Chapter 15

Chapter 15

At the Wilson house, a file documenting Linda Brown’s history of bullying classmates was delivered to my parents. Another file—detailing her promiscuous behavior in high school—was sent to Ryan Wilson.

I also included a note with both files, roughly saying: Linda Brown had hired me to follow Jiang Yuan (a random name I made up). When I was exposed, she refused to pay me the rest of my fee. So I’d investigated Linda Brown and was leaking this information to get revenge. If the Wilsons found the info useful, they could send me a “reward” to a bank account I’d provided.

When Mom looked at the bullying file, she immediately recognized the thin, dark-skinned girl being shoved into a trash heap—it was me. Back then, my name tag on my school uniform still said “Nina Miller.”

The file also included photos of Linda bullying other students. Before Linda married into our family, Mom had done a quick background check and knew Linda hadn’t been a great student—but she’d had no idea how bad it was. She’d never imagined Linda had hurt her own daughter. No wonder Nina had developed a mental illness, Mom thought.

She remembered how Linda had “lost her temper” a few days earlier and thrown a fruit plate at Nina. Anger boiled inside her.

Earlier that day, Ryan had tried to calm Mom down, telling her to be patient with Linda since she’d just given birth. But after reading the file about Linda’s high school days—including an abortion and multiple sexual partners—Ryan felt like his head was covered in green grass (a Chinese idiom meaning he’d been cheated on). He flew into a rage and smashed every bottle and jar in his bedroom.

Divorce! He thought.