Chapter 14

Logan's phone rang, interrupting the beginning of their second work session in Bobby's room. "Logan," he said, after apologizing.

"I traced the boat to a guy named Renshu Lee. He claims the thing was stolen, started throwing a fit about having it returned to him."

"Yeah, well, good luck with that, Buddy," Mike said.

"That's what I told him."

"What do you have on him?"

"A couple of shady associations. He's in and out of Chang's circle. He probably was sailing that ship when they came to get the Changs."

"Pull his LUDS. I'd like to know what kind of phone calls were flying around that night."

"I've already requested them. I'll call you later."

"Good work, Perry." He ended the call. "Where were we?" He asked his little hospital-room team.

"Bobby, Jin, and Hui are on the Sun Dog, along with all the crew from the Bellflower," Lewis summed it up.

"When we get through here, you'll be junior-grade," Alex snarked.

"Bobby, you know guy named Renshu Lee?"

Bobby shook his head. "He owns the Sun Dog." Mike wrote his name on the flipchart paper. "Okay, I've gotta get more names. Maybe one of these will ring a bell with Bobby." He pulled his cell back out of his pocket. Before dialing, he looked at Bobby one more time. "Do you remember anything?"

"I don't know…" He thought a moment. "Pain. Dizzy. I remember thinking I was in a waterbed."

"People?"

Bobby thought a long time and finally shook his head. "I knew somebody had helped me. I don't recall seeing anyone."

Mike dialed the phone. After a second, he hung up and dialed again. "Daniels, where the hell are you?"

"I'm at my desk, doing the grind like most anybody else around here."

"Green didn't answer his phone."

"Green's in fucking China."

"What?"

"Ross sent Green to China."

"Holy hell! No way! And I thought I was lucky to go to Annapolis."

"So what did you want, Logan?"

"I need all the names you got from the Bellflower crew."

"Huh?"

"Boat number 1."

"Okay, gotcha." Daniels rooted through his notes. "Okay, here ya go. Nathan Lee, you already knew about him… On Xiao, Shen Dai, You He, Ricky Wang… That's all we know for sure. We've got rumors about the others, but nothing solid."

"Geez, how the hell do you spell all that? Never mind." Mike wrote it down phonetically. "If I need the spellings, I'll call you back. Thanks, Daniels. I'll put in a good word for you with Ross. Maybe he'll send you to Disneyland or something."

"Funny, Logan."

The exchanged goodbyes and Logan pushed 'end.' He said the names for Bobby, who didn't seem to recognize any of them.

Ed sipped a cup of coffee as he watched her walk out of the shower, stark naked. She toweled her hair and then wrapped herself in a towel. "We'll get some breakfast, then check in with the locals."

He grinned and took another sip.

"You're very quiet."

Ed's smile widened. "I'm just along for the ride. You're my tour guide, partner, and Captain all rolled into one."

She dropped her hands to her side. "Sorry. I can be a little bossy at times."

He set his cup down and walked towards her. He tasted her soft neck, then straightened to look her in the eyes. "After last night, I could care less," he said. Green headed for the shower.

Meredith stared after him. As good a detective as she was, she wasn't sure just what to make of Ed Green.

Perry reviewed the LUDS and then went over everything he could get on Renshu Lee. For some reason, the name Kenny Song kept niggling in his brain. He went through his information again, with the same result. For no reason whatsoever, Kenny Song stuck in his brain.

He set off on a sidebar, pulling up anything he could find on Song. Korean-American, Song grew up in New York City. There was nothing in the public record about him that would put him on the wrong side of the law. He'd served in the Army, then he all but disappeared from history until these fairly recent phone calls with Lee.

Perry leaned back in his chair and tapped the eraser of his pencil against his lips. His fingers hit the keyboard again, and he made some notes. Then he called Logan.

"Logan."

"Hey, Mike, are you still with Goren?"

"Nah, he was tired, so we all split. Why?"

"I think I may be onto something."

"Like what?"

"Renshu Lee, the owner of the Sun Dog. He was talking with this guy Kenny Song. I think Goren maybe knows him."

"Why?"

"I think there's an Army connection. Song was in South Korea in 1988. That's about when Bobby was there, right?"

"I don't know."

"Well, just ask him if he knows the guy."

"Song. Kenny, you said?"

"Yeah."

Alex took two pills and climbed into the hotel bed, pulling the comforter all the way up to her neck. Her head was pounding, and had been for at least two hours. In her flurry of concern for Bobby, she'd forgotten to take care of herself. Her body had continued to heal in spite of her neglect, but she was feeling its protest. Her deficit of sleep was the worst of it, bringing on horrendous headaches. Honestly, Alex had yet to recover the feeling on the outside of her left foot, too, but it didn't interfere with her walking, so she didn't think it was much cause for worry.

Her thoughts went back to Bobby. He really was improving. Today was the best day yet. When Lewis had turned his back and Bobby had winked at her, it had seemed like a typical day at home. She thought, wondering how many times she'd been the recipient of that left-eye wink.

It was something she'd never seen him do with anyone else, something he reserved especially for her. Just last month, as she hurried into the squad room late, and Daniels had popped off some crude comment, Bobby had been the first to pop back, with a double entendre and a left-eye wink supplied in the split second when she was the only one looking. She'd damned near smacked him for it.

But God, he was sexy when he did that.

Alex rolled to her side and closed her eyes. The headache was subsiding now. She drifted into sleep thinking of him, looking forward to the day they could share a bed again.