“I’m so glad you’re here,” Doris told her, wringing a white handkerchief between her hands. “Miss Elizabeth needs you.”
Colette entered the library and sat down on the ottoman at the older woman’s feet. “Can you tell me what happened?” she asked softly.
Elizabeth shook her head. “No one knows. Christian is missing, lost somewhere inside China. No one’s seen him.” She swallowed hard. “For the past week, no one’s heard from him. A whole week.”
“He got on the plane in Seattle, correct?”
Elizabeth nodded. “According to the airline, Christian landed in Beijing. That’s where the trail stops. As far as his office is aware, he was scheduled to change to a connecting plane there, but he never arrived in the other city. I’ve forgotten its name,” she added fretfully.
“How did you hear about this?” she asked.
“My nephew Elliott phoned. Christian’s father. Someone at Dempsey Imports called him. He phoned me right afterward.”
“What’s being done to find him?” Colette asked, her mind darting in several different directions. Surely there were ways of locating someone inside a foreign country.
“Elliott asked if anyone had contacted the U.S. embassy, and apparently that’s been done. The hospitals have all been checked, jails, hotels. Other places, as well. Nothing.”
“Do you know the name of the person your nephew talked to at Dempsey Imports?” Colette hated to be drilling some poor staffer, but she needed as many facts as she could get.
“I…don’t.”
“Do you mind if I use your phone?”
“Of course not. Anything. I just have to know Christian’s alive.”
It’d been almost five months since Colette had talked to anyone at Dempsey Imports. In fact, she’d gone out of her way to avoid contact with her former friends. But none of that mattered now.
Elizabeth pointed to the hallway. “There’s a phone in there.” For the first time the old woman’s expression was hopeful, as if Colette might discover something no one else had.
Colette found the phone and turned on the hallway light. She didn’t need to look up the number or the extension. Even after all these months, it was still as familiar as her own.
Two short rings. “Jenny Hilton.”
“Jenny, it’s Colette Blake.”
“Colette! Oh, my goodness, Colette!” Jenny exploded with surprise. “What happened? It’s like you disappeared off the face of the earth. Everyone’s been asking about you and I didn’t know what to tell them.”
“I got another job,” Colette said. She wanted to keep explanations to a minimum.
“Oh, my goodness, have you heard about Mr. Dempsey?”
Before Colette could respond, Jenny continued. “He’s somewhere in China. At least that’s what we think—no one knows for sure. It’s all kind of crazy around here at the moment.”
“I heard,” Colette said, hoping for more information. “What can you tell me?”
“Not much,” murmured Jenny. “His assistant’s been on the phone for three solid days. Apparently Mr. Dempsey’s father is flying to China to start a private search. From what I understand, Mr. Dempsey was making one of his routine trips to Zhongshan, the same one he’s made at least a dozen times.”
“Anything else?”
“Just that no one’s heard from him, either here or in China. Most of the time it’s perfectly safe for tourists there…But the strange part is that he was supposed to visit the manufacturer in Zhongshan and they had no record of him coming.”
“They weren’t expecting him, then?” she asked in confusion.
“Right. But we thought that’s where he was. Anyway, Mr. Dempsey’s father checked into his flight plans and discovered he landed in Beijing but had never made a reservation to continue on to Zhongshan.”
If Colette was frightened before, it couldn’t compare to what she felt now. Wherever Christian was inside China, she had to believe it was connected to the mess he’d become involved in. She’d pleaded with him to get out; unless he did, there could be no future for them. Colette had begun to suspect that Christian had heeded her words. He’d tried to get out—and his disappearance was her fault. He’d done this for her…
Colette bit her lip. Christian had gotten in deeper than he’d ever intended and now he was trapped. The men involved in operations like this weren’t the forgiving kind. Maybe it was too late to get out; maybe he knew too much. That seemed the only logical explanation.
“It’s weird, you know,” Jenny was saying.
“What do you mean?” Colette asked. “Weird, how?”
“There’ve been all kinds of government agents here the last couple of days.”
Colette closed her eyes and swallowed hard. “Do you have any idea what they were looking for?” Another thought hit her. Maybe Christian didn’t want to be found. Maybe his disappearance was all part of some escape plan to avoid prosecution in the States. It made sense, and yet Colette couldn’t make herself accept it. He’d told her he was coming back, asked her to wait. He would never have done that if he’d planned to disappear.
Jenny sighed. “The agents talked to several people but not to anyone I know well, otherwise I would’ve asked what it’s all about. As you can imagine, the office has been buzzing, but it’s hard to tell which rumors have any basis in truth and which don’t.”
“Would you phone me if you hear anything new?” Colette asked.