The Book of Lost Fragrances: A Novel of Suspense Read Online Free PDF

where monks helped them find the child.
    And then they administered the final test used to reveal the veracity of a possible reincarnate: a group of objects, some belonging to the dead lama, some not, were given to the boy.
    “This is mine, it’s mine,” he said as he selected only the relics that had belonged to the dead lama, ignoring the others. First prayer beads, then the dead leader’s glasses.
    Thirteen years later, in 1950, the Communist Party of China invaded Tibet and took control of the government. Nine years after that, the fourteenth Dalai Lama, still only twenty-four years old, fled his homeland to live in exile in India. Since then—more than fifty years later—the unresolved conflict had grown more violent. This latest incident had led to a spate of aggravated restlessness and brutality.
    The action that had sparked this newest and tragic rebellion had occurred in Lhasa two weeks ago, when a three-year-old child went missing twenty-four hours after being identified as an incarnated lama.
    Since then, there had been rioting in the streets of all of Tibet’s cities, and heavy-handed and merciless police tactics had pushed the situation into a full-scale crisis more violent than any since the horrific protests and killings during the 2008 Olympics.
    “This is the same thing that happened before, isn’t it?” Cali asked.
    “Yes, almost exactly.”
    More than twenty years before, days after a four-year-old Tibetan child was identified as the new Panchen Lama, the boy, along with his entire family, had disappeared.
    For hundreds of years, the Panchen Lama helped to identify the next Dalai Lama. The Chinese government still officially claimed that boy was alive and well and was working as an engineer in Beijing. Unofficially, most people assumed that he’d been killed. Only a few held out hope that, one day, he’d resurface.
    The two friends were quiet as they walked the last few blocks back to the Nanjing Arts Institute, where both were graduate students and teaching assistants.
    At the entrance to the building, Xie kissed Cali good-bye on the cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
    She nodded.
    He took her arm gently, speaking in a low and determined voice. “I know how upset you are, but please don’t talk to anyone about what you saw. It’s dangerous, and I want you to stay safe.”
    “I wish you were just a little bit brave.”
    There was so much he wanted to say. Of all the sacrifices required of him, none made him ache more than not being able to explain the truth to Cali.
    “I need you to stay safe,” he repeated.

Four
     
    SLEEPY HOLLOW CEMETERY, NEW YORK
9:30 A.M.
     
    Jac was shocked to see her brother standing in the doorway. It was a long trip from the Rue des Saints-Pères in Paris to a limestone mausoleum in a cemetery thirty miles outside of New York City.
    “You frightened me,” she said instead of telling him how happy she was he’d come.
    “I’m sorry,” Robbie said as he stepped inside. He was smiling at her in spite of her greeting.
    Water dripped off the extravagant bunch of apple blossom branches he cradled in his left arm and streamed off the burl-handled umbrella that had once belonged to their grandfather. Despite the rain, he was wearing his signature handmade leather shoes. Her brother was always meticulously dressed but wore his clothes with a lack of concern. Robbie was comfortable with himself in a way that Jac had always envied. Too often she felt as if she wasn’t living in her own skin.
    Like Jac, Robbie had almond-shaped light green eyes, an oval face and wavy mahogany hair, but he wore his slicked back in a ponytail. In his left ear, an emerald stud sparkled, and raindrops glinted on the platinum rings he wore on nearly all of his fingers except his thumbs. When Robbie entered a room, something magical always happened. The light took notice. The air became redolent with new smells.
    They never used to fight, but that had changed in the last few months, and