Steers waited a moment. “And my mother not being among the dead makes it likely that our initial thought was correct.”
“She’s with Lord.”
“I clearly fell out of favor when I sold my business. But there might be other things going on as well.”
“So why did you sell then, since you had to be aware that could be one of the likely consequences?”
“Life is not the most important thing there is to a person, Walter.”
“I don’t think most people would agree with you.”
“I actually only had one choice, regardless of the consequences.”
“But you could have disappeared. Youchosenot to do that.”
“You do not disappear from these people,” she said with a touch of weariness.
“I disappeared, and you couldn’t find me.”
“I am not you. And how exactly would I change this?” She rolled up one sleeve, revealing her damaged skin. “By lifting weights, or having tattoos inked overthis?”
He looked away. Clearly this was getting them nowhere. He suddenly decided to go there. “I found the box at your building in Hong Kong. With Maggie’s things inside.”
He paused and studied her reaction. There was really none, he concluded. She just stared over his shoulder, her features impassive.
“Why would you keep those things? As, what, souvenirs?”
“Even I am not that. . .sociopathic, Walter.”
“Then why?”
She said, “I choose to live in the present and to take on the future, what little I might have left. You can stay in the past, if you wish, but I would not recommend it.”
Steers rose and walked out.
Later, Nash went to his room and started to unpack his things. That was when he noticed that the pistol he had purchased was missing, along with its box of ammo.
They did Uber Eats for dinner that night, with Nash using his credit card. They ate in the small dining area. Nash had his pistol in a belt clip and noticed that there was a small bulge under the shirt that Steers wore.
That’s where the gun went.
He looked up to find her staring at him. By the woman’s features, it was clear that she had deduced what he was thinking.
“Webothmust be prepared for what might happen,” she said.
All the warnings about Steers from Shock and Agent Morris came flooding back to him. And the woman sitting across from him once more seemed like the intimidating person whom Nash had met for the first time in Hong Kong. Crafty, cool, and deadly. And it occurred to Nash with startling clarity that it might well come down to him against her.
“I agree,” he said. “Forwhatevermight happen.”
CHAPTER
73
NASH, WEARING A BALL CAPand sunglasses, had picked up a week’s worth of groceries from a store that Steers had told him about. She also wanted some specialty items from there.
Steers made dinner for them that night with some of the ingredients he’d purchased for her. She told him the dishes were from recipes that Hiroko had taught her.
“She was quite proficient in the kitchen. When I was a little girl I always loved to smell her cooking something.”
