“Shall we meet for afternoon tea on the terrace around four?”

“That sounds perfect.”

Peik Lin lingered in the gardens a while longer, discovering a tranquil little grotto that sheltered a large stone carving of a very fat laughing Buddha. She decided to burn a few of the joss sticks that were sitting in an urn in front of the sculpture and then headed back to her room to change into her bikini. Upon entering her room, she noticed that the green message light on the telephone was blinking. She hit the button to listen to the message. It was Rachel, sounding extremely out of breath: “Um, Peik Lin, could you please come to my room? I think I need help.”

Alarmed, Peik Lin instinctively grabbed her cell phone and saw that Rachel had called three times. She rushed out of her room and ran down the long corridor toward Rachel’s room. Arriving outside the room, she began knocking on the door, but there was no answer. A hotel employee walked by, and Peik Lin grabbed him urgently. “Can you open this door? My friend is sick and needs help!”

Within a few minutes, a desk manager arrived with a security guard.

“Can we help you, miss?”

“Yes, my friend left me an urgent message asking for help. She wasn’t feeling well, and now she’s not answering,” Peik Lin said frantically.

“Er, maybe she’s asleep?” the manager said.

“Or maybe she’s dying! Open the fucking door now!” Peik Lin screamed.

The manager swiped his pass key over the door, and Peik Lin rushed in. There was no sign of anyone in the bed or on the private terrace, but in the marble bathroom beside the deep soaking tub, she found Rachel lying unconscious in a pool of dark green bile.

* The younger generation of Singaporeans have taken to referring to Mainland Chinese as “PRCs” (for People’s Republic of China), while many of the older generation still use the term “Mainlanders.”

8

NATIONAL LIBRARY OF CHINA

BEIJING, CHINA

3:54 p.m.

Nick was poring over an old biography about the Sassoon family in the Western Languages Reading Room of the National Library when his cell phone started buzzing. He put a manila folder over the open book to hold his page and went out to the corridor to take the call.

It was Peik Lin, sounding close to tears. “Oh my God, Nick! I don’t know how to tell you this, but I’m at the emergency room with Rachel. She passed out in her hotel room.”

“What? Is she okay? What happened?” Nick asked in shock.

“We don’t really know. She’s still unconscious, but her white cell count is extremely low and her blood pressure is through the roof. They have her on an IV of magnesium to stabilize her, but they think she maybe has an extreme case of food poisoning.”

“I’ll get on the next flight to Hangzhou,” Nick said decisively.

4:25 p.m.

Racing through Beijing Capital International Airport, Nick had just reached the China Airlines counter when Peik Lin called again.