“Still no word from Carlton?” Rachel asked.

“Er, no,” Gaoliang said tersely. He had been trying to contact Carlton and Shaoyen even before the chartered jet had departed from Hong Kong, but their phones were both going straight to voice mail. Now he was nervously hitting the redial button to no avail.

They arrived at the station and were escorted upstairs to a reception room ablaze in fluorescent lights. An officer with magnificently droopy jowls came into the room and bowed to Rachel’s father. “Bao Buzhang, thank you for returning so speedily. Is this Ms. Chu?”

“Yes,” Rachel said.

“I’m Inspector Zhang. We are going to take you into an interrogation room, and we would like you to tell us if the person we are holding appears familiar to you. You will see them behind a two-way mirror, and they will not be able to see or hear you, so please do not be afraid to speak up. Am I making myself clear?”

“Yes. Can my husband come in with me?”

“No, that won’t be possible. But don’t worry, you will be with me and several other officers. Nothing is going to happen.”

“We’ll be right out here, Rachel.” Nick squeezed her hand encouragingly.

Rachel nodded and went along with the officer. There were two other detectives already in the first room when she entered. One of them pulled at a cord, and the blinds over a viewing window were lifted. “Do you recognize this person?” Inspector Zhang asked.

Rachel could feel her heart beating furiously in her throat. “Yes. Yes, I do. He was the man who was rowing our boat on the West Lake in Hangzhou.”

“He’s not a real boatman. He paid off the regular boatman so that he could poison the tea you drank while you were on the boat ride.”

“Oh my God! I forgot all about that Longjing tea!” Rachel said in astonishment. “But who is he? Why in the world would he want to poison me?”

“We’re not done yet, miss. Come into the next room.”

Rachel walked into the adjoining room, and the officer opened up another set of blinds. Rachel’s eyes widened in disbelief. “I don’t understand. What’s she doing here?”

“Do you know her?”

“That’s…” Rachel stammered. “That’s Roxanne Ma—Colette Bing’s personal assistant.”

* An immensely popular Chinese dating game show, known in English as If You Are the One. A national uproar occurred after a poor suitor asked a female contestant whether she would ride a bicycle with him on a date and she famously replied: “I would rather cry in a BMW than smile on a bicycle!”

14

CENTRAL POLICE STATION

FUZHOU LU, SHANGHAI

Nick and Gaoliang were allowed to join Rachel in the viewing booth as Roxanne was subjected to the official interrogation.

“For the millionth time, I keep telling you it was a horrible mistake. I was just trying to send Rachel a little message, that’s all,” Roxanne said wearily.

“You thought poisoning a woman with a highly potent drug that shut down her kidneys and liver and could have led to her death was a way to send someone a little message?” Inspector Zhang asked incredulously.