This girl reminded Hongmei of someone—but who? She couldn’t recall. Those expressions, those gestures, that quick wit, but most of all those eyes—she’d seen them all somewhere before. On the video, the door shut. The vermilion bougainvillea and fire tower remained as they were.
Nini said, “Not bad, right? I miked up the boy and bribed an old guy next door to let us shoot from his kitchen window.”
Hongmei said, “I didn’t ask you to secretly film her!”
“That useless, pretty boy of mine dug up all the information about her—there are dozens of articles online, all of them about that incest case! Even the New York Times and Wall Street Journal wrote about her! Her father was a rich guy—not too rich, though. The court case bankrupted him—it went on for three years. It was the Child Protective Services that brought charges against him. The chief witnesses were the psychiatrist and the girl’s mother.”
Hongmei was still wondering where she’d seen that girl before. She told Nini that this whole thing had nothing to do with the secret talker.
Nini had nothing to say to that. She had indeed wandered down a different rabbit hole.
Even so, Hongmei was dimly aware that the secret talker must have had some reason for stealing this girl’s identity to talk to Nini.
At eleven later that night, she got another message saying he’d expected her to be at the Blue Danube, but she hadn’t shown up. He was using the coffee shop’s Wi-Fi to email her and would wait there until they closed.
She glanced at her watch. Half an hour to closing time. She quickly changed her clothes and combed her hair, then hurried out the door. Glen usually stayed in his study till midnight, and she’d be back before that. But as she opened the front door, she hesitated—this seemed too risky. She left Glen a note saying a friend was visiting from out of town, and she was popping by the campus for a quick chat, back in thirty minutes. The college was full of night owls, so Glen wouldn’t find that suspicious. She put the note on the fridge, but as she turned, she heard a clunk as the magnet fell to the floor. For some reason the magnet wasn’t cooperating—she kept sticking it back up, and it kept falling. Then she heard a voice: “Its magnetism is used up.”
Afterward, she wished she’d managed not to panic. It was just Glen coming out to see what the noise was. But she felt her face stiffen and knew this was bad—no matter what expression she tried to make, it would look hideous. So instead, she turned back to the fridge and pulled out an open bottle of white wine. Still with her back to Glen, she asked if he’d like a glass.