“Thank you for making this trip to tell me all this, Father. I know how difficult this must be for you,” Rachel said.

“My goodness, it’s nothing compared to what you had to go through!”

Charity entered the living room bearing a tray with a carafe of boiling hot water and one of the antique Venini flutes. She set the tray down next to Bao Gaoliang, and before Eddie could fully process what was happening, she began to pour the boiling hot water into the eighty-year-old venetian glassware. A high-pitched cracking sound could be heard as the glass began to crack down its side.

“Nooooooooooooooooooo!” Eddie suddenly screamed, leaping off the sofa and knocking over the caviar server. A million tiny black fish eggs went flying across the faded antique Savonnerie carpet, and as the other maids ran in to see what the commotion was, Eddie looked down in panic and began to pant. “Don’t move! This rug cost me nine hundred and fifty thousand euros at auction! Nobody move!”

Rachel turned to Laarni and said calmly, “Do you have a Dustbuster?”

• • •

After the caviar incident had been resolved safely with nary a casualty to a single knot of carpet, the group took their aperitifs onto the terrace to enjoy the sunset view. Now that Gaoliang had unburdened himself of all he needed to say, the mood had lightened considerably. Eddie stood at one end with Gaoliang, pointing out the houses of every famous tycoon who lived on Victoria Peak and estimating the value of their properties, while Rachel and Nick perched at the corner looking down toward the water.

“How are you feeling, hon?” Nick asked, still concerned about how Rachel was handling everything.

“I feel good. I’m so glad I’ve cleared the air with my father. I’m just ready to go home now.”

“Well, Commander Kwok said we could leave at the end of the week if nothing new develops. I promise, we’ll go home as soon as we possibly can,” Nick said, wrapping his arms around her as they looked at the lights coming on all over the city.

Later that evening, while Nick, Rachel, and Gaoliang were in the middle of dinner with Eddie and his mother, Alix, at the Locke Club, Gaoliang’s cell phone began to ring. Seeing that it was the Shanghai chief of police calling, he excused himself from the table and went out to the foyer to take the call. A few moments later, he came back to the table with an urgent look on his face. “There’s been a huge break in the case, and an arrest has been made. They want us to come back to Shanghai immediately.”

Rachel felt her gut tense up. “Do I really need to be there?”

“Apparently they need you to identify someone.” Gaoliang said gravely.

A little over three hours later, Rachel, Nick, and Gaoliang were back in Shanghai, speeding along in a chauffeured Audi to the Central Police Station on Fuzhou Lu.