“My parents are dead.”
Nanu translated, and several minutes of animated talking followed. One of the pasty men in particular seemed to dominate the conversation. He was taller and more heavyset than the others, with a stripe of charcoal-colored stubble around his head but otherwise completely bald. His eyes were widely spaced behind wire glasses, and his ears were soft and meaty, the lobes as thick as little thumbs. As Livia looked from him to the other two men and back again, she realized his clothes seemed finer—blue with vertical white stripes, while the other men’s suits were solid gray. If the other two were from this Immigration and Naturalization Service, this man was from something different. Did America have a royal family, like Thailand? But no, though the other two seemed to defer to the man, they weren’t deferring the way Thais deferred to the king. What, then? Was he just rich?
Gesturing to the bald man, Nanu said, “Labee, this gentleman is Mr. Frederick Lone. He’s very concerned about your welfare.”
Livia narrowed her eyes, suspicious. “Why?”
“The men from Immigration and Naturalization . . . they think they should send you back to Thailand.”
Livia felt a bolt of fear and nausea. “What about Nason?”
“I understand. But these men don’t know what else to do with you.”
“I won’t go back. Not without Nason.”
“What I’m trying to tell you is, Mr. Lone shares your concerns. You were the only child on the boat. There were two others, but they died en route, apparently from food poisoning. Mr. Lone understands your predicament and wants to help.”
“Help how?”
“Mr. Lone is an important man in this town. He owns several businesses—an ammunition factory, a pulp mill—that employ a lot of people. His brother is a US senator—a powerful man in the American government. Mr. Lone’s children are grown, but he and his wife will take you into their home until something more permanent and satisfactory can be arranged.”
Livia looked at Mr. Lone, not trusting him, not liking him. But she felt the same way about all these people. Even Tanya.
“Can Mr. Lone find Nason?”
Nanu spoke with Mr. Lone, then said to Livia, “Mr. Lone is very well connected, through his business interests and through his brother. And he promises to try.”
If America was like what the hill tribe people said about Thailand, Livia knew a rich man could be more useful than the police. Not that she could trust his words. But what choice did she have? She couldn’t go back to her parents. She wouldn’t. And if Nason was in America, Livia needed to be in America, too. She would find Nason somehow, help her somehow.
“All right,” Livia said. “If he can find Nason.”
Nanu spoke again with Mr. Lone, who looked at Livia and nodded as though eager for her to understand.
“Yes,” Nanu said. “He says he knows how important Nason is to you.”
It was only much later that Livia realized how ominous those words really were.
17—NOW
It was pretty obvious from the cell phone metadata what was going on between Masnick and Weed Tyler’s wife, but metadata alone might not be enough to ensure Masnick’s compliance. For that, Livia wanted something a little more . . . persuasive.
So late at night, she started riding up to Bothell, where Jardin lived with her teenage daughter in a two-bedroom ranch. She would park the Ninja in the shadows of a construction site near the house, set the Gossamer to spoof a cell phone tower for any calls coming to or from the two cell phones of interest, and then wait, sitting on a cinderblock, thinking of Nason, crickets chirping in the dark around her.
The first two nights, she got nothing. On the third, the Gossamer lit up with an incoming call. Livia listened in with an earpiece, her heart pounding with hope.
“Hey, you can’t come tonight.” A woman’s voice. Presumably Jardin.
“Damn, are you sure? I was just about to head over.” This time a man. She had never spoken to Masnick in person and so couldn’t be certain, but it had to be him.
“I’m sorry. It’s Vela. Her light’s still on. She hasn’t been sleeping well.”
Vela was Jardin’s daughter—the one she’d been pregnant with when Tyler had been sent to Victorville. The girl was a high school sophomore now. Livia had been right. The woman on the phone was Jardin.
“It’s okay,” the man said. “Nobody’s fault. I was just . . . I wanted to see you.”
“I know. I wanted to see you, too.” There was a pause, and she added, “Mike, what are we going to do?”
Bingo. And not Mech. That was a gang moniker. She called him Mike, a more intimate form of address.
There was another pause. Masnick said, “I don’t know.”
“He gets out in a week. Why do you think Vela’s not sleeping?”
“I know.”
“I want to tell him.”
“Jesus, Jen, we’ve been over this. That’s just not an option.”
“Then what is?”
“I’ll think of something.”