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The urn had been so important to her, a piece of her childhood and Hana-san, and now it seemed pointless. If Summer had just handed it over to her clueless mother, none of this would ever have happened. Micah would be alive, and Summer would be safely home in her own bed, feeling nothing more than the casual resentment she felt when her mother used her. She’d promised Hana she’d keep the urn safe, to never part with it until she herself asked for it back. But then, Hana hadn’t expected to die. And she wouldn’t have wanted anyone to be hurt.
Summer had held on to it, and her world had turned upside down, and she was adrift, with no anchor but the dangerous man beside her.
Except adrift was too casual a word for hurtling into the night at ninety miles an hour. “You’re going to get a ticket if you get stopped again.” Her voice was quiet in the darkened car.
“I thought you were asleep.”
“No.”
He glanced at her, his dark eyes flitting over her face. “I have diplomatic immunity.”
“You’re a diplomat?”
“No.”
“Does Japan have some kind of secret service? Or are you even Japanese, Mr. Ortiz?”
“Half-gaijin,” he said, and she thought she heard a faint note of contempt in his voice. “And most countries have some kind of covert operatives. However, I’m not one of them.”
“Then what are you?”
“Your best chance at this point. That’s all you need to know.”
“My best chance at what?”
“Staying alive.”
She remembered the feel of his hands stroking her throat, the touch of his mouth against hers, the weight of his body, pressing down, and she wasn’t sure if she believed him.
“Where are we going?” She must have asked him this question a dozen times since she’d known Takashi O’Brien, and didn’t necessarily expect an answer to this one, either. But he surprised her.
“Belmont Creek.”
“Never heard of it.”
“It’s a tiny town in central California. We’ll be safe there.”
“You just plucked it out of the air?”
“It’s a safe house.”
“A safe house for whom? Are you t
he police?”
“Hardly.”
She sank back in the seat, closing her eyes. He wasn’t going to answer her questions, and she was going to stop asking. At least for now.
Summer awoke with a start, squinting at the digital clock on the dashboard. Three-thirteen. He’d pulled into the driveway of a house, and even in the darkness she could see the outlines of a prototypical suburban dwelling, where one had two point three children and fought with the neighbors about the state of the lawn. There were no neighbors close by—she could see identical houses farther down the road, lit by streetlamps, but this one was at the end of a cul-de-sac, far enough away to avoid prying eyes. It was surrounded by more houses in various stages of construction, all identical, huge and far too close together, but for now they would be alone, unobserved. And she wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing.
She watched as Taka pointed his cell phone at the garage door, and it lifted silently. He drove inside and the door slid down behind them. The overhead light had come on automatically, and it looked like any residential garage, with a riding mower, storage boxes, garden implements. Even a chest freezer. Was he going to dump her in there?
“Are you sure this is the right place?”
“The garage door opened, didn’t it?” he responded, climbing out of the car and going around the back. She thought he’d stop and get the bowl, but instead he came to her side of the car and opened the door. “Can you walk?”
Stupid question. Even if her knees were weak she wasn’t about to let him see, and she braced herself on the car door as she got out, shooting him a rebellious look. He took a step back, letting her wobble on her own. He aimed the phone at the door to the house, and it clicked open, plunging the garage into darkness as the lights went on inside.
