Spotless (38 page)

Behind me, March had managed to stand up, and he muttered a couple of words in Afrikaans between his teeth that I bet were anything but polite. Dries was still aiming the gun at me and March when a faint murmur echoed in the distance. Dries started backing away, and March tensed.

So that’s what Dries had been waiting for on that roof. Above our heads a big gray helicopter was approaching, preparing to land on top of the building. I had never seen a helicopter up close and was surprised by how much wind that rotor could create. Combined with the rain still pouring, it felt like we were standing in the middle of a hurricane.

I felt March move behind me and turned my back to Dries to face him instead. “It’ll be okay. I need you to trust me. Let him go,” I whispered, looking into his angry eyes. I hoped I was getting through to him, since March didn’t give up easily; if my hunch was correct, what we needed the most at the moment was for Dries to take off with his damn stone. As the helicopter slowly landed a few meters behind Dries, I wrapped my arms cautiously around March’s drenched torso in an effort to hold him back. I couldn’t imagine a worse ending to our adventure than for him to be shot by his mentor.

I looked at said mentor, who was backing toward the helicopter with the Cullinan, gun still aimed at us. Through the aircraft’s tinted windows I could make out more men, probably armed as well, and I prayed that my fricking asshole of a father felt safe and confident enough to make his escape without shooting us. My fingers fisted the
wet material of March’s shirt, his warmth easing my fears. “Let him go. Please, please don’t move, March,” I begged.

I felt one of his arms drape over my shoulders and pull me close. I could feel how mad, how frustrated he was. With each strong beat of March’s heart, I could tell how much he wanted to lunge at Dries and kill him or die trying.

Dries reached the helicopter, and its side door opened to reveal several men clad in black military attire and carrying rifles. I shifted even closer to March. Dries climbed in while one of his men aimed at us. Before the door slid shut, Dries’s gaze met mine, and I caught that same flicker of sadness I had seen there before.

I figured he wasn’t going to kill us.

Call it intuition, or maybe a leap of faith, but I had the feeling that seeing me face-to-face had affected an itsy bitsy chunk of his rotten soul. Throwing me into Creepy-hat’s claws when I had been nothing but a memory? He could do that. Kill the man he had trained himself, for the sake of fulfilling a greater goal? He could do that too. But killing his own child standing in front of him? Now, that might be where a guy like him drew the line. Despite all that had happened, even if he had never been there for me, Dries
was
my father.

He wouldn’t shoot me, and wouldn’t order someone else to do it either.

With this certainty, I pressed myself closer to March, shielding his body with my own. I turned my head to look at the helicopter as it slowly took off, watching Dries through the dark glass. I felt March’s arms squeeze me a little harder in response, his presence soothing me amid the chaos of the rain, the wind, and the roar of the aircraft’s rotor.

The helicopter flew away into the darkening sky until all that was left of it was a distant buzz.

THIRTY-TWO

The Kimchi

“Angelihannah tore Rick’s boxer shorts with desperate moans, eager to feel all of him. He was the condiment without which her life had no taste, no meaning.”

—Madelline Chandelier,
Captive Enchantress

I looked at March, at the bruises, the blood on his shirt, the water running in rivulets all over his body, washing away more blood from a wound on his brow. Part of me wanted to yell that he would have caught Dries if he had been less of a testosterone-stuffed idiot and handled the situation in a calm and responsible manner, instead of trying to kill his father figure in a fistfight. But
I
had been the one to distract him, nearly getting him killed in the process.

We had both acted like idiots, and I realized it didn’t matter. In that moment, only one thing mattered.

“I’m glad you’re alive,” I said, lacing my fingers with his.

“Thank you,” he murmured, avoiding my eyes. Then he seemed to remember something, and life returned to those weary sapphires, along
with an accusing gleam. “I told you not to come up. You could have gotten yourself killed.”

I stiffened. “Seriously? I saved
your
ass, and here I am, trying to cheer you up, about to tell you that you didn’t need to prove anything to Dries, that you’re in a league of your own, and you’re going all nitpicky-rule-bookey on me?”

His dimples creased, an impish smile replacing his stern expression. “In a league of my own?”

I looked away to conceal my embarrassment at having unconsciously returned the sweet compliment he had given me in Paris. “Slip of the tongue.”

His right hand rose to cup my cheek, wiping the dirt there. “I’ll find him, and I’ll get that diamond back. Not for myself or the Board, but for
you
.”

I felt an uncontrollable grin spread on my lips and lift my cheeks up. “Maybe you won’t have to—but I need to call Masaharu!”

March gave me a surprised look but walked to his jacket, retrieved his smartphone from his inner pocket, and handed me the device.

The former love of my life picked up after a few rings, and when he heard my voice, he sounded relieved. Skipping small talk, I jumped to the point. “Masaharu-kun, is our old house in Sumiyoshi still there?”

He answered with an uncertain voice. “Yes, but it’s been turned into a co-rental for Korean students.”

“Did they modify the building?”

“No, you know how Watanabe-san is. He doesn’t spend much on his properties.”

“Okay! Thank you so much, for everything. I’ve always loved you!” After I had hung up before leaving Masaharu a chance to confirm that we weren’t meant to be, I raised a victorious fist to the sky.

Upon witnessing my joy, March turned all business. “Island . . . what’s going on?”

“Okay, the good news first. I think the Cullinan Dries took off with was a decoy too. I noticed the way it reflected the light when the clouds dissipated: a real diamond wouldn’t allow that kind of refraction,” I explained.

March’s brow furrowed. “We did a scratch test, back at the bank.”

“It could be moissanite, synthetic corundum, or even cubic zirconia. All these could beat your ceramic knife on the Mohs scale of hardness, and you didn’t press the blade very hard.” I shrugged.

“So there’s a third stone? The real one?”

“I think so. You said it yourself. It’s not really a shell game if there are only two shells,” I reminded him.

“Where do you think it is?”

I hopped on my feet, electrified. “At first, I really thought my mom had meant to leave me that book as a souvenir, but then I connected the dots.”

“And?”

“Have you ever heard of nightingale flooring?”

March scratched his head. “It’s an ancient Japanese defensive device, a wooden flooring that produces a specific whistling sound when you walk on it.”

“Exactly. In our house in Sumiyoshi, there was an area in my bedroom where the floorboard had moved a little, and it would squeak whenever I walked on it. My mom said that it was like having nightingale flooring.”

“You think the diamond might be there?”

“I can’t guarantee anything, but one thing is certain: she went through the trouble of hiding two decoys, and it fits the way she did things. My mom didn’t like simple.”

He flashed me a dimpled grin as he picked up his jacket. “Neither do you. Let’s check this.”

When we left the building, two police cars were already in front of the main entrance, and firemen could be heard coming in the distance, thanks to Antonio’s little stunt with the bazooka. We had to escape through a small window on the ground-floor ladies’ room—where a young woman drying her hands looked at March as if he were a rapist and scurried away in a panic.

We eventually made it out into a narrow back street, and from the looks of it, we weren’t the only ones to have risked sexual harassment charges in the restrooms. Down the street, Antonio had been patiently waiting for March, our brown SUV parked just far enough away to avoid raising any suspicion. When he saw us, he dangled the car keys with a smug grin.

“Your stuff is packed inside. Now that I’m done, Okinawa’s bikini babes are about to get a piece of . . .
Antonio
.”

He slicked his wavy black hair back, struck his little gun pose again, and I couldn’t help but applaud: Antonio was the epitome of badass.

March, however, seemed a little surprised by his colleague’s overzealous car valeting, and perhaps Antonio noticed it, because he deemed it necessary to justify himself. “When I do things, I do them well. Even for a
psicópato
like you.”

I snickered. “He called you a psychopath.”

March let out a long-suffering sigh. “I know what it means, Island, thank you.”

A deep laugh rose from Antonio’s throat as he threw the SUV’s keys to March. “My debt is paid. Next time you go after me, I kill you and feed your balls to my dogs,
Sudafricano
.”

March nodded with a faint smile and walked to the back of the car, opening the trunk to put away his magic suitcase that we had retrieved from the ruins of Dries’s living room. He was about to close the trunk, but seemed to hesitate. I watched as he pressed his thumb against one of the case’s sides for a couple of seconds, and a faint click resounded. Fingerprint lock. Pretty cool. He picked up a tiny syringe from a perfectly
organized first-aid kit, opened his dirty shirt, and casually stabbed his bruised stomach with the needle. Catching the look of horror on my face, he gave me a reassuring smile. “Light painkiller.”

I nodded and averted my eyes, feeling queasy. March cast Antonio a questioning glance, holding out the small plastic box where the syringe had been for him to see. It dawned on me that, while Antonio didn’t seem to be wounded, his suit was a little torn and crumpled, and there was a possibility that he had been hurt during their vigorous cleaning of Dries’s lair.

Antonio shook his head. “I have my own painkillers.” He then pulled out an elegant golden case from his pocket and opened it to reveal a row of red cigarettes. He took one and lit it up under March’s disapproving gaze.

“A very unhealthy habit,” March commented.

Antonio didn’t reply. He just glared at his “colleague” as the first curls of smoke escaped his lips before evaporating in the air. I guess it had to do with the fact that he had visited March’s trunk and therefore knew there are worse things for your health than weed. I watched him take a few steps to lean against the SUV, surrounded by his cigarette’s pungent fumes. He pulled it away from his lips and held it out for me with a smile.

My eyes darted to March. His eyebrows drew together. Nope. No pot for you, Island. I shook my head. “Thank you, I’m good.”

Antonio muttered something under his breath about March’s latent homosexuality and urgent need to loosen up. Behind me, I heard an aggravated huff, and I think March was about to give him a taste of the volcanic temper I had witnessed back on the roof, but he was interrupted by the faint tint of a bell, coming from Antonio’s front pocket.

Several bells tinted again, and the culprit pulled out a black smartphone, before checking it with a prideful smile. I couldn’t resist the temptation to glimpse at the screen and tilted my head to better see it. Antonio wrapped an arm around my shoulder, pulling me toward him, and showed me the source of his contentment.