Free Reflecting the Sky by S. J. Rozan

all.
    But maybe this time it didn’t. Maybe this time everything really would be better if I butted out.
    Sitting on the bed, I took my bag out of the straw carryall and took a small velvet-covered box out of my bag. I opened the hinged lid and stared at the tiny, delicately carved laughing Buddha, apple-green jade against white silk. Then I picked up the phone again and dialed.
    The rings stopped after the fifth one, and a voice said, “Wai!” as Natalie Zhu’s had, but this voice was a man’s and it was sleepy. Well, no wonder: Where Grandfather Gao was, it was one in the morning.
    “Grandfather, this is Chin Ling Wan-Ju,” I said in Cantonese. “I apologize for disturbing your rest.”
    “Ling Wan-Ju? What is wrong?” He was instantly awake, but calm and collected as usual. “You are all right, your partner all right also?”
    “Yes, Grandfather, but there is a problem.” I filled him in on the kidnapping, the searched apartment, the temple, and the demand for Harry’s jade.
    “Has the child been hurt?” This question, too, he asked in his usual calm manner; but something, maybe just a trick of the long-distance wires, made his voice a little less sure than I was used to hearing it.
    “I don’t know,” I said, being honest. “But there’s no reason at this point to think that he has.”
    “That is well.” I thought I heard a small sigh of relief from the other side of the world.
    “Grandfather,” I said, trying to avoid the unforgivable rudeness of a direct accusatory question, “I am sorry for my lack of understanding. If your expectation that something like this would happen is the reason you sent us here instead of—of someone less professional, I did not comprehend that when we spoke.”
    There was a pause. I had offered him an opening; now it was up to him. “No, I did not expect it,” he replied evenly. “The task seemed simple. I hoped for a smooth, harmonious result. But circumstances forced me to consider that the still surface of a glassy lake often conceals jagged rocks.”
    Oh, for Pete’s sake. It’s a good thing, I thought, that I love you as much as I do.
    “If I understood fully the circumstances to which you refer, I’m sure I could be much more useful in this task.”
    “Ling Wan-Ju, I do not fully understand them myself.” Grandfather Gao paused, and I waited. Once again his words filled the distance between us. “The task Wei Yao-Shi left to me, which I have sent you to fulfill, seemed simple. But I knew my old friend a very long time. Something was troubling him, though he would not speak of it. His manner led me to think it would be a wise precaution to entrust my interests, which in this case are his, to those in whose abilities I had the most complete confidence.”
    The most complete confidence. Hear that, Lydia?
    “I’m grateful that, thinking that way, you chose me, Grandfather,” I said, adding, “Bill feels the same.” Might as well get Bill some good Chinese press while I had the chance. “I do wish I knew exactly what those interests are. It would help me know how to serve them best. Do you think Wei Yao-Shi was worried that something like this would happen?”
    “As to Wei Yao-Shi, we can only speculate on his concerns. At this point I do not believe that would be profitable. But remember, Ling Wan-Ju, you have known me all your life. My own interests have not changed. Now tell me: What do you propose to do?”
    Confused but dutiful, I answered, “I don’t see that I have much choice. If the price of the child’s return is Wei Yao-Shi’s jade, what can I do but turn it over to them?”
    “What, indeed?” Grandfather Gao responded. “The jade itself is of small consequence in this matter. But do you feel this action is sufficient?”
    “Is there something else I should be doing?”
    “You are the professional in these matters, Ling Wan-Ju.”
    Usually that’s my line. And the way he said it—and the fact that I’d known him all my