is quieter, emptier. Here there are no tourists, just tired buildings that house dusty shops on the ground floors, all barricaded at this hour behind locked gates. While in the brightly lit restaurant, I could let down my guard. Now I feel exposed, even though an armed detective is at my side. The lights fade behind us and the shadows thicken. I am aware of my own heartbeat and the sigh of air flowing in and out of my lungs. The chant of the saber flows through my mind, words that both calm me and prepare me for whatever may come.
My hand moves to the pommel of my sword, where it rests in readiness. We pass through darkness and light and darkness again, and as my senses sharpen, the night itself seems to tremble.
The darkness comes alive. Everywhere there is movement. A rat skittering in the alley. The drip of water trickling from a rain gutter. I see it all, hear it all. The man beside me is oblivious, believing that it is his presence that keeps me safe. Never imagining that perhaps it is the other way around.
We turn onto Hudson Street and arrive at my modest row house, which has its own ground-floor entrance. As I pull out my keys, he lingers beneath the yellow glow of the porch light where insects buzz and tick against the bulb. He is a gentleman to the end, waiting until I am safely inside.
“Thank you for dinner and the armed escort,” I say with a smile.
“We don’t really know what’s going on yet. So do be careful.”
“Good night.” I insert my key into the lock and suddenly go very still. It’s my sharp intake of breath that alerts him.
“What is it?”
“It isn’t locked,” I whisper. The door hangs ajar. Already Zheng Yi is out of the scabbard and in my hand; I do not even remember pulling her free. My heart is thumping as I give the door a shove with my foot. It swings all the way open and I see only darkness beyond. I step forward, but Detective Frost pulls me back.
“Wait here,” he orders. Weapon drawn, he steps inside and flips on the light switch.
From the doorway I watch as he moves through my modest home, past the brown sofa, the striped armchair that James and I bought so many years ago when we first arrived from Taiwan. Furniture that I could never bear to replace, because my husband and my daughter once sat in them. Even in furniture, beloved spirits still linger. As Frost heads to the kitchen, I walk into the middle of the living room and stand very still, inhaling the air, scanning the room. My gaze halts on the bookcase. On the empty picture frame. I feel a thrill of fear.
From the kitchen, Frost says: “Does it look okay to you?”
I don’t answer but move toward the stairs.
“Iris, wait,” he says.
Already I’m darting up the steps, moving silently. It’s my heartbeat that thunders. It sends blood rushing to limbs, to muscles. I grip my sword with both hands as I step toward my bedroom door.
I sniff and know at once that the intruder has been in this room, has left his scent of aggression. The air is foul with the smell, and for a few heartbeats I cannot bring myself to advance and meet the enemy. I hear Detective Frost come running up the stairs. He defends my back, but it’s what waits ahead that terrifies me.
I step across the threshold just as Frost turns on the light. The room comes into sudden, shocking focus. The missing photograph is on my pillow, fixed there by a knife blade. Only when I hear Frost punching numbers into his cell phone do I turn to look at him.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Calling my partner. She needs to know about this.”
“Don’t call her. Please. You don’t know anything about this.”
He looks up at me, his gaze suddenly focused with an intensity that makes me realize I have underestimated him. “Do you?”
FOURTEEN
JANE STOOD IN IRIS FANG’S BEDROOM, STARING AT THE PHOTOGRAPH that had been stabbed through by a butcher knife. It was a picture of a much younger Iris, her face aglow and smiling as she held an infant in her arms.
“She says the knife is from her own kitchen,” said Frost. “And the baby is her daughter, Laura. That photo is supposed to be in a frame downstairs, on the bookcase. Whoever broke in deliberately took it out of the frame and brought it upstairs, where she certainly couldn’t miss seeing it.”
“Or the message. Stabbing a knife in her pillow sure as hell isn’t wishing her sweet dreams. What is this all about?”
“She doesn’t know.” He dropped his voice so Iris couldn’t hear him from downstairs. “At least, that’s what she says.”
“You think she’s not being straight with us?”
“I don’t know. The thing is…”
“What?”
His voice dropped even lower. “She didn’t want me to call you. In fact, she asked me to forget the whole thing. That doesn’t make sense to me.”
Or me either, thought Jane, frowning at the knife, which had been plunged hilt-deep, crushing the picture against the linen. It was an act of sheer rage, meant to terrify. “Anyone else would be screaming for police protection.”
“She insists she doesn’t need it. Says she’s not afraid.”
“Are we sure someone else was actually in here?”
“What are you implying?”
“She could have done this herself. Taken a knife from her own kitchen.”
“Why would she?”
“It would explain why she’s not scared.”
“That’s not how it happened.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I was right here when she found it.”
Jane turned to him. “You came up to her bedroom?”
“Don’t look at me like that. I walked her home, that’s all. We noticed her front door was open, so I came in to check the place.”
“Okay.”
“That’s all it was!”
“It could be just a cultural thing about the police. Tam says that folks in Chinatown are leery of us.”
