Gu Cheng watched as Joseph Zaria hurried around the bedroom, stuffing things into her bags. He had expected her to panic when she realized what she had done the night before, maybe even ignore his calls and messages as she did indeed do all day long. He did not expect her to announce she was leaving and that it was happening immediately. He watched as she left behind anything that was work related, telling himself that she was only taking the things she would need for her camping excursion and that she was leaving the rest until she came back.
Then she said goodbye, and the brilliant smile that sat on her face might have convinced others but Gu Cheng knew her face, knew her expressions, and he could see the pain and sadness behind the smile. His heart clenched in his chest, and he stood still, blocking the door to the hallway, anything to keep her from leaving before he could figure out the words to make her stay. Instead of trying to get past him, she walked into the bathroom and closed the door.
When the light flared out from beneath the door, like an explosion without the sound or force, fear choked the air from his lungs. There were no answers to his calls, so he opened the door and stepped inside, scared that he would find some horrible accident. Instead, there was nothing. The bathroom looked as it always had, no burns or damage of any kind. And, no Zaria.
Gu Cheng tore apart the bathroom, opening cabinets and pulling everything out, moving the linen cabinet from the wall, and even pulling down the shower curtain, as if someone could hide indefinitely with it still up. Then he ran through the apartment, searching every inch
He arrived, frantic, at the security office and demanded to see feeds from all hallways, entrances, emergency stairwells, and every angle of the parking lots and open spaces. He made the tech go over every second from the moment she arrived home with her bags from the shops. Then he moved the tech out of the way and did it again.
He spent hours running the videos again and again, searching for any sign that the files may have been compromised in some way. Perhaps a little shake of the image or lines going through when all other moments were clear. When he found nothing, he called the tech back in and asked for copies to be made of everything and sent to his private email.
While he made his way back up to his floor, he called Mo Ye and ordered him over immediately. It was already night time, the moons bright in the sky, but Mo Ye arrived less than thirty minutes later, driven more by the never before heard panic in his boss's voice than by the order. When he arrived at Miss Joseph's apartment, he helped his boss go over every inch of the apartment, checking every crack, crevice, and niche for potential openings or hidden areas. He did so studiously, with no idea why he was doing so but doing it well because it must be important.
After they completed their examination of every floor, ceiling, and wall, they sat down in the dining room. Gu Cheng slowly explained how she went into the bathroom and then disappeared, and all of his actions afterward. Mo Ye immediately understood why only he was called in instead of teams of people much more suited to the task. Only he knew about Miss Joseph's mysterious arrival in the hotel room that night, what felt like so long ago. Nothing that made sense had been found to explain how she arrived in that room, and now they could find no clues as to how she left a bathroom with no exits other than a closely monitored door.
They stayed up through the night, checking the security footage forwarded by the security office, and even going back over the apartment with strong flashlights looking for anything at all that seemed out of place. By the time morning came, Mo Ye was so exhausted that he could not keep his eyes open, and Gu Cheng had to admit that continuing to go through the same things over and over in their present states was inviting failure. So he called a car to take Mo Ye home and canceled his meetings for the day before going to his own bed.
Around noon, he awoke with a clearer mind. He spent hours calling every contact he had in the military and intelligence communities, as well as several that had left those groups for the private sector. The search for any information that could be found about the woman he knew as Joseph Zaria was started anew. The difference between the one he began the morning after he first met her and the present time was large. Now he had prints, dna, and pictures, up close and far away, from every angle, captured by security cameras at the apartment and every Gu Corp office she ever walked into.
The best and most helpful photo came from the unexpected source of Gu Heping's family chat group. The smiling selfie at the cake cafe showed her face clearly, with excellent lighting and resolution. The security footage was discreetly passed to Gu Corp security division with the task of looking for any tampering and any sign of Joseph Zaria after she entered her apartment with Gu Cheng that evening.
By the second day, Gu Cheng was back at work. His workload was light, his distraction obvious. It was hard not to stay home in case she came back or looked over everyone's shoulders while they did their work on his case. There was no point in pulling in experts if he was going to look over their shoulder and jiggle their elbows while they worked. So he tried to focus on his work with the corporation.
After a week with no news, Gu Cheng called his younger brother back to City C. The two met one sunny day in Gu Cheng's office at the main building of Gu Corp, barely an hour after Gu Qiang stepped off the airplane from America. They sat quietly and sipped green tea, standing to greet their grandfather when he walked in. Gu Qiang smiled at the surprised delight in the old man's face.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
"Little Qiang, why did you not tell me you were back already!"
The younger man chuckled and waited until his grandfather took a seat before returning to his place on the black leather couch. "I didn't know I would be coming back until last night. Gu Cheng was waiting to explain until you arrived."
"Let me have Mo Ye get you some tea," Gu Cheng stood up and walked toward his office door.
Gu Heping called out to his back, "No, no, have my grand daughter-in-law bring it up! She has not been responding to my messages in days. You keep her too busy."
Gu Cheng flinched but did not stop, leaving his office instead of sending Mo Ye a text.
Gu Qiang leaned closer to his grandfather and whispered, "That girl in the photo? Is she really marrying my brother?"
"You would have met her already if you had come to my birthday party, unfillial child." He swatted the young man in the leg lightly with his cane.
"Ouch, Grandpa, you know I would have been there if I could!" Gu Qiang flinched dramatically. "Blame big brother for making me deal with those Americans! They kept changing the terms, and I couldn't leave, or the deal would have fallen through!"
"Ah, you have done a good job. I will forgive you since you sent me that video game from America that I wanted." The old man rubbed his hands together gleefully. He chortled, "Your father thinks he can beat my score, but I told him to get his own game and try!"
"Ohhhh, that's why dad sent me that message that his birthday was coming up soon." Gu Qiang laughed.
The two quieted down when Gu Cheng returned, Mo Ye somberly following with a tray containing a new pot of tea and another cup.
"I said bring my granddaughter-in-law, I want to drink her tea," Gu Heping joked, winking at Gu Cheng. His laughter died in his throat at the tense look on his grandson's always cold face. He cleared his throat and settled back on the couch. "I think you should tell us why we are here."
Gu Cheng took a sip of tea, setting the cup down carefully after. "I am moving the takeover date up," he announced, not pausing to give the other two a chance to put out words to go along with the surprise on their faces. "Gu Qiang has done an amazing job with the international groups, building the company name abroad. He is ready to begin taking over in City C."
Gu Qiang sputtered, putting his cup down unevenly and causing it to spill out in the saucer below it. "I need time to get accustomed to how you have things here," he argued, "This plan was not supposed to be set into motion for at least another half of a year, and then another few months of working alongside you!"
Gu Heping watched his eldest grandson carefully, noticing the exhausted lines around his eyes and mouth. He waited until Gu Qiang wound down and then cleared his throat to get Gu Cheng's attention. "Where is Joseph Zaria?" He asked, his voice soft, and watched as Gu Cheng flinched again.
"This is not to leave this room," Gu Cheng started quietly, meeting first one pair of eyes and then the other. "I need to hand the company over sooner because I need to leave City C, and possibly the country, and I don't know how long I will be gone."
The room was so quiet that they could hear the nearly silent sound of the air conditioning moving through the ducts. Gu Cheng took a deep breath and let it out. It was the first time he had spoken the words aloud.
"As you know, Grandpa, Joseph Zaria, said that she would be leaving City C at some point. She said it since almost the beginning, but she could never give a date, or where she had to go, or why. The day after your party, she suddenly said she needed to leave. I thought as it was happening that it was because of things that happened between us, but since then, I have had the time to look back, and I think it had nothing to do with us at all. She left, and within seconds of walking out, it was as though she had vanished from the face of the earth."
He paused, looking down at his teacup before taking another sip. "As soon as Gu Qiang is in a comfortable position, I will leave Mo Ye as the acting CEO of Shooting Star, and then I will be leaving to find her and bring her back."
Gu Heping paused to see if anything else was coming before turning to his younger grandson. "Ah Qiang, I need to talk to your brother. Go and talk to Mo Ye about what you should do immediately to start stepping up in the companies."
He waited until the door closed and then tapped his cane twice on the ground in front of him. "Tell me everything, now. What are you not saying?"
For the first time since he held the crying form of his eldest grandchild when he was an infant, Gu Heping saw helplessness on the cold man's face. "I don't think you will believe it. I wouldn't if someone were to tell me."
Gu Cheng started at the beginning, about Joseph Zaria walking out of the bathroom in the hotel room that he ended up in after being drugged. How he had no clue as to how she got around all the security cameras without being noticed. How she was covered in century old agricultural soil and volcanic ash, so much of it that towels were discarded covered in it after washing just her hands and face. Volcanic ash that, when analyzed, matched no known explosion in history.
About her phone that had technology that nobody had ever seen before. All the little and strange things that were easy to brush off separately, but when looked at together, were too much to dismiss. And about how he saw her walk into the enclosed bathroom with only one exit and disappear with no trace. He laid out everything that had been discovered since then, from all the top people around the world, that basically said that before she showed up in that hotel bathroom Joseph Zaria did not exist on the planet, DNA, name, fingerprints, or anything else. When he was finished, he dropped his head back and ran his hands over his face.
Gu Heping closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the handle of his cane. "I have seen things when I was a young boy in the country that I could never tell anyone about because they would not believe me. I know that there are things that we do not know how to explain, at least not yet. And I know that if anyone can find Joseph Zaria, it will be you." He looked up and tapped his cane lightly on the ground. "Bring my granddaughter-in-law back home, Ah Cheng. You just tell me if you need anything from me along the way."