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"So, how did you meet Gavin?" I took a seat in one of the chairs by the small table.
"He came into the bakery one evening." She sat down on the edge of the bed and looked around the room like she was seeing it for the first time.
"He just randomly walked into a bakery in Chinatown in LA?"
"He said he liked the Golden Dragon for lunch, and he was curious about the bakery."
"Huh." Gavin was not the type to wander into a bakery. He might've been the type to wander into a strip club, wander into a drug deal, sure. Wander in to get honey buns? Never.
"Is it a family thing? Song Bakery. Wen Li Song."
"It was my grandfather's bakery," she said carefully.
"Was?"
"He passed a little while ago." Genuine grief passed through her eyes, and I got the sense she was telling me the truth but not all of it.
"How did he die?"
"Cancer."
Illness meant he wasn't murdered by whoever was following us. "And so who runs the bakery now?"
"I do."
So she was running it but not making enough money to live in an apartment or buy a new dress. Was that why she was after Gavin's fake money? To save the family business?
"Is that what you've always wanted to do? Be a baker?"
"No. I don't even bake any of the stuff. It's delivered every morning. In fact, I need to be back at sunrise to receive the trucks."
"Are you in school?"
That caused her to look down. She stared at her clasped hands in her lap as she answered the question. "I was going to the state college to study computer science. I dropped out when my grandfather got sick, and I started running the bakery for him."
Computers. Crypto.
"What's Gavin doing with the crypto?"
"Hmm?" She looked up.
"Gavin tried to pay for the food with crypto. You watched the whole thing."
"I don't know anything about that." Again with the fingernails, another lie.
Heat rose in my chest and the anger started talking. "You don't know much, do you? Just that you needed to get married urgently, and the guy you picked to fill that role didn't show. You got stood up at the altar. Do you at least know that?"
She looked down again. "Yes."
"Why do you think he didn't show?"
She pressed her lips together. She wanted to say she didn't know but didn't dare repeat that. She was pushing all my buttons, and I was about to say or do something I'd regret if this really turned out to be my brother's wife. I needed space from her and her stupid wedding dress. "Go change in there." I pointed to the bathroom.
She got up slowly and took her bag in with her, likely happy to be away from my questions for a few minutes. When I checked the front window again, there was still no sign of a tail. I'd have to survey the perimeter as soon as possible.
I glared at the bathroom door trying to figure out how to break this girl. She didn't react to me like most women did. The eye contact didn't work. My mouth seemed to spew foolish stuff around her, and she wasn't afraid of me.
This was not a normal woman and I wasn't going to fuck her so none of my routine stuff would work. I called Vander, my boss and friend, on a secure phone.
