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Zhang sighed “If I’d been the person then that I am now, she’d be one of the kids I helped She couldn’t have been , past her shoulders Petite Pretty And, as I said, desperate My guess would be she was a runaway She ay too classy to have spent her life on the streets Her friend Lucy was another story She was older— user Her pupils were the size of saucers and she looked wrung out Her aparter than the rooirls looked as if they hadn’t eaten a decent meal in weeks”
“You said her friend’s name was Lucy What about the seller herself—as her name?”
“She never gave it to me Neither did Lucy I didn’t know her name until later”
“So you spoke to Lucy again”
“Oh, yes It was a good five years later She ca for me out of nowhere She was in even worse shape than the last tiht, and with so her She was panicked and desperate to get out of Hong Kong She said she’d scored a huge sue transport for her to America She was so frantic, I felt sorry for her So I spoke to ements—for twenty thousand dollars She turned the otiation or protest Fong got her on a ship to New York After that, she was on her own”
“Where does a poverty-stricken drug addict get twenty thousand dollars?” Rich muttered to himself “That as”
“That’s for sure,” Zhang agreed “All I know is that she swore to me she hadn’t stolen it Back then, it didn’t ot a cut I walked away”
“And that was the end of it?”
“In Hong Kong, yes That was the last I saw of her But I’o”
“In New York?” Derek asked, his head snapping up
Another nod “In a battered woirl back to her fa beaten by her drunken boyfriend While I was there, I saoh hell It’s only been about three years since I saw her, so she can’t be ht or thirty But she looks a decade older than that She ollen, covered with bruises, and shivering under a blanket in the corner I tried to approach her, but she shrunk away fro’s brows drew together in concentration “But her eyes, her features…it was Lucy I said her nah she was too dazed to figure out fronition in her eyes”
Derek whipped out a pad “Give us the name and address of this shelter”
Zhang supplied Derek with the inforestion is to have a woman question her She’s visibly terrified of ood reason If you two march in and approach her, you’ll scare her off and lose any chance of learning what you need to know”
“I was thinking along the very sa out a plan “We’ll have a feet through to people who are reluctant or unwilling to respond The professional I have in o with her when she pokes around in Chinatown That’ll avoid any potential cultural problems But once the two of theent will stay back, and let her do the work”
“Lucy’s English is weak,” Zhang warned him