Fortune Cookie (Culinary Mystery) by Josi S. Kilpack Page B

understand how he was feeling about all of this. “I think we could get everything packed up if we worked hard at it. Pete, my fiancé, will be back in a little while, and between the three of us, I think we can make really good progress.” She was as eager as Ji seemed to be to get this job over with, but suddenly wondered why either of them was here if neither of them wanted to be. Surely the police had dealt with other murder victims who had no one to claim their things; there had to be a procedure for what to do in that situation.
    “She never told me she had a sister.” Ji’s flat tone caught Sadie off guard, but he continued before she could comment. “She never talked about any of her family. I assumed she didn’t have anyone, let alone anyone like you.”
    Like me? Sadie repeated in her mind. Did he mean that in a good way or a bad way?
    “How did you find my address to contact me?”
    “I looked through her desk and found an envelope with your return address. Your father’s obituary was inside, which is how I made the connection.”
    “She hadn’t come to his funeral so I’d sent her the clipping. She kept it?” Sadie felt a wisp of gratitude that she’d sent it even though she’d been frustrated with Wendy for not acknowledging their father’s death. That Wendy had kept it all these years meant something, didn’t it?
    Ji’s expression showed a hint of regret that caused Sadie to brace herself. “It hadn’t been opened when I found it,” he said.
    Wendy never even opened the letter Sadie had sent? She’d never even read the final tribute to their father? Sadie swallowed the hurt and reminded herself that this detail was in perfect accordance with the Wendy Sadie did know. A nice apartment and beautiful things hadn’t apparently changed her much.
    “Wendy cut us out of her life entirely,” Sadie explained. “But I’m glad she kept the letter if only so that you could find me. I’m glad you contacted me.”
    “When did my mother cut you off?”
    Sadie gave him a brief version of the history and ended with, “It was very hard on my parents.”
    “But not on you,” Ji added, picking through the subtleties of what she’d said.
    If not for having already promised herself to be honest with him when the hard questions came up, she’d have lied. There was obvious difficulty between Ji and his mother, and Sadie felt guilty adding to it with her own negative experience. But she wouldn’t lie to him. If this man deserved anything from her, he deserved the truth. Still, she proceeded with caution, not wanting to give more than he wanted to hear. “Wendy didn’t treat me well when we were young, and we never had a chance to form a bond later in life.”
    “What do you mean she didn’t treat you well?”
    It was easier to tell Ji than it had been to tell Pete, maybe because she’d had practice, or maybe because she’d had a few days to relive the experiences and reaffirm to herself that she hadn’t been to blame for Wendy’s bad behavior. Or maybe because she sensed that Ji hadn’t been treated well by Wendy either. Those things didn’t make the telling of it painless, however.
    “I forgave her a long time ago,” Sadie said after divulging the details of her childhood experiences. “I believe she was mentally ill and didn’t always understand what she was doing.”
    “Perhaps you give her too much credit. Perhaps she was just a bad person and always had been.”
    His dark sentiment surprised her, but she was careful not to react. She had no idea what his life with Wendy had been like and didn’t want to come across as dismissive or judgmental. “I’m not sure I believe that people are just bad. ” Yet even as she said it, she thought of some of the people she’d met in recent years who could fit that description.
    Ji looked away from her to the canvas prints of Wendy on the living room wall. Sadie watched him, wondering what he felt when he looked at the portraits of his mother