"Charlie, I can't believe it's you. It's been ages!" Janice purred into the phone.
"Yes, it's been much too long. Listen, I'm trying to solve a little mystery here."
"Ooh, I love a good mystery!"
"I have a piece of monogrammed stationery, and I'm trying to figure out who it belongs to. I was wondering if you might be able to help."
"Can you send me a snapshot? I'll circulate it to everyone I know."
"Well, this needs to be kept private, if you don't mind."
"Okay, not everyone then. Just a few key people." Janice laughed.
"I'll take a picture and send it to you right now," Charlie said. He hung up his phone, got out of bed, and threw open the window shades. The setting sun streamed into the room, almost blinding him for a moment as he held the letter against the windowpane. He took a few pictures and sent the sharpest image to Janice.
Just then, the doorbell rang. Charlie went to the door and looked out the peephole. It was room service with his burger. As he opened the door to let the uniformed waiter in with his trolley, his phone began to ring again. He saw that it was Janice calling and rushed to pick it up.
"Charlie? This is your lucky day. I thought I would have to send your picture around, but I recognized that monogram from a mile away. I know those initials well."
"Really? Who is it?"
"There is only one DSA in the whole world that matters, and that's Diego San Antonio."
"Who is Diego San Antonio?"
"He's one of the leading social figures in the Philippines. He's the host with the most in Manila."
Charlie turned to the waiter just as he was lifting the silver dome to reveal a delicious, juicy burger. "Actually, I'm going to need that to go."
CHAPTER FOUR
TYERSALL PARK, SINGAPORE
Rachel and her best friend Peik Lin stood on the veranda, looking at the figure of Nick in the distance as he disappeared into a wooded part of the garden.
"He's been like this for the past week. Going off for walks on his own in the afternoons. I think he's saying goodbye to the place, in his own way," Rachel said.
"Is there nothing more that can be done?" Peik Lin asked.
Rachel shook her head sadly. "No, we already agreed to sell yesterday. I know it makes no sense, since we've just come into a huge windfall, but my heart still hurts for Nick. It's like I'm in sync with his every emotion."
"I wish I could find someone I could be in sync with like that," Peik Lin sighed.
"I thought there was some secret new Mr. Perfect you promised to tell me about 'when the time was right'?"
"Yeah, I thought so too. I thought I'd finally met a guy who wasn't intimidated by me, but like all the other losers, he disappeared with no explanation."
"I'm sorry."
Peik Lin leaned on the veranda railing and squinted into the afternoon sun. "Sometimes I feel like it would be far easier not to tell guys that I went to Stanford, that I run a huge property development company, that I actually love what I do."
"Peik Lin, that's total bullshit and you know it. If a guy can't handle exactly who you are, then he clearly doesn't deserve you!" Rachel scoffed.
"Damn right he doesn't! Now, let's go get smashed. Where do they keep the vodka around here?" Peik Lin asked.
Rachel led Peik Lin back into her bedroom and showed her a small button by the bedside wall. "Now, here's one thing I'm really going to miss about Tyersall Park. You press this button and a bell rings downstairs somewhere. And before you can even count to ten-"
Suddenly there was a soft knock on the door, and a young maid entered the room with a curtsy. "Yes, Mrs. Young?"
"Hi, Jiayi. We'd like some drinks. Can we have two vodka martinis on the rocks?"
"Extra olives, please," Peik Lin added.
-
Nick walked down the pathway past the lily pond, entering the deepest part of the woods in the northwest section of the property. When he was a boy, this was the area of the estate he never dared to venture into, probably because one of the old Malay servants from ages past had told him this was where all the tree spirits lived, and they should be left undisturbed.
A bird high in one of the trees made a strange, piercing call that Nick had never heard before, and he looked up into the thick foliage, trying to spot what it was. Suddenly a blur of white flickered past his eyes, startling him for a second. Collecting himself, he saw it again, something white and shiny on the other side of a grove of trees. He crept slowly toward the trees, and as the bushes cleared, he saw the figure of Ah Ling facing a large tembusu tree, clutching a few joss sticks. As she prayed and bowed from the waist repeatedly, the smoke from the joss sticks wafted around her, and her white blouse would shimmer as it caught the rays of sunlight filtering through the low-hanging branches.