The search became a quiet, digital plague.
In the sterile offices of Jingheng Capital, a new, shadow team worked. They were not employees. They were contractors, specialists hired through layers of shell companies, paid from untraceable accounts. Their task was simple and vast: find a ghost.
They began with the list. Every board-certified obstetrician, maternal-fetal medicine specialist, and licensed midwife in the United States and Canada. Then they filtered. Who had taken a sabbatical in the last year? Who had reduced their practice to a handful of patients? Who had relocated to a rural or remote area? Who had a history of serving high-profile, privacy-conscious clients? The list narrowed from thousands to hundreds, then to a few dozen.
Parallel to this, another team combed property records. Large cash purchases of remote homes, secluded land, retreat centers. Long-term rentals paid upfront with anonymous funds. They looked for patterns of disconnection: utilities established under new names, satellite internet contracts in areas with no existing infrastructure.
They fed the data into custom algorithms, looking for intersections. A doctor moving to Montana overlapping with a property bought by a trust in Wyoming. A midwife closing her Manhattan practice the same month a remote cabin in the Adirondacks was leased to a shell corporation.
It was slow, tedious work. Days turned into a week, then two. Ji Jingheng's patience, never a deep well, began to thin. The sterile facts of the financial hunt were one thing. The reality of a child—a potential heir, a living variable of his own DNA—was another. It sat in his mind like a persistent, low-grade fever. He found himself distracted in meetings, his sharp focus blunted by a relentless, internal questioning. Where was she? What was she doing? Was she safe? The last thought angered him most. Her safety was her own concern. She had chosen this path.
Yet, he could not dismiss it. The child changed the equation. It was no longer just about control, or rectifying a strategic oversight. There was a biological imperative now, a primal tug he had never expected to feel and did not welcome.
Lin watched the change in him. The cold efficiency remained, but it was underscored by a new tension, a simmering irritability. He demanded updates hourly, even when there were none to give. He rejected probable leads as "too obvious" or "not secure enough." He was, she realized, emotionally compromised. It was a vulnerability she had never seen in him before. It made him unpredictable.
"We have three high-probability candidates," she told him one evening, placing a folder on his desk. "All fit the profile. Discreet, experienced, recently established practices in low-density areas with significant natural privacy."
Ji Jingheng opened the folder. Three names, three faces, three brief dossiers. Dr. Eleanor Vance, formerly of Los Angeles, now running a "prenatal and family retreat" in Northern California. A nurse-midwife named Anya Petrova, operating a solo practice from a small island in Washington's San Juan archipelago. A husband-wife team of obstetricians who had left a prestigious Boston hospital to open a clinic in rural Maine.
He studied them. His eyes lingered on the first. "Vance. Former LA. Why the move?"
"Officially, early retirement and a desire for a quieter life. She sold her practice and her home in Brentwood eighteen months ago. Purchased two hundred acres of forested land in Siskiyou County. Built the facility herself. It's off-grid, solar-powered. Takes only a handful of clients at a time. Very exclusive, very private. No website, referrals only."
"And the funding?"
"The land purchase was a straight cash transaction. The construction was financed through a local credit union, paid off in full within six months. The money trail originates from a trust based in Delaware. A dead end for standard tracking."
"But not for us."
"We're tracing the trustees. It's slow."
He tapped the photo of Dr. Vance. A woman in her sixties, intelligent eyes, a no-nonsense expression. "She has the background. She has the setup. And she's within a day's drive of several major private airfields used by celebrities looking to disappear." He looked at the other two dossiers. The island midwife, the Maine doctors. They were possibilities. But the Vance profile felt right. It had the scale, the professionalism, the proximity to Lu Huai's known world.
"Concentrate on Vance," he said, his voice decisive. "I want satellite imagery of that property. I want to know every car that comes and goes. I want thermal signatures. I want to know how many people are on that land, and where they sleep."
"Satellite coverage is intermittent. It's heavily forested. Thermal will be difficult."
"Then get a drone. A quiet one. Fly it at dawn, from a distance. I want eyes on the ground, Lin. Actual eyes."
Lin hesitated. Physical surveillance was a significant escalation. It carried legal risk. "Sir, if we're wrong…"
"Then we've wasted time and money," he interrupted. "If we're right, we have our answer. Do it."
At Serenity Pines, the days took on a new, watchful quality. Lu Huai no longer walked the outer trails. She stayed close to the cabin, her movements confined to the immediate clearing and the path to the main lodge. Eleanor had installed simple, old-fashioned motion sensors at the property's perimeter—not connected to any network, just battery-powered lights and chimes that would sound in the lodge's kitchen. It was a low-tech alarm system, but it offered a sense of control.
Sarah noticed the change. "You're sticking close to home lately," she commented one afternoon, watching Lu Huai from the porch as she weeded a small patch of herbs she'd started.
"Just getting tired more easily," Lu Huai said, bending to pull a weed. The lie came easily, a reflex honed by a lifetime in the public eye. "Third trimester things."
Sarah nodded, but her gaze was thoughtful. She was no fool. She'd seen the new motion lights, had heard the quiet conversations between "Lily" and Eleanor that stopped when she approached. She didn't pry. Her own life had taught her that some doors were best left closed. Instead, she brought over more groceries, made sure Chloe didn't wander too far when they played outside, and started leaving a spare key to her own cabin on the table after tea. "In case you need anything in the night," she said casually.
It was a gesture of unspoken solidarity that tightened Lu Huai's throat. She took the key and squeezed Sarah's hand, a wordless thank you.
The waiting was the hardest part. The knowledge that a net was being woven somewhere, by unseen hands, and that she was the quarry. She slept fitfully, her dreams fragmented with images of dark cars on mountain roads, of unfamiliar men in suits stepping out of the trees.
Eleanor, meanwhile, was a pillar of calm practicality. She increased the frequency of check-ups, using them as a cover to discuss security. She showed Lu Huai the backup cabin on a topographical map—a small, rustic structure a mile deeper into the forest, accessible by a narrow, overgrown footpath. It was stocked with food, water, a first-aid kit, and a satellite phone. "A last resort," Eleanor said. "But it's there."
One crisp morning, about a week after Finch's warning, Lu Huai was washing her breakfast dishes when she heard it. A faint, high-pitched whine, like a monstrous insect. It came from the east, grew louder, then faded to the south. It was gone in less than a minute.
Her hands, submerged in soapy water, went still. It wasn't a plane. The sound was wrong. It was too steady, too mechanical. A drone.
The fear was instant and cold, a splash of ice water down her spine. She stayed frozen at the sink, listening. The sound did not return. The forest was silent again, save for the normal chatter of birds.
She dried her hands slowly, methodically. Then she walked, trying to keep her pace normal, to Eleanor's office in the main lodge.
Eleanor was on the phone, her voice low. She saw Lu Huai's face and quickly ended the call. "What is it?"
"I heard a drone. East to south. A minute ago."
Eleanor's expression hardened. She walked to the window, looking out at the empty sky. "Are you sure?"
"I've spent enough time on film sets to know what a camera drone sounds like. This was smaller, quieter. Surveillance grade."
Eleanor let out a slow breath. "Okay. Okay. It could be nothing. Hunters use them sometimes. Or forestry surveyors."
"It's not nothing," Lu Huai said, her voice flat.
"No," Eleanor agreed. "It's likely not." She turned from the window. "We'll activate the protocol. Tonight. After dark. You and I will go to the secondary location. Sarah and Chloe will come too. It's safer for them as well; if anyone comes asking, they know nothing, but it's better they're not here."
"You think they're that close?"
"I think if they're using drones, they have the property in their sights. They're confirming, not searching. The next step is a physical approach." Eleanor's face was grim. "We're not waiting to find out."
In a rented van parked on a scenic overlook five miles from Serenity Pines, a technician reviewed the drone's footage. The feed was high-resolution, thermal imaging overlaying the visual spectrum. The main lodge was clear, two heat signatures inside. One of the cabins—Aspen, according to the property map—showed a single, steady heat bloom. Human. Another cabin showed two smaller signatures. A child and an adult. The fourth cabin was cold.
The technician zoomed in on the Aspen cabin. The thermal silhouette was indistinct, but the size and posture suggested a single person, likely seated or lying down. He couldn't determine gender, certainly not identity.
He packaged the data and sent it via secure link. The message was brief: Four structures. Three occupied. Primary target location inconclusive. Recommend ground verification.
The reply came an hour later, from Lin. Stand by. Awaiting further instructions.
The technician settled in. He was to monitor for another twenty-four hours. His job was to watch, not to act. But as he watched the serene, green landscape on his screen, he felt a prickle of unease. He was used to corporate espionage, to tracking executives and monitoring facilities. This felt different. This felt personal. And personal jobs, in his experience, were where things got messy.