“Are you here to blackmail me with this?”
“I am here to solve the murder of Felix Morton. I would appreciate your honesty.”
He gave me a sharp look. “And if I don’t answer, will my acting stunt be smeared all over the Herald?”
“Not by us.” I matched his stare. “I’m asking you about this because it doesn’t fit with the rest of your biography. It’s a mystery and I don’t like mysteries.”
He thought about it. “This doesn’t leave the room.”
“Agreed.”
“How much do you know about my brother?”
“Henry, Jiāng Chéng Rùi, twenty-one years old, studying computer science in Beijing, has a fondness for pot.”
Stephen grimaced. “I wish he was in Beijing studying computer science. My brother was approached by a studio when he was eighteen. He is Chen Rui.”
“Chen Rui, the actor?” I turned and looked at Arabella.
Chen Rui played Han Min’s love interest. She had to have known he was Henry. She would have looked at Henry’s picture and compared it with Chen Rui.
Arabella gave me a bright unrepentant smile. “Number 43 on the Top 100 Most Influential Celebrities in China list.”
Stephen sighed. “Yes.”
“Why are you hiding this?” I asked.
Stephen leaned back. “We don’t have enough time for me to explain it to you. Let’s just say that there are cultural and familial reasons for which my parents would greatly prefer that Henry was either at Beijing University or back here, helping to steer House Jiang’s corporate interests.”
“So how did you end up acting in the same drama?”
“My brother refuses to come home. Two years ago, my parents sent me over there with instructions to bring him home for a visit at any cost. He said he would come home for the Lunar New Year if I took a small role in the drama with him. He wanted me to understand his choices. So, I did it, it’s done, and I have no interest in continuing with it.”
“Did Henry come home?” I asked.
“Yes. And then he left again.”
Arabella raised her hand. “Question. Did you do any of the martial arts in the drama or was it CGI and wires?”
Stephen spared her a look that was part patience and part condescension. “I’m a Chinese American, so of course I spend all my free time in a secret monastery learning kung fu and practicing spiritual cultivation. Because one day a demon king shall descend onto Houston and only my Ninth Level Thunder Fist Punch will stand in his way.”
Arabella drew back. He’d managed to put air quotes around kung fu without ever raising his hands.
“You never know,” Leon said.
Brilliant.
Stephen ignored him. “No. I don’t do martial arts. I don’t run around on rooftops with a sword fighting assassins in black. I’m responsible for four hundred million dollars in assets. You know what I do?” He pointed to the phone. “I make phone calls. I answer emails. I look for suppliers and shipping companies. I analyze market projections. That’s what I do.”
Good that he mentioned that. “Did you analyze the Pit project?”
Stephen’s face shut down. “Reclamation of the Pit would provide long-term benefits to the entire Houston metro area. House Jiang recognizes its civic duty to our city and its people.”
“Did you memorize that?” Arabella asked.
“One more word,” I warned.
Stephen nodded at me. “Younger sister?”
“Yes.”
“I have one too.” He’d sank a world of meaning into it. “Let me simplify things. What do you need from me?”
“Honest, direct answers. I need to be able to speak with Stephen Jiang, the Prime and Pit Reclamation board member, not Stephen Jiang, the eldest son of House Jiang.”
Stephen sighed. “Fine.”
“Did you kill Felix?”
“No.”
“What was your opinion of the man?”
“I found him annoying.”
“In what way?”
“In that charming, be-my-friend way.”
“I’m not sure I completely understand,” I told him.
“Felix wanted everybody to like him. He was one of those people who try too hard. He wanted to share drinks and kept making inconvenient invitations to play golf together so we could all pretend to be a happy business family. I didn’t want to play golf with him. My plate is full. I wanted to finish this project, divide the profits, and move on.”
“What about Marat?”
Stephen grimaced. “The man has no manners, but he works hard and he’s sincere. There’s no artifice there. He’s driven by the need to take care of his family.”
“Tatyana?”
“A bull in a china shop. Fire is the solution to every problem, and if fire doesn’t work, try more fire. Elemental mages like us tend to approach all problems through the lens of their own magic, but she carries it to the extreme.”
“Cheryl?” I saved the most important for last.
Stephen frowned. “You watched the drama. Do you remember Han Min’s stepmother, the one who had the reputation as the living Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy, but kept torturing her in private?”
“Do you think Cheryl secretly tortures people?”
“No, but I think there is an ulterior motive behind every action that woman takes. She’s a manipulative human being. When you criticize her strategy, she often makes you feel as if you are a bully, which isn’t a quality I look for in a business partner. Business requires a clear head and honest discussions of pros and cons.”
“Then why did you agree to this project?”
“That decision was made above me,” he said.
Cheryl had talked his parents into it.
“Cheryl and Felix were the driving forces behind the Pit Reclamation Project,” Stephen continued. “Felix brought in Marat and Tatyana. Cheryl invited my House. I was the last to join the board. Still, given the choice to walk into the swamp with one of them, I would take any of them over Cheryl.”
Clear enough.
“I have honored your request,” Stephen said. “You got honest direct answers. Now I would like one. What is the thing in the Pit?”
“You felt it?” I asked him.
“No, I felt the amount of water it displaced when I went to look for Felix the day after he died. It was a very significant amount.”
“It’s a Saito construct.”
He didn’t blink. He didn’t say anything. He simply stopped moving.
“It’s aware. It regenerates and expands. It’s enlarging the Pit to suit its purposes and it’s telepathically monitoring the humans on the site.”
A dangerous shadow darkened Stephen’s eyes. “Thank you for your candor, Prime Baylor.”
“I told you,” Arabella sang out as we walked out of the Jiang Tower. “I told you, I told you, I told you, and you didn’t believe me.”
“Yes, yes,” Leon muttered. “You’re so great.”
“I am great!”
He nodded. “And so humble.”
“Humble is for losers. I am a winner.”
Across the street, a flittering wall of glass that was the 2 Riverway Tower housing IBM, law offices, and the attached multilevel parking garage gleamed with reflected sunlight. A short driveway led to the garage, branching off from Riverway Drive. At the mouth of the driveway, leaning on his silver Spider, stood Alessandro Sagredo.
I released a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. Alive and in one piece.
Alessandro raised his head. Our eyes connected. He smiled.
Adrenaline rushed through me in a hot wave, prickling my fingertips.
“And here comes the Count,” Leon drawled.
I slowed slightly. “Leon?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not Alessandro.” He wore the right clothes, he had the right build and the correct face, and he stood the right way. But he wasn’t Alessandro.