Code Name Komiko by Naomi Paul Read Free Book Online

keeping them to himself. “I’m almost afraid to ask what it is.”
    “Steamed sweet egg custard,” she answered, her affect flat.
    “Okay. So far, so good. What’s this thing in the middle?”
    “Longan,” she said. “‘The dragon’s eye.’”
    “Um. But it’s not a real dragon’s eye, right?”
    She finally looked up at him. The sincerity on his face was actually charming. Sad, but charming.
    “No,” she reassured him. “It’s a fruit. But see how the seeds show through and look a little like the pupil of an eyeball?”
    He nodded. “That’s really cool. And this sort of sticky-sweet stuff around the edges?” He chewed a piece of it happily.
    “Hasma,” she said.
    “And . . . what’s hasma?”
    “I don’t want to tell you.”
    “Come on,” he said, scooping up another bite. “It tastes great, so it’s not gonna bother me.”
    “Fine,” she relented. “It’s rehydrated fat from around the fallopian tubes of a frog.”
    He paused with the spoon halfway to his mouth, and then burst out laughing. “I’m impressed, I really am,” he said, taking the bite. “It takes a pretty twisted mind to make up something like that on the spot. Well done, Lian.”
    She smiled and slid her bowl to the right. “I’m glad you think so. Here, you can have mine.”
    He thanked her and dug into the frog fat with gusto.
    Lian decided against telling him she wasn’t lying. No matter how funny his expression would have been.
    As the dinner began to break up and the guests stood up to mingle, Lian managed to slip past her parents—occupied as they were with the Australians—and out into the main area of the restaurant, past the bar and into the foyer, where she felt like she could breathe for the first time since she’d arrived. She took a seat on a plush, empty bench and tried to collect her thoughts, when suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder.
    “Hey,” Matt said, looking down at her. “I’m glad we got seated together. I feel like I learned a lot tonight.” He gave her that dazzling smile one more time, and then said, “Okay. So. I’ll see you around, Lian.”
    He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze and then walked across the room to where his father was standing, checking his watch. Lian quickly dropped her eyes; she wasn’t in the mood to go for a second round with Harrison Senior. But the man’s voice carried, and she heard him telling Matt to call a car.
    “I’ll see you at home later,” Harrison told his son. “I’ve got some business to attend to.”
    “Surprising,” Matt said. His tone told Lian that Rand Harrison must always be attending to some business.
    “Don’t stay up late on your computer,” Harrison called after him. “You have class in the morning.”
    Lian looked up to see Matt hit the button for the elevator. She was about to turn and walk away when she saw the doors open a moment later. A man stepped out of the elevator, carrying what looked like a very expensive overcoat folded over one arm, and began to cross the foyer.
    She had to try very hard not to look like she was staring at the newcomer; she focused on the exquisite red lanterns as he walked past her. But she was certain. He was in a tailored suit and expensive shoes now, rather than a puffy blue tracksuit, but there was no mistaking the jowls, the bald spot, the potbelly.
    He was the man from the police boat, the one she’d snapped the photos of on her phone, who she had assumed was one of the cops.
    He was now helping Rand Harrison into a very expensive overcoat.

FIVE
    Her parents would be tied up saying their farewells for another hour. Lian found her mother at the bar, explaining the fragrances of the various
baijiu
liquors to a small group of Europeans who seemed genuinely interested in the topic.
    “I’m going to catch a cab,” Lian said, after begging the guests’ pardon for the interruption. “I want to get home and check over my summer coursework one last time.” That wasn’t the real