Golden Lies (44 page)

Paige stood back, allowing Alyssa and Jasmine to go first. It was their family, after all.

At the top of the stairs, Alyssa knocked on the door. "They might not be home," she said. "They're probably still at the parade. But everyone will come back here for dinner."

"Do you have a key?" Riley asked.

"I do," Jasmine said, holding up a long, silver key. "I haven't used it twenty-two years."

"Then it's time," Alyssa said.

They all waited as Jasmine inserted the key into the lock and turned the handle.

The Chens' apartment was small, crowded with mismatched furniture and knickknacks. The delicious smell of many Chinese dishes wafted from the kitchen. The dining room table was set for a feast. Paige had a terrible feeling they were about to ruin what was supposed to be the happiest day of the year.

A loud sound from the next room set them all back on their heels.

"Someone is here," Jasmine whispered in a panic. "We must go."

But it was too late to leave. A tiny Asian woman came through the door in a rush. Her eyes widened at the sight of them. "What are you doing here?" she demanded. "You go. You all go. Too early for dinner." She tried to shoo them away, but no one was moving.

"We want to talk to you," Alyssa said. "Before the others come back."

"No, you come back later."

The front door opened behind them to reveal a short, elderly man. Lee Chen, Paige realized, the man who had rescued her and Riley's grandfathers so long ago. He appeared taken aback by their presence, and as his gaze went from one to the other, he seemed to grow more alarmed.

"Jasmine, explain," he said. "Who are these people?"

Jasmine couldn't seem to get her mouth open. Paige almost felt sorry for her. She looked completely overwhelmed. Her father went to Jasmine's side and took her hand in his. Paige was stunned at how oddly dispassionate she felt. Her father was holding the hand of another woman, a woman not her mother. And while she would never have put Jasmine and her father together before, they seemed almost right for each other.

Jasmine needed him. And that was something his own wife had never felt—need. Jasmine looked up to him as if he were important, and her mother had always looked down. It suddenly became so clear to Paige what had drawn these two rather eccentric people together. Alyssa was watching them, too. Alyssa, her sister, watching her own parents together for the first time. A rush of emotion threatened to overwhelm her. Paige sought out the hand of the man standing next to her, and his strength filled her with resolve.

"I'm Paige Hathaway," she said, taking charge. "This is my father, David. And my friend, Riley McAllister, who is the grandson of a man you might remember, Ned Delaney."

Lee Chen's face paled at her words. "Why did you come here? Why did you bring him?" he said to Jasmine in anger. "You dishonor us, dishonor the family. You should go."

"You're a fine one to talk of dishonor," a man said from the doorway.

Paige was shocked to see her grandfather, Wallace Hathaway, walk into the room like a king visiting the local peasants. He was dressed in an expensive suit, and he looked every inch the successful businessman, a direct contrast to the old, baggy clothes worn by Lee Chen. The room went still at his appearance. She had the distinct impression that this was the first time in many years that these two old men had laid eyes on each other. But they were looking now, staring at each other with an intensity that spoke of a troubled past.

"What are you doing here, Grandfather?" she asked.

"I came to get my dragon back. Where is it?"

"I don't have your dragon. You steal it and keep it for yourself," Lee Chen said.

"You and Ned conspired against me. If he had one, you must have the other," Wallace replied.

"I do not," Lee said firmly, waving his hand in the air. "Get out of my house. You are not welcome here."

"Don't tell me where I'm not welcome. I'm the one who got you to this country, and how did you repay me? By stealing and burning down my store—"

"I thought you said my grandfather did that," Riley interrupted. "So you really don't know who did it, do you? Maybe you did it yourself. Maybe you wanted to cover something up, take the insurance money, start over."

"The person who burned down my store is the person who took the dragons out of the basement that night. That would be Ned or Lee," Wallace said. "I've known that all along."

"Why did you wait until now to come looking?" Riley asked, echoing the question in Paige's mind.

"Because I thought that the dragons had been destroyed in the fire. The store was a twenty-feet high pile of junk after that blaze. The cleanup wasn't as efficient as it would be today. I lost everything. When I saw your grandfather's dragon, I realized it had escaped the fire, and I suspected the other one had, too."

"And you knew my grandfather didn't have the other dragon because you had his house searched," Riley said. "You probably had my grandmother watched, too, didn't you? I knew someone was tailing us that very first day we went to the store."

Paige's eyes widened as Riley put together another piece of the puzzle that hadn't yet occurred to her. Wallace didn't confirm or deny the accusation, but Paige could see the truth in her grandfather's eyes. When he hadn't been able to get the dragon away from Riley and his grandmother, he'd had someone follow David until there was an opportunity to snatch the dragon back.

"Why did you wait until now to come here?" Riley asked.

"I don't have to explain anything to you. Where is the other dragon?" Wallace said turning his attention back to Lee. "I want it."

"I don't have it," Lee Chen stubbornly repeated. "I never had it. And I didn't set the fire."

"You were just the first one on the scene, is that it?"

"Yes. I was there. I tried to put the fire out. I tried to save the store. I never saw the dragons. I don't know where they are."

"You must know where one is," Jasmine said quietly. "It's here, somewhere in this apartment, isn't it?" Lee's face turned pale at his daughter's words. He started to shake his head, but Jasmine interrupted. "I saw it one night. A night like this."

Jasmine had barely finished speaking when a loud crack rocked the room. Fireworks! The parade must be over, for there was an explosion of noise, flashes of light coming through the windows. Jasmine jumped, putting a hand to her mouth. "It was just like this," she said. "I remember now."

"You remember nothing," An-Mei said fiercely. Suddenly the battle was between the two women and not the two men.

"I was frightened. I ran into your bedroom?" Jasmine's gaze darted to the door behind her mother, and she gasped.

Paige followed her gaze and saw the reason for the sudden horror on her face. Smoke was coming from under the door behind Mrs. Chen.

"Fire!" Alyssa cried.

An-Mei threw open the door to her bedroom, and they saw the curtains going up in flames. She ran into the room with a scream. Riley followed behind her, trying to pull her away from the fire. Paige rushed toward them both, while David, Jasmine, and Alyssa ran to the kitchen to get water to throw onto the fire.

"Get her out of here," Riley said. "Call 911." He tried to push An-Mei out of the room, but she was surprisingly strong for a small woman of her age. Paige tried to take her arm as well but she shrugged it off. Jasmine came into the room and begged her mother to leave it alone, to get out. An-Mei wouldn't move. She looked at Jasmine with a gleam of madness in her eyes. "The curse. It has finally come true. We all die here tonight."

"We're not dying," Riley said as he ripped the curtains off the rod and stomped on them until there was nothing left but smoke.

An-Mei looked at Wallace with hatred in her eyes. "It is your fault. You make it all happen. You promise much gold and prosperity. But you curse us all."

"I made us a fortune. I brought your husband to this country. He was nothing without me. Then he betrayed me."

Wallace's eyes suddenly lit up, and as Paige followed his gaze, she saw the dragon on a table that was set up like an altar, the statue surrounded by dripping candles, one of which had fallen on its side, lighting the bedroom curtains that were now water-soaked and blackened. The dragon stared at them mockingly, as if wondering why it had taken them so long to come. Its jade eyes flashed through the lingering smoke, throwing colors across the ancient bronze.

"Oh, my God," Paige said.

"You had it all along," Jasmine said in a daze. "I saw it here before. You were praying at the altar. I came up to you and asked you about it. You threw me in the closet. You locked the door. It was dark. I could hear the fireworks. I was terrified." She looked at her mother. "And when you pulled me out, you almost broke my arm. You spanked me many times and told me I was bad, I must forget. I must never tell." Jasmine turned to her father, who stood in the doorway of the bedroom. "Did you know what she did to me? Did you?"

Lee Chen didn't answer right away. He stared at his wife, who was holding her arms around her waist and rocking back and forth. "An-Mei," he said softly. "It's all right."

"It's not all right," Jasmine said. "Don't you understand that?"

Lee wasn't looking at his daughter. He was looking at his wife.

"The dragons were not meant to belong to any of us," An-Mei said. "They should have been returned years ago."

Wallace turned to Lee. "After all we had been through together, you betrayed me. You stole this dragon. But you couldn't do anything without the other dragon and the box. So you kept this one hidden away all these years. Did you know Ned had the other dragon?"

"I wasn't sure," Lee said, coughing as he finished speaking.

"We should get out of this smoke," Paige said.

"She's right," Riley echoed.

No one moved. No one wanted to leave the dragon on the altar. But no one seemed to have the nerve to touch it.

Riley took a step forward. Paige called him back. "Don't," she said. "Don't touch it. It might really be cursed."

He hesitated, then moved ahead in typical Riley fashion. He picked up the dragon statue and walked out of the room. There was a scramble to follow him, people bumping into one another as they made their way into the living room. Paige was the last one out, closing the bedroom door behind her.

"Time for some straight talk." Riley set the dragon on the coffee table. "Where did the dragons come from?"

"Tell him, Wallace," An-Mei ordered. "Tell him you steal dragons from China."

"I didn't do it alone," Wallace retorted.

"Then, how did you do it?" David asked his father.

"It was Lee," Wallace said. "He found the crate in the woods. It must have fallen off a truck. It was just waiting there, a treasure to be discovered. I knew right away we should keep it. We might need to trade it for freedom. It was wartime. The enemy was getting closer every day. Lee agreed with me. So did your grandfather," he added, looking at Riley. "We were good friends then, brothers. We smuggled the crate out of China and brought it back here to San Francisco. Inside, there were many artifacts from the museum."

"More than just the dragons and the box?" Paige asked.

"Yes," Wallace said shortly. "We knew we were sitting on a potential gold mine. We made a pact to sell the objects one at a time, discreetly of course, so no one would know. Ned and Lee worked at the store with me. We shared the profits from those sales equally. Until she"—he tipped his head at An-Mei -- "started worrying about the damn curse. She got Lee and even Ned all worked up about it. Stupid woman." He turned to Lee. "But you -- I couldn't understand why you would steal the dragons and burn down the store. We were friends."

For the first time, Paige saw a chink in her grandfather's armor, a sign that he wasn't as emotionless and cold as he pretended to be. He'd been betrayed by his friends. No wonder he'd never trusted anyone again.

Lee didn't seem able to speak. His eyes were watering. His shoulders shaking.

Paige wanted to tell her grandfather to stop, but she couldn't interrupt. This was between the two of them, and it was time they settled it.

Lee put a hand to his heart. Jasmine ran to his side. "Papa," she said with concern.

He waved her off. "I'm okay." He drew in a breath, then said, "When I set the fire, I thought I could take everything, but only one dragon was there. The other two pieces were missing. I set the fire to cover the theft. It was my fault."

"No!" An-Mei cried. "Not you.
Me
."

The tiny Chinese woman walked to the middle of the room and slowly but defiantly pushed back her sleeves. Paige saw the crisscross of scars that ran from her wrists to her elbows, and suddenly the truth was clear.

"I start fire," An-Mei said. "I want to send dragons and box back to China. Break curse forever. I have no choice." She shook her head. "But only one dragon there. The fire jumped. Too late to stop." She looked at her husband. "I hide it away. You don't see. You don't know."

"I knew," Lee said heavily, meeting her gaze. "I saw it a long time ago, but I didn't want to speak of it."