Veil (16 page)

“I know,” she sighed. She did know, but it
didn’t make sense and they still hadn’t looked to see what happened
later in the footage. “But he did something. He had to have done
something.”

“Whatever he did, Suren, he had to do. He
wouldn’t do anything—anything to you, unless it was something he
had to do,” Ken continued to console her. He wasn’t sure if he
believed the words himself; he merely hoped Suren was desperate
enough to believe them so she wouldn’t detect the uncertainty and
doubt in his voice.

“Find the rest,” she told him. “Crop them out
and save them. I want to see all the clips. I want to see what
happened. I can’t sit here and watch while you do it. I already
feel like I’m going to throw up.”

“I understand,” Ken nodded. His attention was
already on the computer, doing what she asked.

She wanted to leave. She wanted to walk the
streets of her and Jin’s neighborhood to clear her mind. However,
she knew that wouldn’t happen. No, instead she would walk the
streets and obsess over what happened or what might’ve happened and
then she would start to cry. Either out of anger or out of anguish,
she would start to cry and she
hated
to cry in public. God
she hated it.

Suren preferred baths
,
but the immediacy of the situation didn’t call for
one. She couldn’t imagine stewing in a bathtub full of hot water
while she pretended to relax; she took a shower instead. She let
the scathing hot water nearly scald her scalp. It streamed down her
face. Suren was overcome by the enormity of everything that
happened and how blindsided she was by what she saw.

The streams of water mimicked tears and
almost egged her to cry. She raised the showerhead slightly and
pushed all the products off the tub’s back edge. She listened as
each hit the ground with different degrees of thuds. Suren rested
against the edge of the tub and let the water patter her redden
breasts. It flowed down between her legs and drained into the tub.
She started to cry. It was an angry cry.

Ken heard sounds of crashing come from the
bathroom
,
but he didn’t react. It wasn’t
the sound of breaking glass, which would’ve been a concern, and he
could only imagine how Suren felt. He knew she needed some space
and concern over worrying him would only make her situation worse.
So, he noticed the sounds but ignored them. He kept scanning
through the elevator video feeds from the day Jin took Suren to his
lab. He found two by then: the first of Jin and Suren riding up in
the elevator together and, about an hour later, one in which Suren
entered the elevator alone. She rode down to the lobby and exited
the building.

Alone
.

Maybe somehow she totally forgot about it.
Jin took her to see the lab, to show her where he worked and some
of the things he was working on, and then sent Suren on her way.
No, Ken knew, that wasn’t Jin. He wouldn’t have brought Suren to
his lab, and he wouldn’t have shown her his work. More than that,
if she went to the hospital for any reason, Jin would have
never
let her leave the building without escorting her to
the very entrance of the Metro. Jin would’ve escorted Suren as far
as he could before he left her side.

As perpetually lost as the man was in his own
thoughts, when it came to his Suren, Jin Tsay was so consistently
chivalrous it would have made everyone else in the world nauseous.
Ken never saw a man love a woman the way he witnessed Jin love
Suren. Jin never once spoke to Ken about his relationship; Jin
didn’t speak about a lot of things. But, Ken saw it. It showed Ken
how love looked from the outside and set the bar, perhaps far too
high, for what Ken searched for in a lover.

Ken had yet to find his Suren.

The image of Suren returned to the screen and
jolted Ken’s attention back to where it belonged. According to the
video it was 8:20 pm, well past the time Jin usually stayed at the
lab. He hadn’t seen Jin leave yet. Suren entered an empty elevator,
pushed the button for the 14
^th
floor and used the key,
which she removed from the front pocket of her typically stylish
jacket. She proceeded to the 13
^th
floor
,
where she exited and moved out of the camera’s
sight.

Ken’s mind raced with possibilities. What in
the hell was going on? Surely Suren would remember not only going
to Jin’s lab but also taking the steps necessary to access it
herself. That wasn’t something someone would simply forget. Ken’s
mind furiously worked to hone in on the most logical, realistic
explanation for what he saw
.

He continued to scan the video feed. At 9:27
pm, more movement. The elevator was called to the 13
^th
floor, the doors opened and Jin and Suren stepped inside.
Everything looked intact; no cause for alarm, nothing to indicate
anything out of the ordinary happened or was happening. If
anything, Jin looked happy. Visibly happy. Way happy. To the point
where he was being publicly affectionate with Suren. He kissed
Suren’s cheek and held her hand. In public, no less. And, Jin was
smiling.

The oddity of Jin’s behavior slowly weighed
on Ken. He watched until the elevator reached the lobby
,
and the couple stepped out. When they exited the
elevator, Jin continued to hold his wife’s hand—again, in public no
less—and, as Ken witnessed with awestruck realization, Jin Tsay
skipped a little. He actually stepped off the elevator and took a
little skip while still holding on to his wife’s hand. A skip.

“No fucking way!” Ken yelped. He pushed his
chair back and jumped up. He ran to the bathroom and threw open the
door. Suren was still seated on the rear edge of the tub. The
shower curtain was open enough to where she could see Ken and Ken
could see her. Ken didn’t notice. “I need Jin’s notebooks!” he
yelled at the same volume he had moments earlier. “His pocket
notebooks—where did he keep them?”

“Ken!” Suren shouted and yanked the curtain
closed.

Ken didn’t seem fazed in the slightest. “His
notebooks!”

“They’re in the bottom of our bedroom closet.
In a stack of shoeboxes,” she cawed. She was annoyed but found
Ken’s excitement infectious.

“Thanks,” Ken squawked.

Suren could hear him head toward the bedroom.
“Oh my God! Close the door!” she screeched after him.

“Sorry!” he croaked and rushed back to slam
the bathroom door shut.

It was the first time Suren heard any of the
doors in her house make such a loud noise. It startled her. She
decided she had to find out what had Ken so worked up.

Suren got out of the shower, somewhat dried
her hair
,
and finished it off by winding
it up in a towel. By the time she put on a long robe and made her
way to the bedroom, Ken was already on the floor, surrounded by
dozens of Jin’s little notebooks. Most were open and scattered
face-up. Suren knew if Jin saw that, he would’ve had a stroke. It
almost made her laugh.

“What … what are you looking for? What’s—”
she tried to ask.

“Hold on a second,” Ken dismissed her. He
thumbed through the notebooks, pulled one more out of the box,
checked the date on the cover, got up and said, “Come.” Ken rushed
by her and held the notebook in the air
,
so she could see it over his shoulder as she followed.

“It was you, Suren. It was you!”

“It was me what? Ken … wait,” she pleaded as
she followed him down the hall.

Ken got to the dining room table and pulled
the two chairs in front of his computer apart. He sat down in one
and patted the seat of the other.

“Sit
.
”

When Suren took her seat, Ken held up the
little notebook, shook it
,
and pointed at
the date in the upper left-hand corner of the video
,
which was paused on the screen. There was a date in
the upper left-hand corner of the little notebook as well. The two
dates matched. Ken opened the notebook and frantically searched
through the pages.

“As I was going through his research bit by
bit it never dawned on me … and I wouldn’t have thought to question
it because it wouldn’t have been relevant. Most of it would’ve
never been included,” Ken babbled.

He wasn’t making sense to Suren, and he was
doing nothing to alleviate her frustration.

“Ken—what? What?” she yelped.

When he arrived at the right page, he held up
the notebook.

“It was you. You were Jin’s first and only
Veil, Suren …
you
.
”

Suren stared at the notebook, which rested on
her lap. It was open to the pages that detailed how Jin shadowed
her, how he Veiled her. Suren didn’t read the pages; she wasn’t
focused. She wasn’t able to think. She simply sat there; she sat
and stared at the notebook while she let the last words Ken uttered
sink into her. She let her mind piece them all together until she
understood their message and what they meant. Ken knew she was in
shock, understandably, and he was already prepared for what he knew
was about to come.

After about four minutes, Suren stood, pulled
the towel off her head and freed her long, damp hair. It cascaded
down her neck and shoulders.

“I was his first?” she asked.

“Yes. Without a doubt. You were.”

“Jin … Veil … ummm, Veiled me?”

“He did. Yeah, he did,” Ken nodded
emphatically.

Suren instinctually placed her hand on top of
her head while she paced around the dining room. She didn’t speak.
Her eyes were fixed straight ahead but weren’t looking at
anything.

“I know what you’re thinking, Suren, but
don’t. Remember, you know him. He’s Jin.”

She snapped out of it and shot Ken a sharp
stare. In her anger, she pieced it together. Of course it was her.
Jin didn’t have partners. He didn’t work with anyone. He wouldn’t
want test subjects. He was private. He was shy. He didn’t trust
anyone. He was secretive. Of course it was her. How stupid was
she?

“He’s Jin? He’s Jin?!” she raised her voice,
one hand still on her head. “Jin wouldn’t fucking do that to me!”
She pointed at the computer and by the end she was screaming.

Ken grabbed Suren by her hand and led her
back to her chair. She sat down.

“He couldn’t have done it to … done it with
anyone else. Don’t you see? He chose you because you’re
you
.
He didn’t choose you so he could do something
to
you. He did
it so he could do it
with
you. But he couldn’t tell you
about it. You couldn’t know
,
but there was
no other way. Not for Jin. Deep down, you know that. This was a
good thing, Suren. This was a beautiful thing.”

Suren glared at the computer. Tears welled up
and threatened to fall. Conflicted tears: anger and anguish. Her
head felt like it was being ripped apart, as if there were seams
along her scalp; the threads were stretched beyond their limits and
tore her flesh.

Ken could see it; Ken could see her confusion
and pain. Suren longed to see the good in it; she had to see
it.

“Do you want to know how I realized? How I
knew it was you?” he asked.

Suren looked at him but didn’t say anything.
She couldn’t say anything.

“Watch,” he said as he used the mouse to
rewind the paused video. He scrolled to when Suren and Jin left the
lab and entered the elevator together. “Watch your Jin,” Ken
whispered and clicked play.

Suren watched Jin put his arm around her,
kiss her, hold her hand. She saw Jin beam and never take his eyes
off her. She watched as the Suren in the video didn’t really notice
Jin’s behavior. She wasn’t out of the ordinary at all. But Jin …
Jin was like a boy. A boy in love who got to hold the hand of the
prettiest girl he ever saw.