Jenn Evers was a beautiful woman, and he was lucky to call her his girlfriend.

“What are you doing here?”

“I needed to see you,” she said, falling into his arms and pressing her body against his. She inhaled deeply, then let out a quiet sob.

The fear had vanished, and all Andy felt was an overwhelming need to comfort her. “What’s wrong?”

She looked up at him and shook her head. “I don’t…”

Andy quieted her with a kiss and led her to the sofa. “How did you get here?”

“When we got back to Los Angeles, I jumped on a flight to Tokyo-Haneda, then took the train here.”

Andy looked into her tear-rimmed eyes, trying to understand what could have possessed her to spend twelve hours on a plane and four hours on a train after an already long day. “Why?”

“Because Lisa…” The last shred of restraint she had been clinging to seemed to dissolve, and she broke down. He pulled her into his arms again and held her head to his chest while she cried in a much-needed emotional release. At last, the sobbing stopped, and she pulled away to wipe at the tears streaking her cheeks.

“Tell me what happened,” Andy said.

So, she did. She told him about her flight from Los Angeles to Shanghai and the older flight attendant she had watched the sunset with. She told him how Lisa hadn’t shown at their appointed lobby time the following day and couldn’t be reached by phone. She told Andy that when hotel staff went to her room, they found it completely empty, as if it hadn’t even been occupied. It was almost as if the woman had disappeared into thin air.

“What is the airline doing about it?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Nothing. They got us another flight attendant, and we flew back to Los Angeles like nothing even happened.”

He tipped his head forward and kissed her, not caring if he smeared her perfect lipstick. It had been weeks since they last saw each other. “Well, you’re here now,” he said.

She pulled back from the kiss and licked her lips, but he felt her body deflate with relief. “Yes. I’m here.”

Jenn stood and turned so that her back was to him. She looked over her shoulder and waited for him to do what she knew he would. Andy was more than happy to oblige. He rose from the sofa and reached for the small zipper at the top of her dress and pulled it down slowly, bringing his lips to her back and kissing his way down.

He kissed every inch of her spine, brushing his lips past her bra and down to her lower back. He lowered himself to his knees as her body wiggled gently under his lips, sighing as his kisses sent waves of delight through her body. As his lips reached the top of her panties, she shrugged off the top of the dress and let it fall to the floor.

She stepped away and turned to face him. He looked up at her as she reached back to unhook the clasp of her bra and saw the sparkle in her eyes. He knew what she wanted, but he couldn’t stop himself from taking his time to admire her form — from her high heels and stockinged legs to her smooth and flat tummy and perfectly round breasts. She was the sexiest creature he had ever seen.

Jenn placed her hands on her hips and smiled at him, enjoying that he wanted her as much as she did him. She reached out for his hand, and he took it without thinking. The missing flight attendant momentarily forgotten, he stood and let her lead him into the bedroom on the other side of the shoji.

He was spellbound and would follow her anywhere. From the moment he first met her, and she’d coyly asked, “Coffee, tea, or me?” he knew what his answer would always be.

12

Lisa hurt.

From head to toe, her body was bruised with open wounds from the endless hours of abuse. She was naked, and had been since she regained consciousness, except for a suffocating hood they kept over her head. They had bound her wrists behind her back, and the plastic restraints cut into her skin. Her hair was wet and hung haphazardly as she tilted her chin to her chest and fought for a few moments of painless sleep.

She didn’t know where she was. She had been in at least four trucks, two trains, and one airplane. She may have even been in a boat at one point, but she was in and out of consciousness for most of her journey and had a hard time keeping her thoughts straight. She sat on a short block of four-by-four wood bolted to the floor in a damp, concrete cell.

She thought she heard scurrying across the floor, but so far, the rats and other critters had left her alone. Suddenly, the door opened, and she jerked her head up, though she could only see shadows and faint outlines through the thick burlap.

“No sleeping!”

She cowered under the guard’s heavily accented English, then tensed when he dumped a bucket of ice-cold water on top of her, dousing her already soaked skin.

The door slammed shut, and she cried.

It was agony, and she fought through the endless torture and mind-numbing emptiness by thinking only of her reason for being in China. Shen Yu had given her critical information he hoped she could use to prevent a war and stop thousands of innocents from dying.