“Then you need to know something about him.”
“I know all I need to know.”
Masuyo gazed at her maliciously, clearly sensing an advantage. “Do you really? Well, when he brought me back to Hong Kong, he knew my real name was Dai Lu. He read it off the sign the man was holding, in Mandarin no less. Did you tell him this, Victoria? Because if you did not, how could he possibly know that, Daughter?”
Steers stared at her mother for a long moment, and then, as she had done before in the face of information that surprised her, Steers closed her eyes and shook her head, as though trying to throw off the impact of the words. Then Steers turned and left the room without answering.
CHAPTER
69
SO THAT’S IT, MAN?” SAIDThura.
He and Nash were sitting in the kitchen of the guesthouse. Nash had filled him in on the sale of the business by Steers.
“Apparently so.”
“So I have to leave this country?”
“No. Through Ms. Steers’s contacts you obtained a work visa for the U.S. before we came here. You can next apply for a green card, which will grant you permanent residency. I’m sure she’ll help you with that. Eventually, you can apply for citizenship.”
“Without a job?”
“You got into this country with a specialty occupation visa. And you have plenty of money saved. That will also be in your favor. And I’ll do all I can to help you get another job.”
Thura smiled and patted Nash kindly on the arm. “Man, am I glad I ran into you over there. Changed my whole life.”
“It didn’t start out that way,” said Nash. “You probably thought I was going to cost you your life.”
“So what about you? What are you going to do?”
“Haven’t really figured that out yet.”
“And the nasty old woman?”
“She’s going to be very busy helping to run the business with the man who owned that prison she was supposed to be in.”
A confused Thura shook his head. “Them two working together now? That is some messed-up shit.”
“Yes it is,” agreed Nash.
“And she was never in that prison. Did you tell Ms. Steers?”
“I did.”
“What’d she say to that?”
“Not much,” replied Nash.
“So what’s she going to do now that she sold out?”
Nash didn’t answer right away because he didn’t know what to say.
You’re no longer objective about this, Nash. It’s what Shock and Morris have been trying to tell you. You’ve let your personal feelings for the woman interfere with your judgment. But how can you just ignore what you’ve seen? Everything she’s been through?
Nash pulled himself back from these uncomfortable musings to tell Thura, “I don’t know. She keeps things very close to the vest.”
“What would you do if you was her?” asked Thura.