Page 22 of Caution to the Wind

I unearthed the partially buried photo and held it up to the lamplight to see the image more clearly. “Why does that name ring a bell?”

Old Dragon snorted. “Everyone in Hong Kong has heard this name. Everyone in Canada with ties back home knows this name. Anyone in business. Take your pick.”

“Why would he be in a photo with Kate?” I murmured as I studied the pixelated face of the Chinese business tycoon. His face was cast carefully away from the photographer, ostensibly on a phone call. A wide sparklin’ watch on his wrist and a tailored suit were enough to brand him as highly successful.

“It is not enough to own land in China,” Old Dragon explained wearily, movin’ around my desk to lower himself into a chair. He smoothed a hand stippled with age spots over his baldin’ crown and then down across his face. It took me a minute to get the expression he was tryin’ to hide behind that hand wasfear. “Powerful menexpand, you understand? For themselves and for China.”

“And he’s expandin’ into Canada,” I concluded. “Usin’ proxies to buy up real estate.”

Old Dragon blinked as he folded his hands loosely in his lap, a casual pose from a shrewd man. “This is not so uncommon.”

“And not so legal,” I pointed out, already swivelin’ to the computer to check the files I’d transferred from Kate’s computer after she died.

She’d kept logs and addresses for everyone she’d ever worked with like any good real estate agent, sendin’ Christmas cards and check-ins to keep her forefront in their minds in case they needed to buy or sell again.

“You won’t find Kasper Kuan or his brother, Jiang Kuan, among the names,” Old Dragon said dismissively. “These brothers are tigers, Henning, not sheep easily led to slaughter.”

“No,” I agreed. “But Kate spoke decent enough Cantonese ’cause of Mei and me. It’s reasonable he would have sent multiple people to her. Not a lot of Chinese-speakin’ real estate agents in Calgary.”

Mei’s grandfather hummed in agreement as I clicked through file after file. Finally, I found evidence of what I’d started to assume.

“Look at this.” I turned the computer screen to him, my finger runnin’ down the list of names I’d collected. “Kate sold twenty homes last year, fifteen of which were to buyers with Chinese surnames.”

“Coincidence?” he quipped, but I had the sense he was testin’ me, proddin’ me further along the right path.

“In Vancouver, maybe, where the population of Chinese Canadians and Chinese immigrants is somethin’ like twenty percent of the community. Here? No, I don’t think so.”

My heart was beatin’ fast and hard, pumpin’ adrenaline through my system.

A lead.

A fuckin’leadafter a year of nothin’.

“Do you think she figured out what was going on?” Old Dragon asked, touchin’ his steepled fingers to his mouth.

“She wasn’t dumb, my Kate,” I murmured, thinkin’ about her bright-eyed inquisitive nature. When I’d started showin’ up at her house, bringin’ her food and standin’ guard at her door so her pimp would get the message she was fuckin’ done with him, Kate had been too afraid to question anythin’. By the time she died, in her late twenties and safe enough to flourish in my care, she’d questioned everythin’. Why was the sky blue? She’d google it, explainin’ to Cleo and me what she found. Who invented the first car? A documentary would be waitin’ cued up in the DVD player ready for us to watch that night.

She would have found out what Kasper Kuan was doin’. The real question was, why hadn’t she turned him in to the real estate board or the police?

“Don’t much like the look in your eye,” Old Dragon murmured, leanin’ forward with sudden agility and grace that belied his eighty-two years. “This isn’t a low-level thug you can rough up with your white man bulk. This is Kasper Kuan. He is part of something much bigger than one man.”

“You mean China will back him up?”

“I mean,” he said slowly, eyes dark and glitterin’ in the low light, “there is more to fear in the shadows than the light. The triads can do what the government cannot.”

“He’s triad,” I confirmed, a chill racin’ down my spine, a cold luge of fear.

“Seven Song,” Old Dragon confirmed. “Not the group you mess with, hmm? They’ve existed in some iteration for two hundred years. This is not a rival bike club or even a cartel, Henning. This is a long-established gang based on savagery and smarts. A lethal combination. You will die if you pursue this alone.”

“I won’t be alone, then,” I said easily, already flippin’ open my phone to call the president of the Calgary chapter of The Fallen MC.

“Henning,” Rooster Cavendish barked into the phone after a single ring.

“Evenin’, Rooster,” I responded respectfully ’cause that was the only way to address an outlaw with his kinda record, but also ’cause he was the kinda man who demanded it. “Gotta lead on Kate’s killers.”

A long silence followed.

“This is startin’ to become a pattern with you, Axelsen.” Rooster had one of those voices, smooth and low, somethin’ fluid and bendable that could wrap you up tight as a noose in one of his traps before you were even aware of it. “You know, I don’t give without gettin’ in return, and our ledger here’s already damn unbalanced.”