Ice Blue (Ice 3)

“You mean you’re just going to let me go?” she said, disbelief warring with hope.

“It looks like it, doesn’t it?”

“And you’re not going to tell me who you are, or why you were following me? Or how you knew where I lived?”

He shook his head, saying nothing.

“I guess I should count my blessings then?” she asked, reaching for her seat belt. This time he didn’t stop her, didn’t move as she opened the door and slid out. Her legs were a little wobbly, but she managed to disguise it by clinging to the door for a moment. She still didn’t recognize what kind of car it was—something low and sleek and fast, but she wasn’t enough of a real Californian to care about cars. She was going to have to come up with something to tell the police, but right then her brain wasn’t working on all cylinders.

Her mother hadn’t taught her anything worth knowing in twenty-eight years, but Hana had instilled good manners no matter what the circumstances. Clinging to the door, Summer leaned over, peering into the darkened car. “Er…thank you for saving my life,” she said lamely.

There was just the faint ghost of a smile on his rich, beautiful mouth. “It was nothing,” he said, and the depressing truth of it was, he meant it. Her life was nothing to him. Not that it should matter, she reminded herself. She preferred being invisible.

She could feel his eyes watching her as she walked up the narrow sidewalk to her front door. She was overcome by the same sense of intrusion, invasion, protection. It was a crazy combination of all three, though she wasn’t quite sure where the protective aspect came from. Maybe simply because he’d saved her before scaring her.

She closed the front door behind her, triple locking it, and then leaned against it to catch her breath. She heard the sound of his car drive away, out of her life. The last ounce of tension finally drained from her body, her knees gave out and she sank down on the floor, leaning against the doorjamb and putting her head against her knees as she shook.

She had no idea how long she sat there, curled up in a kind of mindless panic, but at least she wasn’t crying. She never cried—not since she’d been told of her Hana’s death in a hit-and-run accident. Summer had been fifteen. That made a solid thirteen years without shedding a tear, and she intended to keep it that way.

And she’d cowered enough. She grabbed hold of the doorknob and pulled herself to her feet, steeling herself to ignore the faint tremor in her legs. She peered out the window, but there was no sign of the sleek, low-slung sports car and her nameless rescuer. He was gone. If only she could rid herself of the almost physical feel of his eyes on her, still watching her.

She switched on a light and winced in the blinding brightness. She’d be happier in shadows right now, but shadows could h

ide scary things, and she had no intention of being scared anymore. She’d fought that battle once before, and she wasn’t going to let herself be vulnerable again.

Her feet hurt, and she realized belatedly that sometime during the night she’d lost her shoes. They were expensive, but uncomfortable, and good riddance. She was going to strip off her clothes and throw them out, too, get rid of anything that reminded her of this hideous night. But first she was going to eat something, anything, have a glass of wine and try to rid herself of the lingering touch of his eyes, watching her.

The Ben & Jerry’s had ice crystals, the raspberry yogurt was past its due date, the cheese had mold. She couldn’t find the wine opener, and the only beer she had in the fridge was Sapporo—no thank you. She didn’t want to think about anything Japanese and she walked through her living room with eyes averted, pushing the shoji screen aside. There was nothing she wanted more than to strip off her clothes and climb into the hot tub, but Hana-san had trained her well. Summer’s feet were grass-stained and bloody, and she wanted to get the feel of the night off her before she settled into the blessed warmth of the water. She showered quickly, then climbed into the big cedar tub just outside her bedroom.

It was a blessing. She closed her eyes and let the warm, healing water flow around her. For a few minutes she didn’t have to think, didn’t have to worry. For a few blessed moments of peace she could just be.

And try to rid herself of the irrational feeling that somewhere out there he was still watching her.

For a smart woman, Summer Hawthorne was annoyingly brainless, Taka thought as he skirted the back of her bungalow. He’d already checked it out several days ago and knew just how pathetic her security was. Her house had been broken into recently, and yet she’d taken no measures to fortify the place. All three locks on the back door were easy to pick, the chain would break with one good shove and she had no outdoor security, no sensors or alarms. He could slip behind the house, disappear into the overgrown shrubbery and no one would even notice.

Her curtains were pathetic, as well. The faux-Asian synthetic rice paper shades were practically useless. She’d left the lights on in her living room and kitchen when she’d disappeared into the bathroom, and she was soaking wet and naked when she reemerged and climbed into the wooden tub, closing her eyes in obvious bliss.

So he could safely assume that she hadn’t been lying—the Hayashi Urn was nowhere near her. He’d done a fairly thorough search the last time he’d been there, though far more discreetly than the Shirosama’s goons, and he doubted he’d have missed it, though at that point he hadn’t been specifically looking for it. He’d thought it was already at the museum.

He’d been looking for any kind of clue that would lead him to the shrine. If they found it before the Shirosama managed to discover it, the Committee could stop the cult leader’s plans cold. The Shirosama needed the sacred location for his crackpot rituals, and without it he and his followers would be too superstitious to move ahead with their plans. It was only a few days till the Lunar New Year, the date the Shirosama had decreed was the most auspicious for his mysterious ritual, and at least for this year his time was running out. If they could just stall long enough, keep Summer Hawthorne and the Hayashi Urn away from him for the next few days, they’d have an entire year to figure out how to stop him.

And then there would be no need to silence her before she spoke the truth she didn’t know she had.

The urn in the museum was an excellent forgery—Taka had enough of a gift at ceramics to recognize the hand of a master. It had been an error on his part not to recognize that the ice blue glaze had been a little too uniform, but then, he’d been concentrating on other things.

Too bad he couldn’t just let it go at this point. The Shirosama would steal the fake from the museum, never knowing the difference, but he still needed Summer Hawthorne. In truth, she might be the more valuable part of the equation, and Taka knew what his orders were. If necessary, he was to destroy a priceless piece of Japanese art, culture and history, and execute the woman who held the key to where it belonged. And he wasn’t supposed to think twice about it.

It was the “if necessary” part that was the problem. The Committee, and the ruthlessly practical Madame Lambert, trusted him to make that judgment call. But he wasn’t quite sure he could trust himself at this point.

Because he didn’t want to kill Summer Hawthorne.

If she was found floating in her hot tub, the Shirosama would know there was nothing he could do, and he’d be stopped cold.

It was simple. Practical. Necessary. Except that this scenario meant the Hayashi Urn would stay lost.

The bowl would stay in one piece, however. And sooner or later, maybe decades from now, maybe after they were all long dead, it would reappear. That knowledge should be enough to satisfy the committee.

Taka took less than thirty seconds to pick the locks. He moved through the house in complete silence—he could come up on her, push her under the water, and she’d never have a chance.