Golden Lies - Barbara Freethy [51]
"Do you think that Raymond Li had something to do with the assault on my father? I can't believe that. He's worked at the store for twenty years. He's had plenty of opportunities to steal, if that's what you're implying."
"I'm not implying anything. Just saying his sudden vacation is suspicious. Let's say that he knew your father took the dragon out of the store. He might have even known where David was going. Or he could have followed him. I don't think someone just happened by that alley, found your father, and took advantage of his presence by robbing him. Someone followed him to Chinatown or knew where he was going and set the whole thing up. We know your father saw Jasmine a little before five o'clock and that the police found your father around nine o'clock. It certainly didn't take him four hours to walk those short blocks from Jasmine's apartment. And it doesn't appear that he was lying there for four hours, either. I'm figuring he went somewhere else and was coming back, maybe to tell Jasmine what he learned. Or else he had business in that area and was leaving that location."
Paige hated the way Riley was dissecting everything so clinically, so dispassionately. This was her father they were talking about. Just thinking about his attack made her feel sick.
"I've asked my assistant to see if she can locate Mr. Li," Riley added. "For now, I think we should concentrate on the Chen family."
She turned away from the sharp look in his eyes. She knew what was coming next, and she didn't want to hear it. Instead she walked back over to the table and picked up the family photograph. She handed it to him. "This is my family."
"Nice picture. Who's the other girl?"
"My sister, Elizabeth. She died when I was six, and she was seven. That picture was taken just a few months before she got sick."
"You had a sister who died?" He looked surprised. "I never heard about that."
"It's not a secret, but it happened a long time ago."
"How did she die?"
"She had leukemia. It was awful." A word that didn't begin to describe the horrible disease that had stolen Elizabeth's life. "Nothing was the same after she died." Paige stared at the photograph in his hand. "It happened almost twenty-three years ago. If that girl, Jasmine's daughter, is really my half sister, then she was born in the year after Elizabeth died. Maybe that's why the affair happened. Or maybe that's what I want to believe. Either way, I'm not sure I can accept this other girl as my sister. Elizabeth is my sister. It would be wrong to put anyone else in her place. It would be as if she hadn't existed."
"Alyssa Chen isn't going to make you forget or love your real sister any less."
"I'm not so sure." She debated telling him what she was feeling, but her emotions and words seemed to run amok when Riley was nearby. "Sometimes I forget what Elizabeth looked like, sounded like, smelled like," she confessed. "I see the pictures and I remember her, but I'm not sure I remember her from my memories or from the pictures. Does that make sense?"
"It makes a lot of sense. It's been a long time, Paige. Memories fade. And you were a little girl. How much do you remember from when you were six years old?"
"Probably not as much as I should." She took the picture from his hand and set it back on the table. "Every year on Elizabeth's birthday, my father and I go to the cemetery, and he gives her a birthday present. It's always a dragon. She loved dragons. My father started her collection, and he still contributes to it every year. In fact, we're going to display the collection in the new Hathaway exhibit at the Asian Art Museum."
"A dragon like the one my grandmother had?" Riley asked sharply.
"Any kind of dragon. The gifts have all been different. But, yes, he was interested in your grandmother's dragon for that reason, as well as a dozen others, I'm sure. Elizabeth's birthday is next Wednesday. He has to wake up before then."
"I hope he does,