“Good morning, Ms. Hu,” I said in my best cheery voice.
“I need to see you.”
See me and not talk to me? That was weird.
“I’ll be home shortly. Is there a specific time and place you’d like to meet?”
“I’m at your house now. I’ll see you soon.”
She ended the call before I had a chance to fake a medical emergency.
I parked my car on the street so I wouldn’t block hers in the driveway. She was leaning against the outside of her car with her arms folded. This wasn’t going to be good, and I tried to figure out what manner of crime she was about to accuse me of.
“Is everything all right?” I asked as I climbed out of the car and walked up to her.
“I don’t appreciate you encouraging my daughter to see her father, especially after I confided in you what he did to me.”
For those new readers, Ms. Hu had told me a few years back that her husband had beaten her, which was the true reason she’d kicked him out of the house. She asked me to keep our conversation a secret, which I had.
“I didn’t know Hani had seen him until she told me,” I said.
“Then why didn’t you try to talk her out of future meetings?”
“I’m not Hani’s caretaker. Besides, I thought she mainly needed someone to listen to her.”
“I need you to make me a promise. You need to at least keep Alana away. I can’t have both of my daughters brainwashed by that terrible man.”
“Ms. Hu, I don’t know what to say. I can’t stop them from doing anything. It’s their decision, not mine.”
“Then I guess everyone is turning against me. You got your wish.”
“What wish is that?” I asked.
“You won.”
“I won what?”
“You’ve always tried to compete with me to be number one in Alana’s life. You see this as an opportunity to push me out.”
“Ma’am, I know you’re under a lot of stress. I also know that seeing Sora has put you in a bad place, but I’m not conspiring against you. I want to help you.”
“No, you don’t. You just told me that you won’t forbid Alana from seeing her father,” she said.
I wasn’t tempted to laugh at the notion of me forbidding Alana from doing anything. Here’s a question for the male readers. You think you could forbid your wife from doing anything? I didn’t think so. I can also now hear all the wives laughing at that question.
“You have no idea how fragile Hani is right now. Getting dumped a few days before her wedding by that pipsqueak.”
“Yuto isn’t a pipsqueak,” I said.
“If you say so.”
Ms. Hu opened her car door.
“I don’t care what preposterous story Sora gives my girls. There’s nothing he can do that makes up for the pain he caused, even if it was decades ago.”
She climbed in the car, started the engine, and then raced onto the street at a speed that would make a Hollywood stuntman cringe with worry. I could only stand there and shake my head.
I turned and walked into the house. Maui greeted me by the door like he usually does. He performed a little happy dance for me and then rolled onto his back. After scratching his belly, I walked to the refrigerator and grabbed a Negra Modelo. I then picked up my iPad and walked outside with Maui hot on my heels. I thought what my brain needed was a little diversion, so I logged onto an entertainment website and started reading the celebrity news.
I know, with all the drama going on in the world, who cares about celebrities? But Alana’s tendency to distract herself with meaningless gossip had rubbed off on me. I was shocked to see that a particular actor had died, which marked the third celebrity death during this particular week.
I’m sure you’ve heard of the Rule of Three, which states that bad things often happen in groups of three. In this case, it was specifically referred to as the Celebrity Death Rule of Three. Do I believe in such nonsense? Of course, not. But the mind often looks for patterns in things, and it’s not hard to create them even when they don’t exist.
That said, something popped into my head as I read about the latest celebrity to die. I had my own set of threes, but I’d missed it because I was too busy trying to figure out who was lying to me and about what. Almost every person I’d met with had told me at least one lie or had omitted an important piece of information.
Mele Akamu had told me a lie on our first meeting when she’d stated that Samson had been unable to find Eric Ellis. Gracie Ito had failed to disclose her knowledge of Eric’s affair with Tiana, and Tiana had lied about knowing Daniel Davis.
Daniel had lied about owning a dog. Lee Walters had conveniently left out the part about his offer to kill his best friend to get back in good graces with Mele Akamu. Stan Cross had most likely lied about not being willing to work with Eric Ellis because he didn’t trust him. Oleen Akamu had lied about seeing the murder, and even Detective Parrish had lied about how he’d found the safe behind the bookcase.
The only people who’d actually told me the truth were Daniel’s grocery store co-worker, the locksmith, and the loan shark with the unfortunate name of Popcorn. But none of those things accounted for my reference to the Rule of Three. That was specifically three comments that three different people had made to me.
Mele Akamu told me a story about a hypothetical death that had occurred two decades ago. Stan Cross said that Mele Akamu couldn’t escape her crimes, even if they were decades old, and Luana Hu said her ex-husband would never be forgiven for his transgressions even though they’d been committed decades ago.
Three references to crimes or misdeeds
