Page 28 of Shadowing You

No. She was alive. She was a married woman, a professional. Intelligent, or at least she used to be.

Lord, help me think. Wake up the real me.

The prayer was barely a thought, but it settled something in her chest. She drew a slow breath and watched the brown fields slide past. This was her country and her language. These people were her people. Six years behind bars hadn’t changed that, even if it had changed her.

Lu Feng wasn’t part of the Public Security, but obviously he knew somebody who was.

She’d met him in 2019, a doctor in the small hospital where she’d worked. Cheap shoes, a crooked tie, but he’d been good with the patients. He’d seemed to care.

It had all been a lie, of course.

Even so, he’d been a small-time criminal, or so she’d thought.

But he’d found her three times now. He had men at his disposal, which meant he had money and connections.

He wasn’t small-time anymore.

She knew what a man like Lu Feng could do with power and position. And what he’d do to keep it.

She studied the truth carefully, the way she’d once studied a patient’s file, looking for clues. If Lu Feng could find her in Changsha, he could find her in Hong Kong.

If he had enough resources, he could find her in Vancouver or Toronto or…anyplace in the world where detectives could be paid to track down people.

She’d once believed she’d be safe if she left China. But six years was a long time to amass a fortune in cash and connections.

If Lu Feng wanted her gone, a border wouldn’t stop him now. It would barely slow him down.

Leaving China wouldn’t make her free.

The realization should have frightened her. Instead, it settled inside her, cold as her prison ward.

There was only one way to be free of him. She’d pretended it wasn’t true when she’d walked out of the prison gate and called Ethan. She’d let herself forget, believing Ethan would get her out of China, and distance would protect her.

It wouldn’t. She was on Lu Feng’s radar, and now Ethan was too.

Mei Lin had to finish what she’d started.

The evidence should still be where she’d left it. If she could get it to the right person, then Lu Feng would face justice for what he’d done.

Not just for her, but for every woman whose life he’d destroyed.

Without the evidence, she would be running for the rest of her life.

She was still working through the geography when Ethan ended his call.

“Take us to Yiyang,” he said to Taibo.

“Gotcha, chief.” Taibo, it seemed, had watched some American television.

Ethan faced her. She’d seen him, of course. But this was the first time she’d looked past the man in her memory to the one sitting with her today. He looked older than his age, as if more than six years had passed. Too much red surrounded his striking eyes, and the dark beneath them displayed his fatigue.

She didn’t know where he’d been for the last six years, but when she’d called, he’d come.

“Who was that?”

“My cousin.”

“I didn’t realize…”