Free The Risk Agent by Ridley Pearson Page B

the mattress.
    “Ah! You want to play?”
    “Later,” Knox said in a suggestive tone.
    Grace faced the agent. “Landlord is to pay utility, of course,” she said. “Lover will pay for television cable channels.”
    Knox took Grace’s hand as she reached over for him.
    Grace glanced down at the floor demurely. “You will excuse my demands, cousin,” she said in Shanghainese, “but this man, and his opinion of me…my time with him, all very important.”
    “Of course.”
    Knox played it as if not understanding a word.
    “Now I will leave you two,” Grace said, “to review the mechanicals, and discuss numbers. Yes?” Grace asked rhetorically. “Yes.”
    “Don’t be long,” Knox pressed.
    “Cannot bear to be without you!” Grace said, popping up off the bed. She swished past the agent.
    “Your phone,” Knox said, making a point of handing her both the purse and bag containing their clothes. “I’ll text you when it’s time to leave.”
    The agent waved Knox toward the kitchen. “I believe you must be most impressed with features of the kitchen dining.”
    “Not really, cousin,” Grace called back on her way out the door. “It is not like we will be doing much cooking.”
    M inutes later, Grace arrived to the door marked “Seven Swans,” having passed “Seven Lakes” and “Seven Gorges” on her way from the elevator. She drew in a deep breath, and knocked. Seven was a neutral number, but she took it as an ominous sign.
    She was greeted by a gangly young man in his early twenties. His T-shirt showed grease stains, his right index finger a smoker’s smudge.
    “Where is he?” Grace asked angrily in Shanghainese.
    She barged past the surprised young man, quickly taking in the three other boys reclining in front of a flat-panel television. Take-out wrappers, pizza boxes and Red Bull cans littered the low coffee table.
    “Tell me where he is!” she shouted, not liking the look of Lu’s living room. Clearly it served as a dormitory, housing the other men as well. The space was crowded with bamboo mats, pillows, blankets and IKEA furniture. Singling out Lu Hao’s belongings from the mess would be nextto impossible without a great deal of time, not to mention privacy. She continued on to a closed door and threw it open.
    “Hiding in here?” she called out.
    Better. This room was neater. A single futon occupied the corner, alongside which were a low bedside table and a crane lamp. An IKEA desk, part of a matched set with the dressers in the living room. A smaller flat-panel television, with a game box, a DVD player and a cable box.
Lu Hao’s room,
she thought.
    A bamboo rod hung from wires screwed into the ceiling, holding laundered pants, shirts and two sport coats on plastic hangers. She pulled open the armoire to find it stacked with suitcases and packaging for all the electronics.
    A digital picture frame on the desk stopped her. A photo of Lu Jian came and went in the frame’s slide show, confirming her suspicion. Her chest cramped. Lu Jian looked somewhat older than she remembered him, but even more handsome, if that were possible. The same warm eyes. For a moment she couldn’t breathe.
    She sensed a presence behind her. Without turning, she asked, “Where is he?”
    “We haven’t seen him for a couple of days,” a roommate informed her.
    She wheeled and moved toward him. “Another girl?”
    “How should I know? He’s a big boy. He doesn’t need me looking after him. Maybe you should check his family home. It’s—”
    “Chongming Island. Yes, I know. Do you think I do not know Lu Hao? You child.”
    The boy did not appreciate the admonishment. “Some are saying the Triad got him.”
    But if one of the Triads,
she thought,
then why had the apartment not been tossed?
    “Killed?” She made herself sound shocked.
    He didn’t respond.
    “Kidnapped?” she said, letting emotion enter her voice.
    “You know rumors.”
    “Tell me truthfully: have others been here asking