Summer didn’t bother denying it. “Then why give her the chance? Let’s just get out of here.”
“She’s not here.”
“She isn’t?” Summer said warily.
“Your stepfather took her to Hawaii this morning to try to get her away from the Shirosama. Apparently he balked at spending fifty thousand dollars for her guru’s bathwater.”
“What?” Summer cried, horrified. “Why would she want his bathwater?”
“To drink it. It’s part of the True Realization Fellowship’s initiation. You drink the Shirosama’s bathwater to absorb his consciousness. They sell his blood as well, but that’s a bit pricier.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said flatly, horrified.
“Don’t you?” Taka leaned back, his hands loose on the steering wheel, and in the dim light he looked elegant and deadly. “The True Realization Fellowship has over a billion dollars in assets, and that amount is climbing daily. Selling the blood and the bathwater and the tapes and the literature is just a lucrative sideline—and they make most of their money through the donations of their renunciants. And they do their best to attract the wealthiest of the disaffected. They need the poor students for their scientific expertise and the grunt work, and they need the rich ones to turn over their wealth. It’s been very effective so far—the True Realization Fellowship has grown from a handful of followers ten years ago into one of the most powerful of the new religions, as they like to call themselves.”
“A religion that condones murder?”
“Most of them do, as long as they believe their cause is just. And they all believe that.” Takashi started to open the car door, and she put her hand on his arm to stop him. It was a strange sensation—he’d touched her any number of times as he’d snatched her out of danger, but she couldn’t remember ever reaching out to him.
His arm was hard and strong beneath his jacket, and he could pull away easily, but he stopped, looking at her in the darkened car.
“Please,” she said in a low voice. “It’s not my mother I’m worried about.”
“Your little sister is gone.”
Relief flooded Summer for a moment, then suspicion followed. “How did you know about my sister?”
“I know everything about you. Your sister is visiting friends in the country, and she won’t be coming back anytime soon. At least, not until this is settled. We’ve made sure she can’t be found easily, and she has no idea what’s going on. You don’t need to worry about her.”
Summer stared at him. “‘We made sure’?” she echoed. “Who the hell are you?”
He didn’t answer, and she no longer expected him to. The only thing she knew for sure was that he was no Japanese bureaucrat.
And he was about to break into her stepfather’s mansion, an act that would only bring unwanted attention to her baby sister. Protecting Jilly was the one thing even more important than Summer’s promise to Hana, and she wasn’t going to screw that up.
“It’s at Micah’s house,” she blurted out.
Taka didn’t seem particularly gratified by her sudden surge of honesty. “And why would it be there?”
“Because Micah was the one who made the…copy.” Her hesitation was so slight he couldn’t have noticed. The last thing he needed to know was that there was more than one forgery floating around.
“All right,” he said, starting the car once more.
“We can’t go there. Don’t you think the police will be all over the place because of Micah’s death? They’re not going to let us waltz in and search for it. And his friends will probably be there as well—” Her voice broke. Not in tears, never in tears. But simply raw pain.
“His body hasn’t been identified yet. When it is, someone will see to it that the police don’t make it public until I give the word. No one will bother us.” He pulled out into the street, heading west, toward Micah’s run-down Spanish-style villa, with unerring certainty.
It took Summer a moment to gather her wits. “What do you mean, he hasn’t been identified yet? You told me…”
“My people know. A lesson for you, Dr. Hawthorne. My people know everything.”
“And
your people have the power to control the LAPD?”
His half smile was the epitome of cynicism. “A lot of people do. How could you have lived twenty-eight years and still be so innocent?”
She was past being surprised that he knew her age—he was heading directly for Micah’s house. What else did he know?