Kiss Her Goodbye (A Thriller) (29 page)

 A moment later, the latch turned and the door opened and a middle-aged Chinese woman—whom Donovan could easily have mistaken for Rachel in a dark hallway—peeked out over the safety chain.

 Evelyn Wu smiled warmly at the sight of her daughter. “Rachel, honey.”

 “Hi, Ma.”

 Closing the door, Evelyn unhooked the chain, then opened it wide for them, motioning them inside. “Come in, come in. I’ll make some tea.”

 “No, Ma, we don’t have time.”

 Evelyn searched her daughter’s eyes. “Is something wrong?”

 “We’re here to see Grandma Luke. Is she awake?”

 Evelyn offered a short grunt that suggested this was a silly question. “You know your grandmother. Always up at the crack of dawn.” She glanced at Donovan. If she was alarmed at all by his appearance, she wasn’t showing it.

 “I’m sorry,” Rachel said. “This is my … my friend, Jack.” Then she said something in Chinese that Donovan didn’t catch and wouldn’t understand if he had.

 A look that mirrored Rachel’s spread across Evelyn’s face and she nodded, heading down a short hallway. “I’ll tell her you’re here.”

 She opened a door and the murmur of a television bled out into the hallway as she disappeared behind it.

 “What did you just say to her?” Donovan asked.

 “That you’re battling an angry spirit.”

 The directness of Rachel’s tone startled Donovan. He hadn’t thought of it as something so simple and matter-of-fact, but what better way to explain it?

 An angry spirit. Gunderson was that, and then some.

 As they waited, he glanced around the room, which was small and modestly furnished. A doorway opened onto a tiny but serviceable kitchen, where an ancient refrigerator hummed noisily.

 A table near the kitchen doorway held framed family photographs: Rachel as a child, clinging to the leg of a man he guessed was her father; Rachel and her mother, taken when she was still in her teens; Rachel at the prom with an unknown escort …

 Donovan thought of Jessie and wondered if he’d ever see such a photograph in his own home.

 A moment later, Mrs. Wu appeared in the doorway and nodded to Rachel, who took him by the arm and led him down the hall. They stepped into a small room dominated by a wasabi-green Barcalounger that was situated in a corner across from an old Zenith console.

 
The Beverly Hillbillies
played on-screen, Granny wielding a shotgun.

 An Asian version of Granny sat in the Barcalounger, dwarfed by the big chair, an ancient Chinese woman wearing a loose sweater over a muted gray dress. The old woman saw Rachel and spoke in her native language, holding out her arms for a hug.

 Rachel obliged. “Hi, Po-Po.”

 Grandma Luke hugged her granddaughter, then pointed to the television and spoke again as Granny fired the shotgun into the air. Rachel laughed and Evelyn turned to Donovan, explaining, “She says Granny’s a very obstinate woman.”

 Donovan offered a polite smile, but bristled slightly as Grandma Luke’s wizened eyes shifted in his direction, assessing him. Despite her age, those eyes had a clarity and depth that was vaguely unsettling. She spoke again, her voice low and melodic, and when she was done, Evelyn reached over and shut the TV off, turning again to Donovan, her expression sober.

 “What did she say?” Donovan asked.

 “The look on your face,” Evelyn said. “She’s seen it before.”

 “Oh?”

 “You’ve been to the other side.”

 Surprised, Donovan glanced at Rachel, but Rachel shook her head. “I haven’t told her a thing.”

 “It’s a look that only a traveler wears,” Evelyn said.

 Traveler, Donovan thought. Another simple, yet appropriate phrase. The Wu family’s ability to cut through the bullshit was starting to impress him.

 Still looking at him, Grandma Luke spoke again and Evelyn translated.

 “Your story,” she said. “Tell us your story.”

S
O HE TOLD
them, letting it spill out of him once again, avoiding the temptation to embellish, telling it exactly as it happened.

 Grandma Luke’s face remained immobile throughout, but her dark eyes drew him in as he spoke. For a moment it seemed as if only the two of them were in the room, priest and confessor, mother and child. Telling his story to this old woman was an emotional cleansing that seemed to both drain him and give him strength.

 When he finished, Grandma Luke spoke again and Evelyn said, “This man you saw on your journey. The one who kissed you. He died a violent death?”

 Donovan flashed back to that moment in the train yard that seemed like eons ago. “Yes,” he said. “He was shot.”

 Grandma Luke nodded.

 “He is a hungry ghost,” Evelyn translated.

 “A what?”

 “A hungry ghost,” Rachel said. “It’s an ancient Taoist belief. Every year, during the seventh moon, the gates of hell open and hungry spirits roam the earth in search of bodies to possess.”

 “Seventh moon?”

 “August,” Rachel told him.

 “August came and went a long time ago,” Donovan said.

 Grandma Luke spoke once again, her words filtered through Evelyn.

 “Time doesn’t matter,” she said. “This is a new spirit. One who found his way here before his final descent. He’s the hungriest of all—and the most dangerous. That kiss he gave you opened a door into your consciousness, leaving you vulnerable to his attacks.”

 “Then I was right,” Donovan said. “He’s inside me.”

 “Yes,” Evelyn translated. “But he failed to possess you completely. Part of his soul remains stranded in the dark world. His strength comes and goes with the ebb and flow of your own.”

 Donovan glanced at Rachel, saw her distress. This clearly wasn’t territory she liked to explore.

 “The absence of light you experienced was his way of taunting you,” Evelyn continued, “enticing you to seek him out, so that the transfer of souls can be completed. He killed those men to get your attention, to force you into a confrontation.”

 “Confrontation?” Donovan frowned. “What kind of confrontation?”

 “On the other side,” Rachel said, a slight tremor to her voice.

 “What?”

 “He’s calling you back. Challenging you to some kind of … metaphysical duel.”

 As Donovan tried to digest this, Grandma Luke spoke again.

 “Ignore his taunts at your peril,” Evelyn translated. “If his challenge goes unanswered, he will continue to haunt you until you either go mad or your body gives out.”

 “Wonderful.”

 “But should you choose to confront him, he will do everything he can to steal your place here on earth.”

 “So I’m screwed no matter what,” Donovan said. “And Jessie’s his trump card. If I don’t accept his invitation, I’ll never find her.”

 “You don’t know that,” Rachel said.

 “Don’t I? He’s the only one left, Rache. He made sure of that when he killed Luther.”

 “Maybe so,” Rachel said. “But how do you plan on accomplishing this little get-together? Drive off another bridge?”

 Donovan hesitated. She had a point. Even if he chose to confront Gunderson, how exactly would he do it? His first trip to the netherworld had been a fluke, an anomaly. Short of putting a gun to his head, how would he get there again?

 Seeming to sense his dilemma, Grandma Luke spoke.

 “There’s more than one way to travel to the other side,” Evelyn said. “Less dangerous than what you’ve already experienced, but still very risky.”

 Grandma Luke reached to a table beside her chair and opened a battered cigar box. Inside was a collection of papers, some yellowed with age. She searched through them, found a dog-eared business card, and offered it to Donovan.

 “This man will help you,” Evelyn translated.

 Donovan took the card.

 Chinese characters.

 An address printed below them.

 Rachel stared at it over his shoulder. “This is crazy,” she said. “Why did I even bring you here?”

 Grandma Luke smiled at Rachel and spoke again.

 “My granddaughter has always been a reluctant believer,” Evelyn translated. “She knows this is the only way, but the truth frightens her.”

 “See what I grew up with?” Rachel said.

 “I know you’re scared, Rache, but think of Jessie. Right before he was shot, Gunderson asked me if I was willing to die for my little girl.” Donovan paused, then said, “What would your answer be?”

50

I
T WAS AN
apothecary shop, but unless you were suffering from a serious brain-cell deficiency, you wouldn’t mistake it for the local Walgreens.

 A three-block walk from Grandma Luke’s apartment, it was tucked into a narrow cul-de-sac as if hiding from the world, a secret to be shared with only a select few.

 There were no signs advertising its presence. Only a dilapidated door and a dirty window filled with what looked like industrial-sized mayonnaise jars holding moldy powders and pickled substances of unknown origin. They reminded Donovan of the kinds of things unwitting reality-show contestants are forced to swallow as America watches. Whatever was in those jars did not look particularly medicinal.

 “You sure this is the right place?” he asked.

 Rachel nodded. “My grandparents used to bring me here.”

 “You must’ve had an interesting childhood.”

 “Life,” she sighed. “An interesting life.”

 He knew that sigh included the current situation, and he wondered if the reluctance Grandma Luke spoke of had gotten the better of her. Was her support finally starting to waver?

 He reached for her hand and squeezed it. “Don’t forget,” he said, “I’ve done this before.”

 The smile she offered was small, but enough to satisfy him. He reached for the door. A bell tinkled as he opened it. Stepping inside, they found a middle-aged Asian woman looking up at them from the book she was reading. “May I help you?”

 She sat at a counter littered with jars of various sizes, filled with the same unappetizing substances as those in the window. The wall behind her was lined with wooden drawers, each about the size of a shoe box, which Donovan assumed held various medicinal mixes of stuff from the jars. Dried herbs hung from the ceiling, permeating the air with an almost overpowering mustiness.

 Donovan ducked under something brown and approached her, handing her the dog-eared business card Grandma Luke had given him. He was vaguely aware of music. A faint strain coming from a distant room.

 It sounded like Jimi Hendrix.

 The woman read the card, nodded. Handing it back, she flipped the book facedown, then came out from behind the counter and moved to a curtained doorway at the back of the store.

 Donovan and Rachel followed.

 Pulling the curtain aside, she gestured and said, “Last door on your left.”

 They stepped past her, Hendrix’s guitar growing louder as they navigated a corridor with faded linoleum and drab green walls that were vaguely reminiscent of a fifties-era hospital. At least there weren’t any jars in evidence.

 Donovan looked around. “Your grandparents bring you here, too?”

 “It’s all new to me,” Rachel said.

 The last door on the left was open just a crack, Hendrix really cranking behind it. Donovan knocked on the doorframe, but got no answer. He knocked again, louder.

 Over the music, a voice called out, “Yeah?”

 Donovan pushed the door open to find a twentyish, overweight Chinese-American man standing in the middle of a cluttered room. He was playing air guitar, a burning cigarette tucked into a corner of his mouth.

 Donovan felt a momentary twinge. Was it a Marlboro?

 Without stopping, the man said, “What can I do you for?”

 Donovan glanced at Rachel. “I think there’s been a mistake.”

 They were about to turn away when the guy snatched up a remote, silenced the music, and looked at Rachel. “You Mrs. Luke’s grandkid?”

 Rachel paused. “You’re Mr. Wong?”

 “In the flesh,” Wong said, looking her over. “Where you been all my life?”

 Donovan glared at him, then took Rachel’s arm. “Let’s go.”

 Wong held up a hand. “Wait a minute, wait—don’t get your panties in a wad. You’re the one picked up the stray hitchhiker, right?”

 Donovan paused, looking at the guy. Had Grandma Luke really meant to send them to
him?
 

 Wong noticed the look and smirked. “What? You were expecting some wise, old kung fu master? You white boys are all the same.”

 Donovan didn’t respond, but that was exactly what he’d been expecting.

 “Sorry to disappoint you,” Wong said, “but nobody’s snatching any pebbles outta my hand and I sure as shit ain’t gonna call you grasshopper. But I will promise you one thing: I can get you where you want to go.”

 He held out a hand to shake. “The name’s Jimmy, by the way.”

 Donovan ignored the hand, taking in the clutter of the room: a desk piled with Asian girlie magazines, an ashtray overflowing with butts, a bookshelf full of hardbacks that hadn’t been dusted in months.

 He didn’t try to hide his skepticism. “You’re saying you can help me?”

 “If I can’t, nobody can,” Wong said, withdrawing the hand. “All I need from you is the answer to one simple question.”

 “Which is?”

 “Visa or MasterCard?”

H
E LED THEM
back down the hall to a set of double doors. “I inherited this place from my grandfather. My old man was a drunk, so the business skipped a generation.”

 He pushed open one of the doors and gestured them inside. Donovan eyed him warily and Wong grinned right back. “Don’t let the youthful façade fool you. I’m an old soul.”

 They stepped into a windowless room with an exam table at the center. The only other furniture was a chair, a counter and sink, and a large storage closet tucked into a corner. There were more jars on the counter, containing an unappetizing array of brown and green liquids.

 “Take off your shirt and shoes and hop aboard,” Wong said, patting the table.

 Donovan hesitated, then did as he was told, feeling a bit self-conscious as he pulled off his shirt and climbed onto the table.

 Wong cracked his knuckles and rubbed his hands together rapidly, as if trying to warm them. Moving around behind Donovan, he placed his palms on his bare back and slowly worked them across it.