Ficorpio
Chapter 1
Three days ago, I came to Dali to clear my head after breaking up with my girlfriend. My lifelong childhood friend, Jake Mercer, had invited me along.
He booked us two adjoining rooms at a guesthouse beside Erhai Lake. One room each, he said, so we’d have some privacy if either of us got lucky.
We had barely been there two days before Jake actually came back with two beautiful women.
That night, while I was resting in my room, Jake knocked on my door. He looked like he’d won the lottery as he invited me next door to play cards. Then he gave me a pointed wiggle of his eyebrows.
“Two gorgeous sisters showed up,” he said. “Come on, Ethan. Time to get you back in the game.”
Jake and I had been friends for more than a decade, but we couldn’t have been more different.
I’d never dared do much of anything reckless in my life. I stayed inside the lines, and my life had been quiet because of it. Jake, on the other hand, moved through women like he had a map of every garden in the world. Somehow, none of that had ever stopped us from being inseparable.
Things got wild quickly next door. Before long, my face was burning, and I made some excuse to leave.
Jake kept calling me a coward from behind the door, shouting that he was going to battle those sisters until dawn.
The next morning, when I woke up and thought back on the night before, I felt a small stab of regret.
I texted Jake, but he didn’t answer. I assumed he was exhausted. He’d told me the night before not to wake him the next day, so I didn’t knock on his door. Instead, I headed out alone to climb Cangshan Mountain.
By the time I traveled from Erhai Lake to the mountain, took two cable cars, visited Ximatan, and reached the summit at nearly thirteen thousand feet, half the day had passed.
I took a panoramic photo and sent it to Jake. He should have been awake by then. Why hadn’t he replied?
I was about to call him when my phone rang.
There was no number on the screen.
I answered, and a weak, raspy voice came through. It said only one thing.
“Get out.”
A violent shiver ran through me.
Maybe it was altitude sickness, but my heart began pounding so hard it hurt. I’d never heard that voice before. It barely sounded human. There was a coldness in it that seemed to seep through the phone, and even in my rented overcoat, I couldn’t stop myself from shuddering.
For some reason, my mind went straight to Jake.
I called him twice. No answer.
I told myself he had to be asleep, worn out from whatever he’d gotten up to the night before.
Still, I turned back without really thinking about it.
Less than half an hour later, while I was riding the cable car down the mountain, I received another call.
Chapter 2
This time, it was from a local number.
“Is this Mr. Bennett?”
“Yes.”
“This is the Dali Police Department. Where are you right now?”
My stomach tightened. “I’m on Cangshan Mountain. Is something wrong?”
“Your friend, Jake Mercer, has been involved in an incident. Please return as soon as possible.”
My heart dropped. “What happened to him?”
The officer didn’t answer immediately.
“It would be best if you came back first. Which exit are you coming down through? We’ll send someone to collect you.”
I told him where I would be getting off. He instructed me not to leave the exit once I reached the bottom. They would find me there.
Questions tore through my head.
What had happened to Jake? The police sounded like it was serious. Had those sisters run some kind of honey-trap extortion scheme? Had he been caught in a vice raid?
But why would the police be sending a car for me over something like that?
When I reached the bottom of the mountain, I saw two police vehicles parked near the exit. Seven or eight officers were spread across the area, watching every passing tourist closely.
I hurried over to one of them.
“I’m Ethan Bennett. Are you here for me?”
The officer’s face went hard. He quickly pulled out a sheet of paper and compared it to my face, then spoke into his radio.
The other officers closed in at once.
Tourists stared, startled, then gave us a wide berth. The scene looked less like they were picking someone up and more like they’d caught a fugitive.
My heart hammered even harder.
What kind of disaster had Jake gotten himself into? Had those sisters accused him of rape? I hadn’t done anything. I hadn’t even stayed.
I asked the officers what was going on, but no one answered. They only urged me into the vehicle.
Two officers boxed me into the middle seat in the back. At least they hadn’t put cuffs on me, but I was already barely holding myself together.
The car was silent as we drove. Wind howled through a crack in the window, and the air inside felt heavy enough to suffocate me.
After a long while, I managed to gather enough courage to ask, “What happened to Jake?”
The officer in the front passenger seat turned around and stared directly at me, as if he were searching my face for something.
“He’s dead.”
My mind went blank.
For several seconds, maybe longer, I couldn’t process the words. I couldn’t speak. I could barely breathe.
When I finally found my voice, it sounded strange, thin and unfamiliar.
“You… you’re lying, right? Jake… How did Jake die?”
No one answered.
For the rest of the drive, I dug my nails into my palm and prayed it was a nightmare.
Prayed I would wake up.
By the time we reached the guesthouse, the entire little building had been sealed off with police tape. Officers in different uniforms moved in and out through the entrance.
A police officer led me into the lobby, which had once been the first-floor living room.
Chapter 3
Two groups had been separated on opposite sides of the room. On one side sat Helen Carter, the guesthouse owner, and her staff. On the other were three or four tourists who had been staying there, just like Jake and me.
But the sisters were nowhere in sight.
A dark-skinned, middle-aged detective took me into one of the guest rooms, now serving as a temporary interview room.
He asked about my relationship with Jake, why we’d come to Dali, and every detail of our itinerary.
I told him everything. Every word. Including the sisters we’d met the night before.
Then he asked me to describe them in detail: where they had come from, what they looked like, what had happened afterward.
“I don’t know much,” I said. “Jake brought them over. By the time I got there, they were already in his room. They were both dressed fashionably. Pretty. Great figures.”
The detective watched me without blinking.
“The older sister was named Vivienne. Strong features. She seemed older somehow. More mature. The younger one was Celeste. Small, cute. Like the girl next door.” I swallowed. “She had a beauty mark under her right eye.”
The detective thought for a moment.
“What time did you leave last night? And why?”
“It was after nine when I got there. We played cards for a while. Around ten, they started betting too much, and I felt awkward, so I left.”
“What game were you playing?”
“Partners.” My face burned. “The losing pair had to take off an item of clothing.”
He gave me a complicated look.
“After you left, did you hear anything? What did you do afterward?”
I hesitated. “Not long after I got back to my room, I heard… sounds coming from next door. I couldn’t settle down, so I put in my earplugs and went to sleep.”
His brow furrowed. He lit a cigarette and stared at me hard.
“So you’re saying your friend Jake may have had sex with two women he’d just met. You left early because you were embarrassed. And after that, you know nothing. Is that right?”
I nodded, but his stare made something cold creep through me. I looked away.
“Do you have any medical condition? Or some kind of trauma?” He paused. “Sexual trauma, I mean.”
“No,” I said immediately.
He tossed me a cigarette.
“I’m just asking. We’re all men here. Things like that aren’t exactly rare anymore, especially with guys your age. From what you’ve told me, the invitation was pretty obvious. How did you turn it down? Were you really just embarrassed?”
I didn’t know how to answer. I stumbled over a few words, then finally nodded.
That was when it hit me.
They thought I had killed Jake.
The sisters weren’t in the lobby. Had no one else seen them. Did the police think I had made the whole thing up?
“You can check the security footage,” I said quickly. “I’m telling you, there really were two sisters. They went into Jake’s room before nine.”
The detective motioned for me to calm down.