The Letters We Were Meant to Find

CHAPTER 1 THE LETTER Rain had fallen over Shanghai since four in the morning. By seven-thirty, the city was already alive, its wet roads glowing beneath thousands of headlights. From the thirty-second floor of Jinhai International Hospital, Dr. Amara Lin watched the rain for a moment before an emergency pulled her back to work. Hours later, after saving a deteriorating patient, Amara learned that Ethan Kwon, heir to one of Asia’s most powerful families, was waiting to meet her about a hospital medical programme. She expected a wealthy businessman. Instead, their conversation opened a door to the past. Ethan knew her father, Samuel Lin, who had disappeared twenty years earlier after being accused of stealing money from the Meridian Foundation. Ethan showed Amara an old silver compass that had belonged to Samuel. That evening, Amara returned home to find an envelope beneath her door. Inside was a letter from her mother. Samuel was alive when I wrote this. Find Locker 17. Find Ruth. And when Ethan asks what you remember about the night your father disappeared, do not tell him everything. Before Amara could recover, her phone rang. “My name is Ruth,” a woman whispered. “You shouldn't have opened the letter.” The call ended. Across the street, a black sedan waited in the darkness. For twenty years, Amara had believed her father was gone. Now she knew someone had been waiting for her to remember.