Page 45 of Wired Justice

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Sophie’s body froze.Her mouth fell ajar and her eyes were wide as she turned to face her mother. Tank and Ginger dragged her toward this new person for enthusiastic greetings, and that gave Sophie a moment to recover her composure.

Pim Wat was hidden under bulky layers: a conical straw sun hat, a long khaki parka, loose, wide-legged pants. Her shoes were orthopedic, and though her face was still beautiful and unlined, a sense of age was conveyed by hunched posture and the way her gloved hands gripped the knob of a bamboo cane.

“Mother. What are you doing here?”

“You are the only one with a right to call me that.” Pim Wat gave a brisk nod. Her voice was commanding. “Deal with those unmannerly animals, Malee, and come sit with me.”

She must be dreaming this. She’d wake up in the morning and shake her head over the whole ridiculous scenario she’d imagined—but no, it was too complete, right down to the details like the fact that only her mother called Sophie by her Thai middle name.

Sophie tied the dog’s leashes around a nearby metal pole. She took out the collapsible watering bowl from her jacket and opened it, pouring water from her canteen into the bowl. She left the dogs lapping thirstily and went to sit beside her mother, near the edge of the bench.

Pim Wat had set aside her cane. She kept her gaze on the newspaper she held. “We cannot appear to be conversing.”

“Why not?” The shock of disbelief was giving way to anger as Sophie leaned over the bench, beside her mother, stretching her calves. “What the hell is going on? Aren’t you supposed to be in the hospital?” Sophie’s Thai was rusty, and emotion made her trip over the words, her tongue tangling on the smooth vowels she hadn’t had occasion to speak in so long.

“You must not let your feelings rule you.”

“You are one to talk, Mother. Your feelings ruled you all of my life.”

“That is what I let you believe.”

A deep shiver passed over Sophie. She pressed her hand over her chest, feeling her heart lurch. “I do not know what you mean.”

“I’m not who you think I am.”

Sophie pressed harder against her heart, because it was galloping now. She couldn’t look at the petite figure beside her on the bench. What was her mother trying to tell her? She focused on the only thing that made any sense. “Why now, Mother?”

“Because this is the first time I could find you and get you alone. Everything that I planned with Assan Ang went so badly wrong.”

“You planned my suffering?” Sophie wrapped her hands around her waist as she turned on the bench. “You gave me to him. You, Mother.”

“I know. I am sorry for how it turned out. But there was nothing to be done. I couldn’t get to you, once he had you. Then you fled and joined the FBI, and during that time I was . . . unavailable.”

Sophie focused on breathing, willing her logical mind to take over and sort through the confusion of jumbled emotions. “Perhaps it would be best if you just told me what you came to tell me.”

“That’s my Sophie. You were always such a good girl.”

Sophie tightened her arms around herself. Yes. Good girl. That’s what she had always tried to be for her mother, so she didn’t cause more distress, so she didn’t send her mother into a downward spiral.

So her mother didn’t kill herself because of something Sophie had done.

The dark, unspoken threat of suicide had hung there, a guillotine over Frank and Sophie’s heads. She’d been relieved to be sent to boarding school.

Sophie waited. Pim Wat would tell her what she wanted in her own good time. Her mother was not someone who could be rushed.

“I married your father for political reasons. It wasn’t my choice.”

Sophie wasn’t surprised. In the way of children, she had always known her mother didn’t love her father. But her father had tried hard to make both the cross-cultural differences and her mother’s illness work. “But Dad loved you. He really wanted us to be together.”

“Yes. Frank was very idealistic.” The word rolled off Pim Wat’s tongue like it tasted bad. “I had other priorities, the good of our family chief among them.”

Pim Wat referred to Sophie’s wealthy, royalty-related Thai relatives. Other than her aunt, Pim Wat’s younger sister, Sophie wasn’t close to any of the host of powerful uncles and scheming cousins she had left behind in Thailand.

She went on. “I was supposed to stay married to your father. Travel with him. Gather information for our government.”

Her mother had been a spy?

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