Golden Lies - Barbara Freethy [139]
For the first time, Paige saw a chink in her grandfather's armor, a sign that he wasn't as emotionless and cold as he pretended to be. He'd been betrayed by his friends. No wonder he'd never trusted anyone again.
Lee didn't seem able to speak. His eyes were watering. His shoulders shaking.
Paige wanted to tell her grandfather to stop, but she couldn't interrupt. This was between the two of them, and it was time they settled it.
Lee put a hand to his heart. Jasmine ran to his side. "Papa," she said with concern.
He waved her off. "I'm okay." He drew in a breath, then said, "When I set the fire, I thought I could take everything, but only one dragon was there. The other two pieces were missing. I set the fire to cover the theft. It was my fault."
"No!" An-Mei cried. "Not you. Me."
The tiny Chinese woman walked to the middle of the room and slowly but defiantly pushed back her sleeves. Paige saw the crisscross of scars that ran from her wrists to her elbows, and suddenly the truth was clear.
"I start fire," An-Mei said. "I want to send dragons and box back to China. Break curse forever. I have no choice." She shook her head. "But only one dragon there. The fire jumped. Too late to stop." She looked at her husband. "I hide it away. You don't see. You don't know."
"I knew," Lee said heavily, meeting her gaze. "I saw it a long time ago, but I didn't want to speak of it."
"And I saw it, too," Jasmine reminded her once again.
"I tell you to forget. You never forget. You cursed."
"I think it was the moment I realized how much you hated me," Jasmine said. "That's why I couldn't forget. I knew I was a disappointment, but I didn't know why -- a disappointment long before David came along."
"You first daughter, Jasmine. You born with no finger. The curse struck you because of him," she said, shooting another dark, stabbing look at Wallace. "He say they too valuable to send back."
"They were too valuable, and it was too late to turn back," Wallace replied. "We would have had to reveal where we got the dragons in the first place. And we couldn't do that. The scandal wouldn't have just done us in; it would have hurt the entire country. The United States and China were not exactly friends." He looked at the statue on the coffee table. "And neither were we—after the fire."
"I can't imagine that my grandfather ever went along with this theft, this plan," Riley said.
Paige heard the pain in Riley's voice; it matched the pain in her own heart. It was hard to believe that the men they loved and respected had made a very bad decision a long time ago.
"He went along with it," Wallace said. "You don't have to understand. It was a different time. We'd seen our friends die in front of us. We'd faced our own mortality, and when we got back to the States, times were hard. Those art pieces gave us a leg up. Lee and Ned were able to start their own businesses with the money they made, and I put Hathaway's back into the black. No one got hurt."
"How can you say that?" Paige asked. "It looks to me like a lot of people got hurt, our families most of all."
"I don't understand," Jasmine interrupted, looking at her mother. "If the dragon was cursed, why did you keep it all this time?"
"I couldn't do anything else with it," An-Mei said. "The pieces were separated. I thought they were destroyed in the fire. So every New Year I pray to the Dragon God for forgiveness and a chance to make it right. When the other dragon came to light I thought -- but then it was gone again."
"How did my grandfather get the other dragon?" Riley asked.
"I think Ned must have taken it to show some friends at the bar, to impress them," Lee replied. "He was always doing that. I didn't realize he hadn't returned it to the store before the fire."
"But then the store burned down, and my grandfather probably thought he'd be blamed if Wallace knew he had one of the dragons," Riley