In Her Tracks (Tracy Crosswhite #8)(102)

Bruce looked confused, or concerned, but Tracy offered no more information. “This is stakeout? Hawaii Five-O?”

“No stakeout, Bruce. Just waiting.” She was paying him by the hour, and figured he’d do as she asked. They drove down the street to wait. The private investigator had confirmed that Gloria Liu, her married name, had a daughter, age ten.

After fifteen minutes, schoolchildren walked down the sidewalk toward them, all dressed in the same light-green uniform with red scarves and carrying the same gray backpack. The students peeled off from the herd to the surrounding homes. A girl, who looked to be the right age, walked down the circular drive to the home Tracy and Bruce sat watching.

Tracy started from the car.

“You want me to come? Be translator?” Wayne asked.

“It won’t be necessary,” Tracy said. “They speak English. Wait for me here.”

“Stakeout,” Bruce said, smiling.

Tracy turned down the driveway to the front door. She didn’t see a peephole, likely a good thing. She knocked. Moments later the door pulled open. A Chinese woman, who looked the right age, stood dressed in a blue cashmere sweater, blue jeans, and flats. It only took the woman a moment to register Tracy’s blonde hair, blue eyes, and her height. Her eyes widened.

“Gloria Chin?” Tracy said.

The woman shook her head, speaking Chinese. She started to close the door.

“Bobby Chin’s sister.” Tracy held up the photograph she’d pulled off the Internet, a picture of Bobby Chin and Gloria standing together on a beach. The resemblance between the siblings was uncanny.

The woman sighed. Her shoulders slumped. “Who are you?”

“My name is Tracy Crosswhite. I’m a detective from Seattle.”

“Private detective?” Gloria blew out a breath. “Did she hire you?”

“Jewel Chin? No. Bobby didn’t hire me either. I’m not here on official police business. I’m here on my own, though I am a detective with the Seattle Police Department.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s complicated,” Tracy said. “But I’m not here to cause you or Elle any pain.” She meant this. She came to Chengdu with one intention—to determine what was in Elle’s best interest. Coming through the ranks at SPD, Tracy had worked for a year in the Domestic Violence Unit. She’d seen horrific cases tear families apart and cause damage to the children. She’d never dealt with an international child abduction case, but she knew of such instances and knew that certain of those cases were governed by the Hague convention on international child abduction.

“May I come in?”

Gloria Liu stepped back from the door so Tracy could enter. The house was neat and simply furnished. Framed photographs lined a black-marble table in the entryway. On it, Tracy saw photos of Gloria with her husband and her niece.

Gloria led Tracy into the kitchen. A young girl sat at the counter eating cookies and drinking milk. She looked at Tracy as if she had two heads, and stopped chewing in midbite.

“We don’t see people with blonde hair very often,” Gloria said, putting her arm around Elle Chin.

“You must be Elle,” Tracy said, smiling to try to ease the girl’s discomfort.

Elle nodded, still looking uncertain.

“It’s nice to meet you.” Tracy held out her hand.

Elle looked to her aunt, who nodded, then held out her hand. Tracy shook it. “Who are you?” Elle asked.

“I’m a friend.” She knew the little girl was struggling to figure out the relationship and worried what it could possibly mean. “I know your father in Seattle.”

Gloria spoke Chinese and Elle picked up her backpack and left the room, looking back warily.

“Does Bobby know?” Tracy asked.

“He didn’t, but now he does. As you said, it is complicated.” Gloria slumped onto a barstool at the kitchen counter. “You are wondering how a sister can do something so hurtful to her brother, to inflict so much pain.”

Tracy had been, but with time to think it through, she suspected Elle had not been taken to inflict pain, but to alleviate it. “I assume you did it because you love him, and you love your niece.”

“Where there is a purpose in pain, it is not cruel,” Gloria said softly.

“A Chinese proverb?”

Gloria smiled. “The nature channel. A show I watched in the United States about lion cubs. The mother will let one of her cubs die, so the others can live and grow strong.” She sighed. “My parents are traditional. They did not want Bobby to marry Jewel. They didn’t like her. I didn’t like her. Jewel got pregnant. We all thought she trapped my brother, that she saw my family’s wealth as a prize.” She sighed. “This must sound like a rationalization.”

“No,” Tracy said.

“Maybe that’s just a sister looking out for her brother, but Bobby was not blameless in this. Bobby was pigheaded. He often rebelled against my parents’ wishes and did what he wanted. My father wanted Bobby to go into computers, but when he graduated from college Bobby became a police officer. Is that how you know him?”

“Sort of,” Tracy said.

“When Bobby and Jewel had Elle, my parents wanted to accept Jewel, for their son and their granddaughter’s sake. They were thrilled to have a granddaughter. They doted on Elle. But Jewel was difficult. She became more difficult, more unstable each year. She isolated my brother from his friends, then from his family. She would keep Elle from my parents when she did not get what she wanted. She used her as a pawn. Bobby would sneak Elle over to their house to visit when he could.” She shook her head.