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I lowered my phone to my side, my fingers clutching it tightly. “All right. Let’s see who’s come out to play.”
* * *
Rafael found a parking space a few streets over from the park, which looked huge on my phone’s map. The map did show the tea house the text had mentioned, with a pond and a couple of bridges nearby, so at least we had some idea where we were going.
The early February breeze had a nip to it but nothing outright biting. Niko had told us that it did snow in Tokyo, but only rarely. We headed into the park, where many of the trees had kept their greenery, although skeletal leafless branches showed in patches here and there.
Only a few visitors strolled beneath the trees. I hadn’t visited this park before, and the serenity of it seeped into my skin despite my jangling nerves. I’d have liked to see it in the full bloom of springtime.
As we came up on the tea house, regularly consulting our phone maps, we slowed. Most of the bystanders were obviously Japanese locals, who paid us no attention. I saw two pairs I easily identified as tourists from the way they were holding up their phones and tapping away at the camera buttons. No one appeared to be looking for us yet.
Rafael peered at the map and motioned to the path ahead of us. “It looks like the trees thin up ahead and there’s a pretty large clearing past the tea house, near the pond. If they’re waiting there, we’ll be able to get a good look at them without them seeing us yet. Keep your eyes peeled.”
As we followed him off the path through one last dense stretch of trees, his hand rested on his hip. He had a pistol concealed there, under his leather jacket.
Just ahead of us, the trees gave way to a span of clear lawn. We slunk through the shadows to the edge of where we could stay concealed and peered out over the garden.
It was a pretty spectacular view. Maybe a hundred feet away lay a tranquil pond, rippling faintly with the breeze. An immense skyscraper and several other high rises showed over the tops of the trees that ringed the far side of the water, reminding us that this apparent wilderness lay in the middle of a vast modern city.
Then three figures ambled into view on the grass between our vantage point and the pond-side path.
I knew at once that they were the ones who’d sent that message. None of them were Japanese, but they didn’t have the attitude of tourists either. They stuck close together, their eyes scanning the scenery as if they were as nervous of us as we were of them.
As I squinted at them, recognition crept over me. The big Latino guy with the lightning bolt shaved into his buzzcut—I’d seen him around the Deadly Rose mansion back in Austin. The woman too—her straggly bleached-blond waves and sharply arched eyebrows would have made her easy to pick out of a crowd even if female underlings hadn’t been relatively rare.
The third guy, tall and scrawny with a thick scar that cut across his cheek just below his right eye, I’d never seen before. But if he was in with the other two, he’d definitely worked for my mom.
I glanced at Rafael, who was still contemplating them. “They were all part of the Austin outfit,” he confirmed in a low voice. “In the middle of the ranks, not much authority but not newbies either. I never had much to do with any of them, though.”
“They’rehere, like they said they’d be,” Quentin pointed out. “It doesn’t look like they brought any backup. We’ve already got them outnumbered.”
I wet my lips. I could probably take at least one of them on my own, and Rafael definitely could. And we hadn’t seen any sign of an ambush as we’d snuck over here.
If anything, the trio had put themselves in a weaker position, out there in the open with no shelter nearby. We could have shot them all down in a matter of seconds if we’d wanted to.
“You really want to do this?” Jasper asked me.
I shrugged. “We came all this way. They might have useful information.”
Rafael sighed. “All right. But call them over here. I don’t wantusout in the open for this conversation either.”
Bracing myself in case I needed to run or hit the ground, I stepped from between the trees at the edge of the lawn. “Hey! Waiting for me?”
The trio jerked around, the woman’s face brightening in relief and the two men both looking vaguely grouchy but also awkward about it. I wheeled my arm, motioning for them to join us in the shelter of the trees.
As they stalked over, a tight smile curled the woman’s lips. “You came. I’m glad to see I wasn’t wrong that you’ve got plenty of guts.”
Rafael flanked me, his gun in his hand now. “She’s got more than that. You’d better start explaining what you’re up tonow, or we’re out of here.”
“Yeah,” Quentin added. “You said you’ve got something to offer Lou. What is it?”
The big guy with the buzzcut gave Rafael a thoughtful look as if evaluating who would win in a fight—and seemed to deflate a bit when he must have decided it wouldn’t be him.
His skinnier companion cleared his throat, spat on the ground, and gave us a crooked smile of his own. “Honestly, it’s actually more about what we hope you can do for us.”
“But we can help you too,” the woman insisted.
I folded my arms over my chest. “What are you talking about? Let’s get to the actual explanation faster, please.”
