Dim Sum Asylum(71)

I dreaded to hear what my godfather had to say about my existence, but I bit anyway. “Oh? Right about what?”

“He said you were a pain in the fucking ass.” Trent smiled broadly, working our fingers together. “But he said you were worth every damned second of time I’d spend with you. You, Roku MacCormick, are going to be one Hell of a ride.”




WE NEVER got a round two in. Exhaustion took us both in the middle of a conversation my dreams replayed in bits and pieces. At some point in the middle of the night, Bob decided the small of my back was the perfect place to sleep, and she’d curled up in the hollow only to be dislodged by Trent’s leg a few minutes later. The only loser in that fight was me, and after vowing to trim the cat’s claws in the morning, I fell right back into the comfortable cradle of Trent’s arm.

Since Jie had dominated the rest of our murmurs afterward, it made sense she’d take over my subconscious. The reality of her disappearance reared its ugly head again once the glow we’d built up between us faded. I was torn between regret and guilt about the distance we’d built between us and anger over how she’d shoved me out of her life once I’d turned Kingfisher’s over to her and Ghost.

I couldn’t escape the maze of words I’d wrapped myself in before crashing. Ghost played hide-and-seek on tiered fire escapes, disappearing into the rooftop ghettos whenever I got too close. The edges of my dream were hazy and unformed, but I knew where I was as I walked despite seeing nothing but shadows and a few flashes of lights. Her face loomed through the dark, a mocking laughter following me through the corridors of my mind, and I jerked awake to find Trent reaching for me, his bleary eyes blinking at the sleep tangling his long lashes.

“You having a hard time sleeping?” Trent murmured through the graying light of the lifting morning. “Still thinking about Jie?”

“And Ghost,” I confessed hoarsely. “We were thrown together so many times as kids, I never stopped thinking of him as a brother, but sometimes I wonder if he ever counted me as one back. His dad’s gone. So is my mom. And here the two of us are, living out their relationship as if they’re still hooking up every other month or so. Maybe I’m just being sentimental… expecting more out of them than I should.”

“Sentimental doesn’t hand over a club like Kingfisher’s. You did that because you care about them.” His mouth was on my shoulder, and my skin warmed and sang at the touch. “Jie’s out there. We don’t have any proof she isn’t, and if your theory is right, she’s valuable to whoever is bringing this shitstorm down on you.”

My phone rang before I could respond, and when I stretched to grab it before it vibrated itself off the nightstand, my ass reminded me of Trent’s cock with a faint burning twinge. I’d have loved to turn over and give him as good as he gave me, but a ringing phone in the dead of the morning was never a good sign, especially since I was a cop.

“MacCormick.” My voice cracked, me having not quite woken up yet, and I stopped myself from yawning into the receiver. “Who’s this?”

“Roku?” Jie’s voice drove ice shards through my veins, and I sat up, shock and fear stiffening my spine. “God, Roku… you’ve got to come… get me. I’m pretty sure he’s going to kill us.”

“Where are you, Jie?” I was already sliding off of the bed, searching for my jeans. I didn’t care that I stank of sex and reeked of spilled beer. The tremble in her voice was enough to get me moving, my mind kicking into overdrive as I tried to process what she was saying. Trent was off the bed and heading to the bathroom before I could say anything else. “Okay, do you know where you are? Can you give me any clue?”

“I’m in a storeroom. There’s gardening stuff in here. I can smell the fertilizer.” There was a roaring sound, an angry trilling close and loud enough to make my ears ring. “There’s a dragon. I can’t see it, but I can smell it. It’s powdery, sweet, so not a red, but I can’t tell you if it’s a gate dragon or someone’s watch dragon. And I think I can see a red maple tree between the slats, but I don’t know for sure. It’s too dark.”

“Okay, let me think. How are you calling me? Where—”

“They brought another woman in, and she had a phone in her housecoat pocket, but it’s almost dead. I dimmed the screen down to black so I could call you,” she whispered.

“What can you tell me about where you are?”

“It’s dark and smells like earth. The floor’s hard, rough. Stone or a slab. It’s small, a shed? There’s bags of stuff in here, but nothing I can use to get the door open. Wait, no—the woman says we’re either in a storage room behind her teahouse or the gardener’s shed. She’s groggy. I think he hit her…. We don’t have enough power—” Someone spoke, and I heard Jie murmur, “Hold on… what? Roku, she says her name’s Yukiko. Said that you’d know who she….”

The phone went dead, and for a second, I stared down at my blank screen as Trent came in from the bathroom, holding a wet toothbrush with paste on it in one hand and a canister of baby wipes in the other. That was going to have to do for a bath. We didn’t have much time, if we had any time at all.

“Hold on. I’ve got to call Gaines,” I said, punching in the numbers.