“Neither of us had.” Maylin set a skillet on the stove, bending to watch the flame as she set it to the height she wanted it. When she straightened, she figured more information was better. “We’re first-generation Chinese American and Mom always meant to take us when we got old enough, whenever that was going to be, but she died. And then Dad remarried and his new wife didn’t have much interest in us, so we never went.”
Daddy’s new wife had only been interested in climbing the social ladder of the local Chinese society. The woman had shown no enthusiasm for Maylin or An-mei when neither would play her matchmaking games. They were leftovers to her, disappointing and little better than old baggage after their father died.
But they’d both kept up on their Mandarin, planning to go on their own.
Maylin bit her lip. “When this opportunity came up I didn’t want her to give up the chance to go just because I couldn’t take the time away from my catering business to join her. I’m the owner and I haven’t trained up a senior enough assistant to leave things in someone else’s hands for that long.”
Guilt washed over her, combining with her worry. For a few minutes, there was silence as she poured egg into the pan and carefully created layers.
“The invitation came from the conference coordinators, then?” Gabe’s voice came to her, gentle but insistent.
She spooned salsa verde across the surface of the omelet and sprinkled in baby spinach, giving it a chance to wilt just a little. “Actually, a colleague in the same academic circle extended the invitation. He’s a chair on the programming committee.”
“Do you remember his name?” Lizzy’s question was sharp.
Carefully rolling the omelet, Maylin slid it out onto a plate and turned off the flame. Picking up a knife, she studied its edge. “Porter van Lumanee. He hasn’t returned my calls, but according to his out-of-office email notification, he should have returned at the same time An-mei was supposed to.”
Perhaps he was missing too. But she doubted it. More than one scientist unaccounted for would have bothered the police more.
She cut the rolled omelet crosswise, serving the slices out onto small plates so the spiral of egg and green showed. To one side, she arranged fresh-cut apple slices. As she placed a plate in front of each of them, she caught sight of Lizzy’s suddenly blank expression.
“You know something about him.” No need to make it a question.
Lizzy picked up a fork. “His name popped in the search, but he’s not missing.”
Lizzy was watching her, and Maylin blinked, then put the knife down.
Deliberately taking a bite out of an apple slice, Lizzy chewed before answering. “He’s on record as the last person to see your sister. He said she went out sightseeing, possibly to meet up with some new friends for some end-of-conference celebration before heading back to the States.”
“That’s not like An-mei.” Maylin wiped down the counter, unsettled. “The sightseeing, maybe. But she’d have sent me a text about it. She loved to share those things and I was getting multiple texts through the day on everything she was experiencing. She didn’t mention plans to meet with anyone there.”
“People do make new friends,” Victoria said gently.
It’d do no good to get defensive. Maylin took a bite of omelet as she considered how to explain best. The salsa verde was sweet with a touch of spice to it, and the feta cheese she’d added took the omelet roulette over to the savory flavor profile she’d been hoping for. Complex but not over the top. Not bad for leftovers. “An-mei is mostly introverted. She prefers the privacy of a lab, her own apartment. Her idea of a wild night is staying up all night online playing a game app we both have installed on our smartphones.”
“She chats online in a video game?” Marc started chuckling.
The concept of video games wasn’t all that unusual, but An-mei’s games weren’t the type people usually thought of when someone mentioned staying up playing all night.
Maylin shook her head. “This game has no chat functionality, just a simple message inbox, and she doesn’t answer in-game messages from people she doesn’t know. She only accepts friend invitations based on rank so she can use the person’s monsters on her teams to defeat stronger dungeons.”
“Huh.” Marc popped an entire omelet slice into his mouth and chewed. “So I’ll look into this Porter guy’s story. If he’s back in the States and not answering you, probably best to check out his office in person to see if he’s ignoring just you or everyone. This...whatever it is...is incredible, by the way.”
Maylin smiled. It was why she’d built a catering business. Cooking for people made her happy. “You had good supplies in the refrigerator.”
Lizzy snorted. “We had shit for leftovers. I don’t know how you managed to put this together from all that.”
“What was the last you heard from your sister?” Gabe placed a cleaned plate on the counter next to her. He’d eaten every bit.
Her stepmother would’ve been insulted. Some Chinese felt an empty plate was a silent criticism indicating not enough food had been served. It wouldn’t have mattered to her stepmother that American custom considered cleaning one’s plate a good practice and a compliment to the chef.