Their eyes met at the same moment the lock turned, and the lid snapped open.

  Paige reached for the several pieces of paper that were inside the box, but Wallace grabbed the papers from her hand. Before anyone could move, he had pulled a lighter from his pocket and set the papers to flame, the evidence burning quickly.

  "Damn, you're good," Riley said, not making it sound like a compliment. "No one will ever know the extent of your thievery."

  "Or your grandfather's involvement," Wallace said. "We did this together."

  "He is right," Lee said. "We made our choice a long time ago. It was wrong. We were all cursed because of it, but now it is over."

  "Not quite," Riley said. "These pieces are going back to China, to be restored to the National Palace Museum." He paused. "You agree with that, don't you, Paige?"

  She looked at her family standing across from her, waiting, watching. She couldn't remember when she'd had their attention before. And it was time to stand up, to take control as her grandfather had told her to do.

  "Yes," she said. "The pieces will be returned to the museum as soon as possible. My father will make sure of that, won't you, Dad?"

  "It would be my honor," David replied.

  "But—" Wallace sputtered.

  "Don't try to stop us, Grandfather," Paige said. "It's the right thing to do, and we're going to do it.

  "And just how do you think you're going to do it?" Wallace asked David. "Where are you going to say you got the set?"

  "He's going to say," Victoria interrupted, "that the House of Hathaway in association with their friends, the Chen family and the Delaney family, discovered a rare and previously lost piece of Chinese art that is now being returned to its rightful place."

  Her mother was so smart, reading the situation quickly and coming up with a solution that would turn the three men from thieves into heroes. Everyone in the room seemed dumbstruck by her suggestion. But who could argue? Each family wanted to protect their own.

  "Shouldn't they have to pay for what they did?" Alyssa asked finally.

  "Everyone has paid in his own way," David replied. "My father lost his wife, his daughter, and his granddaughter. Your grandfather suffered the shame of knowing that his wife had burned down the store. Your grandmother suffered horrible burns on her arms. Your mother lived a life of shame and dishonor, from which you suffered as well."

  "And my grandfather lost his daughter to drugs," Riley continued. "He also lost his mind and can't even remember his name, much less what he did fifty years ago. Mr. Hathaway is right. Everyone has paid a price for what was done." He paused. "Now, knowing that we've all agreed on what has to happen, I want to ensure it actually does happen. I think we should have the pieces put into a secure vault until they can be transported back to China."

  "I'll make sure of that," Victoria said. "But first we'll put them on display in the upcoming Hathaway exhibit at the Asian Art Museum." Her eyes lit up at the thought. "You'll all be given due credit, of course. I'm a genius with a press release. Just ask anyone. I'd better make some calls."

  "She's really something, your mother," Riley said to Paige as the group began to disperse.

  "Yes, she is. I guess it's finally over." She couldn't help wondering where they would go from here now that they no longer had a dragon to chase.

  "Not quite. I need to fill in my grandmother."

  "Give her my love," Paige said. She watched him walk out the door with a heavy heart. Would she ever see him again?

  "My family and I are leaving now," Alyssa said, coming up to Paige. "It's almost the new year. I think it's going to be a good one."

  "I do, too. By the way, how do y
ou feel about a new job?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "The House of Hathaway could certainly use another Hathaway."

  "But I'm not a Hathaway."

  "Aren't you?”

  "Really? Can you do that? Hire me on without asking anyone?"

  Paige smiled. "As a matter of fact, I can. You see, I'm the Hathaway heir. Only, I just recently discovered that I'm not the only one. And if I have to run that damn store one day, so do you. Of course, we'll have to get my mother out of it first."

  "She's not going to want me there."

  "No," Paige agreed. "But it's about time she realized that she's not the only woman in this family who gets what she wants. I want you in the store, and in my life. You're my sister. And I can't wait to get to know you."

  Alyssa threw her arms around Paige and gave her a hug that Paige gladly returned. Out of this entire mess had come a new, wonderful relationship with a woman she could call a sister.

  "I have to go," Alyssa said. "I have a man to meet."

  "Ben?"

  "I'd like to ring in the new year with him." She paused. "Maybe you and Riley should do the same thing."

  "He's already gone."

  "So go find him. You want him, too, don't you?"

  She did. But this time he would have to come to her.

  * * *

  Paige entered her apartment just before midnight, exhausted from the night's events. All she wanted was a hot bath, a glass of wine, and bed. Two out of three were waiting for her in her bedroom. She smiled in pure delight. Riley had come to her. Granted, he was asleep, but it was the thought that counted.

  She sat down on the side of the bed and put her hand on his chest. He stirred ever so slightly as she leaned over and put her mouth to his. She knew the moment he awoke, the moment he gave his heart to hers in one long, tender, passionate kiss.

  He cupped her face when she tried to pull away and kissed her again as if he wanted to make sure she'd gotten the message the first time.

  "Beautiful Paige," he murmured as he released her. "What took you so long?"