Page 71 of Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man)

He can only shake his head, not able to trust himself to speak without bursting into sobs. “I’m sorry, Vera, I lied. I couldn’t bear to face the truth.”

After Vera’s dramatic entrance earlier, he fully expects her to fly into a rage at this, but all she says is, “Ah, I thought so. Did he tell you he wanted to come clean about not actually being your grandson?”

Surprised, Qiang Wen nods. “How did you know?”

“He did the same thing with Aimes and TJ. And now I’m guessing he probably did the same thing with Millie too, but I haven’t had a chance to speak to her. So. He wanted to tell everyone the truth. Why did that bother you?”

“It wasn’t the fact that he was going to tell them we’re not really related, it was…He was rambling, he was hardly making any sense. He kept saying he was leading a double life and he was tired of preying on people and—”

“Preying on people?” Vera says, sitting up. “Did he say how?”

“No. I asked him what he was talking about, and he said, ‘It’s safer for you if you don’t know.’ Seeing him like that, so scared, it made me scared too. I told him to please leave and take whatever dirty business he was involved in with him. He was as good as a grandson to me, but in his time of need, I turned him away.” Qiang Wen moans. The truth is, the one who had betrayed the other was Qiang Wen and not Xander. “I tried contacting him after that. I regretted it almost immediately. But he never replied. I couldn’t get ahold of him. And then the police came, and well, you know the rest.”

“Preying on people,” Vera muses. “He and Aimes were pretending to be a couple online. Could that be what he was talking about?”

“Pretending to be a couple online?” Qiang Wen tries to wrap his mind around that. “But why?”

“To get more likes. They could do cute little couple things for content.”

Qiang Wen has no idea if that made any sense, but he nods and goes along with it. “I don’t think it was that. He was really torn up about whatever it was. It sounded bad, like it was eating him up.”

“I think you’re right. The thing with Aimes is not wonderful, but it’s not really the kind of thing that would bother someone like Xander too much, if he’s okay with faking everything online.”

“I didn’t know he was faking everything online.”

“Oh yes, everything. Many of the images were photoshopped, made it look like he was at some parties when he wasn’t. I’m not sure if he did that with every party he pretended to have attended—no, he must have gone to a few of them, otherwise people would’ve noticed. Anyway, yes, he faked a lot of things online.”

“What?” A deep sorrow stabs into Qiang Wen. Can it be true that he knew so very little about Xander? And why? Why would Xander have hidden so much from him? He should’ve known that Qiang Wen wouldn’t mind, wouldn’t have judged him. Again and again, Qiang Wen is realizing that he’s failed Xander in so many different ways.

“You can’t blame yourself,” Vera says, reading his mind. “You were lost and so was he, from the sounds of it. And so was I, in fact. We were all just groping around in the dark, trying to find our way out of the tunnel. You did the best you could. You provided him with a safe place to go to and good food to eat.”

Qiang Wen nods, sniffling. He takes some time to gather himself before asking, “What are you going to do now?”

“Well, I need to speak with Millie and ask her if Xander came to her about doing some sort of exposé.”

“Millie is the only one of us who knew him as Thomas,” Qiang Wen points out. “Maybe that means she knew him better than any of us.”

“Good point. I think Millie definitely knows something. Ah, don’t you worry, I’ll get it out of her. There is no one as good as me when it comes to interrogation.”

“I believe you.” And he does. He’s beginning to learn that life gets much easier when you hand over the reins to Vera.

Twenty-Three

VERA

Hi Millie, this is Vera Wong from Vera Wang’s World-Famous Teahouse. How are you doing? Please call me back when you have chance. Kind Regards, Vera.—3:30 p.m.

Hi Millie, this is Vera Wong again. I’m not sure if you remember me, but I have a nice little teahouse in Chinatown and you been there a few times. Well you probably remember me. You must be busy, young people nowadays always so busy, but if you have chance, please call me. Kind Regards, Vera.—3:42 p.m.

Hi Millie, this is Vera again. I forgot that young people really don’t like to make the phone call, so please ignore my last message. You can just send message back, no need to make the phone call. Kind Regards, Vera.—3:57 p.m.

Hi Millie, this is Vera. Seems like you have very busy day, but Tilly tells me if the ticks on the messages turn blue is mean the messages are read. I can see the ticks have turn from gray to blue, so I know you read my messages, which is good. I hope you having a nice day. I just have a question to ask you aboutThomas, so let me know when we can meet up. Kind Regards, Vera.—5:18 p.m.

Hi Vera, what was the question you wanted to ask about Thomas?—5:18 p.m.

Hi Millie, this is Vera. So good to see your reply! Your day is going well? Very busy? Kind Regards, Vera.—5:23 p.m.

Yeah, busy. So what was the question you wanted to ask?—5:24 p.m.

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