a problem. She thinks you will be able to help her.”
Okay, so that was our answer. Jack glanced at Anna, and nodded. “I hope so.”
Yang Yu-feng didn’t respond. She waited until we all had our teacups—Bill came across the room, picked one up, and held it correctly, also, just like I’d taught him—and then she lifted her own. After we’d taken our ceremonial first sips—tea before trouble, oh, would my mother have approved—she put her cup on the table and turned to her daughter, waiting.
Anna looked at Jack, and then at Bill and me. She didn’t say anything, but her lip began to tremble.
Jack followed her gaze. “Lydia and Bill and I are working together on a case,” he said evenly. “It has to do with Chau Chun, new paintings that are supposed to be his. If the reason you called me has nothing to do with Chau, they’ll leave. If it does, you need them as much as you need me.” He added, “I promise you can trust them.”
I gave Anna what I hoped was a reassuring smile, Chinese woman to Chinese woman. Jack she already knew and trusted; her mother, she also knew, and had had twenty-two years to decide whether she could trust. That pretty much left Bill on his own, but sometimes he can be just a big, heartening presence. After hearing what Jack said, though, Anna suddenly seemed to stop caring about me and Bill, and even her mom. Pale, she was staring at Jack.
“You already know? Is that—that’s why you came to see Daddy yesterday? To ask him if he knew anything about the Chaus?”
“Sort of. Not really. Lydia and Bill are working for a collector who’s looking for them.”
“Someone’s looking for them already? Who?”
I wasn’t sure what that meant. They shouldn’t be looking for them yet? Later would be better? Later than what? Jack said, “It seems like a number of collectors are. This one hired Lydia to find them. I’m sorry, we can’t tell you his name, but it doesn’t matter. And I’m—I was—working for your dad.”
She hadn’t known that. She had the Chaus, her father wanted the Chaus, and no one in this family talks to each other? Well, almost no one. Either Jack’s client wasn’t news to Anna’s mother, or she had a good poker face.
“He’d heard rumors the paintings existed,” Jack said. “Like the other collectors. He hired me to find out whether it was true.”
“Where did he hear it? Why did he want to know?”
“I don’t know where he heard it. But Chau Chun was his friend.” Jack gave Anna and her mother the party line: “He thinks the paintings are phonies and this is all about someone trying to cash in on Chau’s reputation. He’s trying to protect his friend.”
Mrs. Yang’s gaze remained steady on her teacup. Anna opened her mouth, but covered it with her hand instead of speaking. Jack went on, “Your father’s very protective about Chau. I think they must have been pretty close. He was with Chau when he died.” Watching Anna, ashen and silent, Jack asked, “He’s never told you that story?”
She shook her head. “No. They were close? He was there? Daddy was at Tiananmen? Oh, my God. Mom, did you know that?”
“Yes.” Yang Yu-feng’s dark calm was unshaken. “I knew them both, when we were young.”
“Why didn’t I know? Why didn’t anyone ever tell me that?”
Mrs. Yang raised her eyes to her daughter. “The story of that night? A terrible night in terrible times. Your father and I left it behind us when we left China. You are an American child. A new land, a new life. Why should we burden you with such times?”
After a moment, Anna asked, “Did you know Daddy had hired Jack?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Anna, tell you what?” Her mother’s voice sharpened. “You were working again, you were eating, sleeping. For months you had been lost, so unhappy. Now you have been going to the studio eagerly, now you have…” She shook her head, said it in Mandarin, then switched back to English. “Come back to life, you have come back to life. Why would I tell you about your father’s troubles, your father’s anger? It had nothing to do with you. Or so I thought.”
Anna didn’t answer.
“Anna,” Jack said gently, after a few moments, “it might help if I tell you we already know you have them. The paintings, the Chaus.”
Anna shook her head without looking at him. “No, I don’t.”
Jack glanced at Bill, who walked over and handed Jack his phone. It took Jack about ten seconds to find Shayna’s photo and show it to Anna. She didn’t reach for the phone, just stared. In a voice almost too low to hear, she said, “What was I thinking? This whole thing, what was I thinking?”
“What were you thinking about what? Anna, are the paintings real? Where are they?”
For a moment, nothing. Then Anna stood unsteadily and began to wander around the room as though she were lost in a strange place. Her mother’s gaze followed her. “They’re not real,” Anna said softly. “I made them.”
Jack glanced at me and at Bill. “Okay.” He nodded. “So someone spotted them and the rumors started and the whole thing got out of hand. But that’s not your fault. I can’t imagine you claimed they were real, right? So what’s going on? What’s wrong?”
When Anna didn’t answer Jack looked to Mrs. Yang. She didn’t turn his way, just kept watching her daughter.
Anna stood at the window, fingering the curtain, gazing at a couple walking down the street. When she finally spoke I had to strain to hear her words. “I always loved Chau. He’s not really taught in art school but I grew up with
