In Her Tracks (Tracy Crosswhite #8)(101)

What if that pain was to save an innocent child?

And maybe to save the sibling, who had been spiraling out of control, as well.

A sister. An Asian woman. Gloria Chin.





EPILOGUE

Chengdu, China

Tracy stepped from the Chengdu airport, tired after a long flight with a stopover in Beijing. It didn’t help that she was put through an extensive customs search and barely made her connecting flight. She knew little of Chengdu, except that it was one of the most populous cities in China, with more than fourteen million residents. It was most famous, however, for its nonhuman inhabitants—the giant pandas kept at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, which attracted tens of millions of tourists each year.

Her guide for the day, a midthirties Chinese man, held a sign with her name on it amid the throng of people waiting behind baggage-claim barriers. Tracy had only brought a carry-on. She didn’t plan on staying in the country long. She’d managed to obtain a visa after much sweat and only with some high-level help within the United States government. She had not come in an official SPD capacity, and she’d used personal funds to obtain the visa and to fly to China.

Tracy was grateful to learn that her driver had a strong command of English, though accented.

“How was your flight?” he asked.

“Long,” she said.

“China is a very big country. Like your country.”

“What is your name?” she asked.

“Bruce Wayne,” he said.

“Bruce Wayne is your name? Like Bruce Wayne from the Batman movies?”

He smiled. “Yes. That is my English name. Bruce Wayne. I’m Batman.” He mimicked the character’s signature movie line.

Tracy laughed. “Okay, Bruce. Lead the way.”

Bruce led her to a black Nissan in the garage and put her bag in the backseat. She kept her briefcase with her. “You wish to go to the hotel to sleep, or go to see the giant pandas?”

“I have an address.” She pulled the sheet of paper from a file compiled for her by an investigator in Chengdu she had personally hired without SPD’s knowledge and also using her own funds. She handed the paper to Bruce Wayne. “Can you take me here?”

“Yes, yes. We can use ‘Find,’” he said putting in the address on his phone. “No problem. We find. You here for business or pleasure?”

“Pleasure,” she said, smiling but not saying more. “How long is the drive to that address?”

“About forty-five minutes,” he said. “But I am fast driver, like Batmobile.”

Tracy checked her watch. “Don’t worry about driving fast. I prefer to get there alive.”

They talked about China and what she was seeing along the drive. All around the freeway stood high-rise apartment complexes, dozens of them. Each building looked identical to the next, lined up like dominoes. “I’ve never seen so many apartment buildings,” Tracy said.

“The government is building them for the people,” Bruce said. “It is part of the movement of people from rural areas into the city. The government helps the farmers losing their land.” Tracy had read that China was moving away from small rural farms to large industrial farms.

“Do the farmers own the apartments?” she asked.

“The government owns the land but it provides a seventy-year lease.”

“What happens after seventy years?”

“The government has not told us.”

“That wouldn’t fly in the United States.”

“Fly?”

“The people wouldn’t agree to do that. When we buy something, we own it for as long as we want, until we die or decide to sell it.”

“You know what is problem in United States?” Bruce asked, though it sounded rhetorical.

Tracy was curious. “No. What is the problem, Bruce?”

“You have too many choices.”

“Do we?”

“Here, the government tells us what to do and it is done.”

Tracy nodded, but she didn’t take the bait. For all she knew, there were cameras and microphones in the car. The private investigator had willingly helped her, but he did not want to be with her in China. She checked her watch, which she’d set to Chengdu time. “What time do children get out of school?” she asked.

“This depends on school. Age of student. I would say between three and three thirty.”

Tracy looked at her watch. She’d have a few minutes to wait.

After forty minutes, Bruce Wayne exited the freeway, driving surface streets past apartment buildings and business parks. Most of the businesses were vacant, as were most of the apartment buildings. They continued until they came to two-story detached homes in a more rural neighborhood. There were lawns and trees. In fields behind the homes, smoke drifted from small burning piles of leaves, adding to the already smog-choked air.

“I know this area,” Bruce said. “Much money here.”

“These are homes?” she asked.

“Villas.”

Bruce slowed further, turning left and right, listening to his GPS. He came upon a three-story stucco home with a red-tile roof and a circular driveway. “This is villa. Bruce Wayne never fails. This a friend of yours?”

“Yes,” Tracy said, considering the house. It was, by American standards, rudimentary. The top floor looked to be open, without windows or doors. Articles of clothing hung on a line stretched from one side of the building to the other. “But they’re not expecting me. My coming will be a surprise. Park down the street.”