She always said when he got out of the hospital, never if. But as she stared at his innocent face, thoughts of if assailed her, and feelings of anger, impotence, and desperation whirled. She wanted justice for the boy’s suffering. And those thoughts began to funnel toward a single enemy. Someone in the Sun Yee On triad had nearly killed her son, and their poison would certainly kill many more. And while she might not have the power to save Joshua from cancer, she could control what happened to the person who had hurt him.

Audrey knew what she needed to do. She would locate the triads, she would follow them, she would find out who poisoned the horn, and when the moment was right, she would deliver the man who poisoned her son to justice.

CHAPTER 38 THE VISITOR

CHAPTER 38
THE VISITOR

Cobus perused the selection of stuffed animals surrounded by balloons and get well cards in the gift shop. He noted how, regardless of the species, all the dolls were proportioned like juveniles—oversize heads and paws, small round bellies, exaggerated eyeballs, and down-like fur. Affection for youth was one of the few things humans across all cultures seemed to share—a universal genetically coded survival strategy for the species.

It was the same reason Wan had been shipping baby wildlife to every continent except Antarctica. But when those same animals came into adulthood, the buyers would discover that a mature leopard or tiger or lion could be hazardous, labor intensive, and expensive to feed. Consequently, euthanizing adolescent cats had become a cottage industry in the Middle East, where there was no shortage of money or appetite for exotic pets.

Cobus settled on a stuffed teddy bear, then purchased a get well balloon and exited from the gift shop into the sterile linoleum corridor.

Cobus had been following the detective all evening, but he hadn’t seen her since she entered the hospital two hours ago. Knowing he would look out of place tailing her through the quiet corridors, he had been reluctant to go in. The balloon and the bear would soften his presence. He prowled the halls of the hospital, expecting to find the detective interviewing a witness or perhaps visiting some old relative who was nearing Saint Peter’s gates. Though he didn’t know which room she was in, the building’s linear layout guaranteed he would locate her eventually if he kept moving down the spine of the building.