Bella cocked her head. “I have a file?”
“You do now.”
Bella opened the folder and flipped through the pages with feigned disinterest. “So I’ve been in and out of the country. Aren’t we Americans free to travel where we want?”
“Not many Americans spend five years in a Taiwan monastery, studying an ancient art like wushu.”
“Different strokes for different folks.”
“And here’s the interesting part. You were sponsored by Mrs. Fang. She’s not wealthy, yet she paid for those years of training. Paid for your plane flights, your tuition. Why?”
“She saw that I had talent.”
“When did she recognize that?”
“I was seventeen and living on the streets when she found me. She dusted me off and took me on, maybe because I reminded her of her daughter.”
“Is that what you’re doing in Boston? Playing her surrogate daughter?”
“I teach at her studio. We practice the same style of martial arts. And we share the same philosophy.”
“What philosophy would that be?”
Bella looked her in the eye. “That justice is a responsibility shared by all.”
“Justice? Or vengeance?”
“Some would say that
Jane stared at Bella, trying to read her. Trying to decide if this was the same creature who’d saved her life in the alley, who’d perched on the warehouse roof. Bella was flesh and blood, like any other twenty-four-year-old, but she was definitely not ordinary. Looking into those eyes, Jane glimpsed a strangeness, a wildness. An animal spirit that made her suddenly draw back, a chill raising the hairs on her arms. As if she’d glimpsed something in those eyes that was not quite human.
Frost broke the silence. “Ms. Li, it’s time to tell us the truth.”
Bella gave him a dismissive look. “Which part isn’t the truth?”
“The part about why Iris Fang chose you in particular.”
“She could have chosen anyone.”
“But she didn’t. She flew all the way to San Francisco to find one particular seventeen-year-old girl whose mother had just died. A girl who ran away from her foster home and was living on the streets. What was so special about you in particular?”
When Bella didn’t answer, Jane said: “We have your school records from California. They don’t mention your mother’s immigration status.”
“My mother’s dead. What does it matter now?”
“She was an illegal immigrant.”
“Prove it.”
“What about you, Bella?”
“I have a US passport.”
“Which says that you were born in the state of Massachusetts. Six years later, you’re registered in a public school in San Francisco. Your mother is working as a hotel maid with a fake Social Security number. Why did you move there? Why did you two suddenly pull up stakes and run to California?” Jane leaned in close enough to see her own reflection in those bottomless eyes. “I have a pretty good idea who you really are. I just can’t prove it yet. But trust me, I will.” She glanced at Frost. “Show her the search warrant.”
Bella frowned. “Search warrant?”
“It authorizes us to enter your residence,” said Frost. “Detective Tam is at your address now, with the search team.”
“What do you think you’re going to find?”
“Evidence that will link you to the deaths of an unidentified female Jane Doe on the night of April fifteenth, and an unidentified male, John Doe, on the night of April twenty-first.”
Bella shook her head. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I have a rock-solid alibi for April fifteenth. I was onstage at a wushu demonstration in Chinatown. There were at least two hundred witnesses.”
“We’ll verify that. In the meantime, if you want an attorney, now is the time to call one.”
“You’re
“Tell us why it’s a mistake, and maybe we’ll reconsider,” said Jane.
Bella took a breath, and someone else seemed to take possession of her. Someone who stared back with eyes as cold as polished stone. “I have nothing more to say.”
BELLA’S APARTMENT WAS CLEAN. Far too clean. Jane stood in the living room, staring down at a carpet that still bore the parallel tracks of recent vacuuming.
“This is the way we found it,” said Tam. “Kitchen and bathroom are scrubbed spotless. Not even a stray scrap of paper in the trash cans. It’s like no one lives here. Either she’s obsessive-compulsive about housecleaning, or she was scouring away any trace evidence.”
“How did she know we’d be coming here?”
“Anyone who gets a call to visit Boston PD is going to figure out they’re a suspect. She must have realized we’d be coming.”
Jane went to the window and peered through spotless glass at the street below, where two elderly women hobbled along the sidewalk, their arms linked. It was quiet on this corner of Tai Tung Village, at the south end of Chinatown. Iris Fang’s residence was right up the street, a minute’s walk away. The neighborhood was very much its own universe, and Jane felt like the alien here. It was a feeling reinforced by every stare, every nervous murmur among the neighbors. With her badge and her authority, Jane was the alien wherever she went, the outsider who could be either your best friend or your worst enemy.
She turned from the window and went into the bathroom, where Frost was down on his knees scanning the cabinet beneath the sink. “Nothing,” he said and rose to his feet, face flushed from bending. “Not a single hair in the shower or sink. All I found in the medicine cabinet was aspirin and a roll of Ace wrap. It’s like no one lives here.”
“Are we sure she does?”
“Tam spoke to the neighbor next door. Old guy in his eighties. Says he hardly ever sees her, but he does hear voices in here every so often.” Frost rapped the wall. “They’re pretty thin.”
“Voices, as in plural?”
“Could be the TV. She lives alone.”
Jane looked around at the pristine bathroom. “If she lives here at all.”
“Someone’s paying the rent.”
“Looks like someone’s also been through here with the bleach and a vacuum cleaner.”
“Funny thing about the vacuum cleaner. We can’t find one, so we have no bag to look at, no trace evidence.”
Jane headed into the bedroom, where she found Tam talking on his cell phone. He gave a nod as Jane stepped into the room. The floor was wood, swept clean. The sheets and bedcovers had been pulled back, the mattress exposed. Dropping to her knees, Jane peered beneath the bed and saw that the floor under the box spring was just as dust-free. A pair of shoes walked into view and Jane popped up to see a Boston PD criminalist looking at her across the mattress.
“We didn’t find any weapon,” he reported. “Unless you count the cooking knives in the kitchen.”
“You didn’t see anything like a sword?”
“No, ma’am. We went through the closets and drawers. Pulled out all the furniture and looked behind it.” He paused, glancing around at the bare walls. “I’m guessing she hasn’t been here very long. Not long enough to settle in.”
“If she planned to stay at all.”
“Didn’t bring much in the way of clothes, either.”
Jane opened the closet and saw no more than a dozen items hanging there, all size two. Three pairs of black
