“Akiko, come here. I found something with Reina.”
I hurried to the couch where she sat cross-legged, a pile of papers in her lap.
“Read from here on.” She pointed to a spot on the page.
I started reading. Kaiyo wrote that his chore for the day was cleaning the kitchen. While scrubbing, he noticed a sealed produce box full of mushrooms. He wondered why it was sitting on the counter instead of in the walk-in with the rest of the produce. Scrawled across the side in black marker were the words 5th, Golden Gai – Toro.
Figuring it had been delivered by mistake, Kaiyo decided to put it away. The box was too heavy for mushrooms. When he opened it, there weren’t any inside—just hundreds of small plastic packets, each holding a brooch.
The way Kaiyo described the design stopped me cold. “It’s a chef’s knife, the blade streaked with blood. The blood is made from rubies, the rest of the knife glittering with diamonds.” He told Keiko they had to be worth a fortune.
He went on to write that Reina had suddenly appeared with her driver. She snapped at him the moment she saw him with the box. He said he tried to apologize, explaining he thought it was mushrooms and was only trying to put it away.
Reina changed her tone after the driver took the box from him. She thanked him for being attentive but said it wasn’t necessary. Then she told him not to mention what he’d seen to anyone.
My stomach flipped. Heat rushed through my chest. That box, those brooches—it couldn’t be. I sprinted to my bedroom, yanked my jeans off the floor, and dug into the pocket. My fingers closed around the cold metal.
When I returned to the living room, I held it out to Miki, my hand trembling. “This isn’t random,” I said, my voice catching. I stared at the charred, fire-warped metal with blackened rubies, cracked diamonds. “This is the brooch Kaiyo was talking about. Reina wore it during the first challenge. I found it at the compound when Jiro and I visited. The fire damaged it, but it’s the same one.”
“I knew something was off when I read about a box of expensive jewelry sitting in the kitchen,” Miki said.
“Well, if this address is right… it’s for someone named Toro in the Golden Gai. That’s in Tokyo.”
Miki frowned. “Did the Sakamotos have a restaurant in Tokyo?”
“Not that I know of.” I stared at the brooch in my hand. “But if Kaiyo said there were hundreds of these…”
Miki’s eyes widened. “That’s not just pocket change. That’s maybe tens of millions of yen. Just sitting in a box in the kitchen. Maybe the Sakamotos have a second home there.” She hesitated, her voice dropping. “Call me crazy, but if Reina did survive the fire, wouldn’t that be the perfect place to lie low?”
A cold shiver cut through me. “Yes, it would. Do you believe Reina is alive now?”
Miki shrugged. “I don’t know what to think. I took the news reports about their deaths as fact. But the Sakamotos were filthy rich. Why wouldn’t they have more than one place? At this point, I’ll believe anything. Even that Reina’s alive. Too much has happened.”
She threw her arms around me, hugging hard. “I’m sorry for doubting you. Nothing else makes sense unless she’s still out there.” Miki pulled back. “We should go to the police. If Reina’s alive, burning down your restaurant won’t be the end of it?—”
A knock cut her off.
I opened the door to find Keiko standing there, arms crossed, a smug smile twisting her face. Behind her loomed a large man in a suit, wearing a black eye patch. When he shifted, the light caught the knife in his hand.
“Sorry I bolted earlier,” Keiko said. “Couldn’t risk you running to the cops. I wanted to do this the easy way, but you two made that impossible. Now”—she tipped her head toward the man behind her—“we’re doing it his way.”
Part II
Leftovers
18
Within a few hours, Miki and I were on the Shinkansen bullet train to Tokyo. Keiko sat across the aisle, silent as ever. The man in the suit, the one-eyed giant with the knife, occupied the end of the row, his broad shoulders blocking the window. He hadn’t spoken once, just stared ahead like his job was to be nothing more than a wall.
The steady rhythm of the train must have lulled me to sleep.
“Akiko,” Miki whispered, shaking my arm. “Are you okay? I think you were having a dream.”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
But was I? I hadn’t dreamed about my father in almost a year, but there I was again, a little girl back on the boardwalk, chasing after him, calling his name. He’d turned into an alleyway, and I’d followed. At the far end, a door was just closing. I sprinted toward it, my tiny fists slamming against the wood until they stung.
“Papa, please.” My voice had cracked. “Let me in.”
