“Neither am I. I’m calling the police. Again.” She fishes in her bag for her keys, then invites me inside, where she gives me a run-down of the phone calls and threats Nguyen’s people had made.

“Here are the numbers they used to call me,” she says, scrolling through her call list. I log them into my burner. “What’s this about? Do they also think you owe them money? Because they didn’t seem to recognize you.”

Which is strange, if Nguyen is Dao’s guy here in Vancouver. If he’s responsible for farming out the surveillance, he should know what I look like at least. Or maybe with most of my face and hair covered by the hood, he just didn’t put it together in time. “I’m looking for information on someone they used to know.”

“Well, you didn’t do a very good job of asking them!”

“I know.”

She puts out a bowl of water for Whisper. “Maybe I should get a guard dog.”

I nod. “That’s a great idea.”

“Look, don’t feel bad. Those guys weren’t going to tell you anything anyway.”

“I know that, too.” I missed my chance to follow them, collect information on where they went, who they talked to. Figure out, somehow, what they know about Jimmy Fang and Dao.

“Thank you for staying with me,” she says. “It was good to have someone here when they showed up.”

“You really should get a dog.”

I stay until a police squad car shows up, then say good-bye to her. I’d wanted to go since Nguyen and his friend had taken off, but I couldn’t leave her alone with nothing but bear spray for protection. It’s fully dark by the time Whisper and I get back into the car. From our vantage point, Vancouver is laid out in front of us across the water, the city lights shining bright.

26

Dao is suffocating. There’s dust in his mouth. In his eyes. He takes a swipe at them to clear his vision, and the first thing he sees is that he’s trapped. The bed collapsed on top of him, and he’s breathing into a pocket of air.

He tests his fingers, toes, limbs. Everything is intact but hurts like hell. There’s a bump on his head, and that seems fitting. This is what he gets for going to look for a wayward employee and stumbling on the seemingly free gift of sex. But nothing is free, especially not sex, and his life is the price he might have to pay for it if he doesn’t get his ass into gear.

He flips onto his stomach and crawls toward the air pocket.

He has no idea how long he’s been out, but from his extreme thirst and the weakness he feels, he’s been here for quite some time.