The Paper Daughters of Chinatown - Heather B. Moore Page 0,123

tamping down the nervous beat of her heart.

Tien stood there, the dim corridor making her look as if she were a dark figure. “Miss Cameron requests your presence in her office.”

“So early? What is it?” Mei Lien said, both fear and hope colliding in her breast. Perhaps she would be forced to leave after all. Or perhaps . . . this had something to do with Huan Sun. Had he been found? Was he alive?

“Miss Cameron will tell you.” Tien stepped back, giving Mei Lien room to exit.

She glanced at her sleeping son, but Tien said, “He will be fine for a short time. We must go immediately.”

Mei Lien hurried out of her room then, and Tien followed behind. Down the staircase they went, the creak of some of the steps louder in the silence of the dawn. It was strange walking about the house when most everyone was asleep.

Miss Cameron’s office door was open, and Mei Lien found herself holding her breath as she entered.

Miss Cameron turned from the window, and Mei Lien saw immediately that the woman had not likely slept all night. Miss Cameron’s usually neat hair was falling out of its pins, and her blouse was wrinkled. “Have a seat, Mei Lien.”

Blindly, Mei Lien sat down, not wanting to take her eyes away from the mission home director. Miss Cameron didn’t sit. Instead, she rested her palms on the desk, as if to brace herself.

The hollowness in Mei Lien’s stomach grew.

“Last night we went on a rescue,” Miss Cameron said, and Tien translated.

Mei Lien straightened in her chair. This was not what she had expected to hear.

“We went to the house off Commercial Street,” Miss Cameron continued.

At this, Mei Lien felt sick. Had they found another beaten and abused girl like her? Had Zhang Wei done something terrible? What about Ah-Peen Oie? Would Miss Cameron be forced to return Mei Lien to those slave owners’ hands?

“The place has been cleared out,” Miss Cameron said. “Sold off.”

Mei Lien wrinkled her brow. “What happened?” she whispered.

Tien continued to translate, and Miss Cameron said, “Only one person was left inside the building. She was the one who sent the note for rescue.”

Mei Lien thought of the girls she had known at the house. Had one of them found out about the mission home somehow and sent for help? Or . . . had it been a trap?

“Who?” she asked.

“Ah-Peen Oie sent the note for help—to rescue herself, ” Miss Cameron said.

Mei Lien stared at the director’s tired eyes and disheveled hair. Surely what she was hearing couldn’t be true. And surely Miss Cameron had seen through the ruse.

“Ah-Peen Oie said she was desperate. She owes thousands of dollars to two different men, and her original slave owner claims he still owns her.” Miss Cameron moved around the desk until she was near the second chair in the office. She took a seat and grasped Mei Lien’s hands. “I was about to leave, but she pleaded with me on her hands and knees.”

“She’s a liar,” Mei Lien hissed, pulling her hands away. “She was never a slave.”

Miss Cameron exhaled. “I spent half the night gathering information through my sources. She was a slave once, and she bought her freedom. She owes Sing Choy two thousand dollars. And Hip Chang is trying to sell her to Wong Dick for three thousand.”

Mei Lien didn’t care about Ah-Peen Oie’s problems. She deserved them. “I hope you kicked her like a dog.” The words were harsh, but since coming to the mission home, she had found other girls who had crossed paths with Ah-Peen Oie. No one had anything good to say about the demon woman.

Miss Cameron looked down at her hands for a moment, and when she again gazed at Mei Lien, there were tears in her eyes.

“I don’t fully trust her either, Mei Lien,” Miss Cameron said. “But I know desperation when I see it. Hundreds of times, I’ve seen desperation. And Ah-Peen Oie is desperate. Does that mean her heart has changed? That she is remorseful for all her crimes? I don’t know yet.”

Mei Lien’s mouth opened, then shut. What could she say? It was unbelievable that Miss Cameron, of all people in San Francisco, could be duped by the devil woman.

“We’ve taken her to the city prison,” Miss Cameron said. “I know the matron there, and she’ll keep her through the rest of today. Then we’re going to move Ah-Peen Oie to a schoolroom on Joice Street that’s no longer