What should she do now? If she were discovered and sent to prison, Kai would have supreme authority over the most important person in the world to her. She had to avoid that at all costs. Hana's heart galloped, but she kept her expression calm even when the man began running his free hand over her, as if to frisk her. But he paused where he shouldn't; she was used to that, but it still pissed her off. She was close enough that if she'd leaned forward she could have nuzzled the light spattering of blondish-brown chest hair that matched the thick, unruly locks shining even in the dim study light. The hairs on the back of her neck and her arms stood up.
She'd never been much attracted to blonds, but she'd never been in such close quarters with a half-naked one before. Instinct told her to wait, to let him think he had the upper handâquite literally, because this time his hand stroked up her side dangerously near her breast. When she stayed silent, he pulled her even closer, until she could feel every sinewy inch of his fit body. Given the way he touched her, she'd already picked up on the fact that the reluctant, instant attraction she felt was mutual. She stayed docile, silent, waiting.
She expected it, and when he finally released her hair to reach around her to shackle her wrists, she used his slack grip against him. Supple as an eel, she slithered sideways, using her hips and all her body weight, Tae Kwon Doâlike, against him, to pull him slightly off balance. He was tall and solid, but when she kicked him in the shin as she moved, his loose grip broke and she twisted free.
He stumbled, recovering quickly, but it was enough to allow her to reach the hallway. This time he tackled her, catching her about the hips to force her to her knees. The marble smacked into her patellas, but she had no time for pain. As she fell, she caught her weight on her hands and bowed her back, using the leverage it gave her to straighten, smarting knees spread for stability, and smack her head backward. She had a very good idea that he was bent over her, that arrogant cleft chin offering a nice bull's-eye. Sure enough, she felt the point of his chin and then his own gratifying grunt as she caught him obviously off guard. She scrambled to her feet.
When he recovered enough to grab again, he reached for air. She'd gained the front door. However, she was slowed as she had to unlatch two very solid locks. She was reaching for the knob when he whacked her hand away and trapped her, both hands flat against the door framing her head.
A smile lifted those arrogant lips, allowing her to see the rim of his perfect white teeth. “What now?”
She was pretty sure now he wouldn't call the police since he'd searched her and visually scoped out the study, so he knew she hadn't stolen anything. But she had a feeling his father would make a more critical audience, so she had to finagle her way out of here and she had to do it quietly.
“I didn't take anything. Let me go,” she finally said.
“Oh, so you can talk. Why did you break into my house?”
“Your house? Your father would probably have something to say about thatâZachary.” His blue eyes, the exact deep turquoise color of the Aegean Sea she'd sailed once with Kai, narrowed. “Who the hell are you?”
“No one.” She fingered behind her with her hand again, feeling for the knob.
“We'll let the police decide that.” Snatching her hand away from the knob, he caught her wrist to pull her back toward the study.
So much for her reading of his character.
She acted on instinct. His towel shower wrap had lost another snap in their struggle. If she hadn't been so desperate to get away she would have enjoyed the sight of so much unfettered male power. His years in the Army Rangers had sculpted him into pinup status, except there was nothing airbrushed or fake about his six-pack abs and pure symmetry, broad shoulders angling down into his lean waist. He was primal, powerful, and a fitting adversary; the tingling at her nape and other inconvenient places might have intrigued her at a less critical moment.
She hadn't felt this inconvenient sensation in a long time. Since Kai, really, but then she'd been a foolish child. No longer . . . As it was, she pretended to let herself be pulled behind him back toward the gaping study door. But they'd only moved a few steps when she caught her fingers in the waist of his sagging wrap and jerked. The wrap fell to the floor.
He stopped cold, making an indistinct sound that sounded like a garbled “fuck me.” His buttocks were as solid, though nicely round, and not quite as muscular, as the rest of him. He looked back over his shoulder, and she saw his high cheekbones were red. She knew his dilemma. If he turned she'd see all of him in full-frontal glory. She watched him weigh modesty and duty.
For the first time that night, she smiled.
While he debated, she tugged her wrist, and finally was free. She couldn't help it; she slapped his buttocks with her gloved hand on her way to the door, delighted with the meaty echo against all the fancy marble and woodwork.
Her own smile showed perfect white teeth as she flung open the door. “Next time, I'll bring a twenty!” The alarm sounded as she spoke, but she saw the shocked look in the blue eye she could see, and she realized few women ever challenged a man so bounteously gifted with money, power, and sex appeal. She was still smiling when she made it halfway over the wall by the time he reached the porch, his hips sheathed in the towel again.
On top of the wall, she looked back at him. He'd never reach her now and they both knew it. Somehow, they also both knew they'd meet again. He was lit by the motion-activated porch light and she was shocked to see a half smile about his lips. He blew her a kiss that promised retribution and a continuation of the strange competition that had begun this night.
Hoping he could see her in the darkness, she blew a kiss right back. She saw him wave something black like a battle flag.
Then she'd dropped to the ground and was sprinting toward the nondescript car she'd parked several streets away. As she sedately drove off, she looked down the street at the Travis mansion. She heard the alarm cease, saw more lights come on, and knew he must be explaining to his parents what had happened. She'd thankfully reached the freeway entrance ramp by the time she heard distant sirens.
Back to square one . . . her gloved hands tightened on the wheel as she pictured going to Kai with empty hands. Only then did she realize her hood was gone. Zachary had ripped it off and she'd not had time to retrieve it. A chill ran up her spine: hair samples. She should have worn a stocking cap over her hair, dammit . . . they were almost certain to have at least one of her hairs to test for DNA.
And she was on file because of her priors.
* * *
An hour later, across town overlooking the Loop 360 bridge in the Buckhorn Estates, several athletic black shapes, garbed like Hana, slipped inside a large mansion. They'd deactivated the alarm with the tools in the small backpack one of them had strapped to his back. One held an iPad and the other two looked over his shoulder at the display, which showed the plan of the mansion. Two of them slipped up the long, curving staircase, pulling the swords they carried on their backs, while the third one stayed downstairs, scanning every window and door he could see from the central corridor. Standing guard. Just in case.
As the other two disappeared above, he looked at the black Hublot watch on his wrist, activating the timer.
“Ichi seichi,”
he said under his breath, Japanese for “one minute.” A few seconds later, a woman's scream was choked off. A man's guttural grunt came next, full of both pain and outrage, followed by a few sounds of fists landing. A second choked scream, male this time. Then silence.
The waiting man checked his watch again, snapping off the timer at exactly 58 seconds when the swordsmen came back down the stairs, their soft shoes eerily silent, as if they were wraiths . . . or demons. One sword still gleamed sticky red and the swordsman, with an adroit movement of his wrist, flicked off the blood, leaving a spatter stain on the wall.
The waiting man didn't chastise him; instead he looked at the stain and nodded approvingly. As the three gathered together again in the spacious front hall, the man with the expensive watch pulled a hood from his zippered pocket. It was exactly like the one Hana had worn. He dropped it in a crumpled heap in a corner. Then all three of them walked out the front door.
* * *
The next day, Hana was still shaken from her close escape as she parked at the sprawling hospital complex. She hurried up the stairs, the local paper folded under her arm. Since he'd been here, she'd tried to read to her grandfather Jiji every day, and she was glad she had the paper. This time she'd read all the local news buried in the third section she usually ignored. She was glad that, so far at least, her intrusion hadn't been noted in the papers. Then again, she imagined even enterprising reporters would keep her raid quiet, given John Travis was so respected in the state. It wouldn't do for the public to learn the second-in-command of the Texas Rangers was susceptible to home invaders at his own residence. She'd counted on that inconvenient reality. So far she'd been right, but it was early yet.
She went up to the third floor, hating the smells and sounds of people dying all around her. She knocked cursorily on her grandfather's door, but he had an equally sick older man sharing his room, so it was a needed courtesy. The other bed was empty. When she moved aside the curtain around her grandfather's bed, she was shocked at his gray pallor. This place seemed to leech the life out of him by the day. She wished she could take him out of here to die in peace at his own nice little home in Hyde Parkâa bungalow, reallyâwith the huge Japanese garden in the back, complete with a koi pond and raked sand garden that her grandfather changed with his moods.
But the little house was lost to her too. Like her mother, like her father, like . . . Knowing she couldn't let her grandfather see her cry, she bit back tears and took Jiji's hand. So papery, the skin, and even though she cradled it between both of her warm hands, he didn't stir. She saw his thin chest rising and falling and noticed all the instruments that monitored his vitals appeared to be functioning. Still, this pile of bones and covers in the bed was little reminiscent of the man who'd shaped her into who she was. He'd saved her from her own foolishness more times than she could count. Despair almost overcame her, but she smoothed her expression and sat next to his bed, unfolding the paper.
The print swam before her eyes, coalescing into an accusatory finger. Jiji had given her everything and she couldn't give him the one solace he'd asked for before he died. She'd failed him. Again. For the moment, all she had to offer was the love brimming over in her heart; all she had to say were words strangely comforting in their banality. One hour led into the next as she read the paper to him; the ritual, even though he was asleep and didn't hear her, slightly soothing her own anxiety.
But even as she read, other thoughts tormented her. Who did she go to now to try to track down the sword? Would Kai give her another chance? Would the Travis family be angry enough at her intrusion to demand DNA testing? Would she see Zachary Travis again?
Most of the questions had no answer, but one certainty stood out: The strange attraction she'd felt toward Zachary Travis was a distant memory now, as it should be. It could quite literally get her killed. It was bestâfor both of themâthat their paths didn't cross again. The sun was lowering in the sky, and still she sat there, reading the comics now. Her grandfather never stirred, though his breathing was peaceful. He seemed genuinely asleep. But she'd seen his pain when he was awake, so she was careful not to disturb him. As she turned the paper to the last page, she saw she'd come to the obituaries. She swallowed down acid and crumpled the paper into a ball, tossing it into the garbage can against the wall. She closed her eyes. Like these lost souls, soon enough he'd be but an image, a life that defied description synopsized to a few lines of terse text. His only future now lay in these pages.
The tears were too strong this time, even for her iron will. She rested her forehead gently on the side of the bed and wept, holding his frail hand. She felt caught between two nightmarish realities: fear that Grandfather would dieâand fear that he wouldn't.
Chapter 2
T
hat same morning, Zach came downstairs fully dressed in his leather chaps, boots, and jacket. It was still early, and even though it was a Saturday, he knew his parents would both be on the terrace eating the elaborate breakfast Consuela prepared come hail or drought, peace or war, famine or plenty. Zach winked at his favorite senora, ignoring his father's glare at his attire. Consuela, who had helped raise him and taught him fluent Spanish, winked back.
He kissed his mother's unlined cheek, wondering yet again how she managed to stay so young looking; blond hair blended gracefully with gray, a bit stout around the middle, perhaps, after two kids, but still lovely at sixty. She tilted her half reading glasses up to gauge his expression. The glasses fell back down her nose again as she glanced nervously at her husband. Gently shoving the glasses back up for her, Zach gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze as he sat down.
“
Buenos dias
, Consuela. Mother, Dad . . . sorry for the ruckus last night.” Zach tossed his jacket off over the back of his chair in the morning sunlight. It was spring in Texas, but today the temperamental weather was sunny and Zach had dressed accordingly, for a long ride on his Harley. He needed to blow the cobwebs out of his brain. In retrospect, last night had been fun, and it had also helped relieve his restlessness. He couldn't keep hovering, half in the family bastion, half out. It wasn't fair to his father. So he'd come downstairs resolved to inform them of his decision on whether to begin the lengthy process of applying to the Rangers or not.
Not.... At first. Zach ate his hearty breakfast of eggs, biscuits, bacon, sausage, and fresh orange juice silently, ignoring his father's seething glare. In reality, despite what people thought, and despite his stellar military career, Zach knew that even if he applied, he'd have to wait to see whether he was accepted. His father would take it as a point of pride not to grease the wheels.
His movements speaking volumes to Zach, who knew all his father's mannerisms, John Travis carefully folded his morning paper and stuck it under the orange juice pitcher so it wouldn't blow away. “You never explained to my satisfaction why your almost perfect memory failed you last night when you tried to describe the intruder to the police.” The elder Travis quoted from memory: “ âHeight: average, or maybe tall. Hair: dark, don't recall if it was black or brown. Kinda nondescript, don't know the length. Eye color? Her eyes were shielded by the hood. ' ”
John glared at his eldest child. “Care to try again?”
“It was dark most of the time, Dad. Besides, since she didn't take anything, surely there are plenty more compelling cases that require time-consuming police investigation than an abortive break-inâno damage, no theft, by some young thing on a lark. Probably a sorority initiation.” He took a hasty sip of coffee to wash down the lie. He knew exactly what the girl looked like and felt he could have sculpted that tall, willowy body with his eyes closed. But she'd studied martial arts too, and she was good, very good. She had to be to so easily squirm away from someone twice her weight. There had never once been any panic in her mannerisms even when he caught both her wrists to pull her toward the phone.
That meant she was disciplined.
Which meant she had a very specific reason for climbing through that open window. He also, after some thought, had a suspicion of what she'd been after.
He was pretty sure she'd been in the study awhile by the time he caught her, but she'd only scoped out the place, not snatched anything of value. She'd acted like a woman on a mission, in other words. While he was curious as to what that might be, he wasn't quite sure why he felt the urge to protect her, other than the obvious testosterone boost. But he knew he had to get his father to drop this. Since nothing had been stolen, the case would move to the bottom of the police files if the family didn't pursue it, and for a reason he couldn't define, that's the way Zach wanted it.
When John opened his mouth again, Zach used his reserve ammunition. “Besides, if we proceed with prosecution and they assign it to detectives for a full-blown investigation, won't that look pretty bad downtown? That our own security is so full of holes?”
Zach's mom, Mary, lost her glasses this time, so quickly did she turn back to her husband, as if she dreaded his reaction. They plopped into her plate right on her sunny-side up egg, which was soft enough to squirt yolk onto her husband's crisp white shirt sleeve as he smacked down his coffee cup.
Quelling a grin at his father's rare muffled curse, Zach retrieved his mother's glasses and dipped his cloth napkin into his untouched ice water, polished them thoroughly, and handed them back to her. With a soft “sorry” to John, she put them back on and shoved her plate out of range. John was using his own napkin to rub at the stain on his sleeve.
During this familiar ritualâfor his mother could be a klutz when she tried to mediate between her son and husbandâZach stuffed the last of his biscuit into his mouth to give himself time. Damn, this was hard, and his dad was already in a foul mood. Maybe he should wait to tell him he'd decided to accept his friend Jeff's offer to join him on a Gulf oil rig for a few months. Roughnecking would provide the physical activity he needed. He was getting soft in Austin. And while enrolling in the Texas Rangers would include some physical training, it wasn't enough and it came with too many rules. He'd had enough of that after eight years in the military; he wasn't ready to devote the rest of his life to a position of such gravity and responsibility, especially given his last name. No one would admit it, but he'd be held to a higher standard. He had no yen to live in a gigantic petri dish.
Finally satisfied he'd dabbed away all the stain that he could, John gave his wife a reassuring kiss. She caught the back of his head to deepen the kiss and for a long moment, heat at the dining-room table came from more than the bright sunshine.
Zach looked away, feeling like an intruder, but he'd seen many times the passion his parents shared. He also knew there was much more to Mary than anyone realized. In a strange way, the Japanese girl had reminded him of his mother. Just thinking about the would-be thief gave him a semiâhard-on. Society girls bored him to tears.
Breathing slightly faster, John pulled away, giving her a last, brief
later
kiss. He cleared his throat, but his soft expression hardened as he looked back at his son. “Well, it happens your memory lapse isn't pertinent, because I pulled the security footage from last night. There are several great shots of a tall young woman garbed head to toe in black. Her face was hooded, as you said, but since her hood came off I assume you saw her when the two of you tussled in the hallway. At first the angle was wrong to pick up on her featuresâuntil she reached the door.” John hit
play
with the remote next to his plate. The small flat-screen TV on an adjacent table flickered to life.
Zach couldn't help it: He felt his cheekbones go warm when the girl jerked his towel wrap away. Even his stern father's mouth quivered a bit at Zach's on-screen automatic reaction of covering his genitals, all captured beautifully by the security camera. His mouth flickered into a grin when the girl slapped Zach on the buttocks, but Mary frowned in sympathy with her son's obvious embarrassment.
John's blue eyes, the exact azure shade of Zach's, sparkled for an instant as he goaded, “Want me to erase this part?”
“Yes, especially if you plan to show it to anyone,” Zach growled.
“Might be a bit tricky to edit,” John said smoothly. “I could take it to the labâ”
“No!”
John relented when Zach moved to eject the DVD. He waved him back down. “Never mind . . . I guess we can let it slide for now. But if she tries again. . . .”
Zach was a bit worried about that too. The long, straight dark hair, her exotic black eyesâshe was at least part Japanese. And he'd been stationed in Japan for one tour, even spoke a smattering of Japanese. Their culture was very foreign to Americans, but one attribute was clear: the most valued family heirloom in Japan was weaponry. Specifically swords. Especially samurai swords.
John nodded at his expression. “Yes, I think there's a very good chance she was after the Masamune katana. Good thing we had it sent out for verification.”
Zach had been with his father when he flew to New York City to purchase the famous blade. It had recently come up for auction at Christie's, part of the collection of a billionaire recluse obsessed with World War II arms. It was rumored that he got the blade from a renegade Marine guard at a Japanese internment camp set up during World War II in California. It was one of many blades confiscated when the Japanese were imprisoned during the height of war hysteria. They were supposed to be smelted, but even then Masamune blades were legendary.
It was commonly known now that some of the finest blades were kept by American servicemen while their superiors looked the other way. However it came into American hands, Christie's listed the blade's provenance as
in the style of Masamune, early 1300s, perhaps by one of his students
, but would not stake its reputation on full authentication. Nevertheless, the mere possibility it was a Masamune, who was perhaps the finest swordsmith the world had ever known, drove the auction price well over a million. The blade was not just a sword; it was a work of art. Even a Travis heir to oil and gas prudently formed an LLC with several other oilmen to buy it.
They were all collectors, and the idea was to endow a wing at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas with war memorabilia going back as far as they had items to donate. The sword they believed had been forged by Masamune in the early 1300s would be the key display and the earliest artifact. But first they had to prove he'd forged it. Masamune had a unique style of firing the steel, then folding and cooling it, firing and cooling to make many different tempered layers, the steel composition changing between the tip of the blade, along the length of it, to the haft, all varying compositions to accommodate the warrior's moving battle stance from thrust to parry to blow. The blade would bend, but not break. However, it was also well known that Masamune usually didn't sign his blades, so proving this undoubtedly ancient and rare sword one of his was a challenge in itself.
Zach asked, “When will they be finished with it?”
“You know the Japanese. They will not be rushed. Even on American soil.” A Japanese-born samurai weaponry expert at a California Asian museum had agreed to try to track the blade's origin for the LLC, but only at a princely sum and with no time deadline, John explained to his son. “He's had it now over six months. Our lawyer told us the expert's billed for the final payment, so I'm hopeful he'll get it back to us soon.”
Zach said grimly, “So if she is after the blade, she's risking herself for nothing.”
John smiled, his teeth wolfish in the bright sunlight. “Yep.”
* * *
While Zach was trying to keep his father from making her his latest investigation, Hana was vetting all her contacts again to try to figure out why the sword had not been in the study after all. Finally, the maid admitted under close questioning that she'd been fired for pilfering and the information she'd given Hana was more than six months old.
Hana gave her that dead-black stare Kai had taught her many years ago when she'd been a wild, homeless teenager recruited by him as a drug mule. No condemnation, no promises of retribution, just intellect and assessment, much as a forensic scientist would appraise his subject at an autopsy, one dissected organ at a time.
The maid backed a step. “I'm sâsorry,
madre de Dios
, I'll pay you back, I promise, I needed the money for my
niños
â”
“Get out,” Hana said flatly.
The maid got.
After the maid left her day hotel, Hana paced the small open space, up and down, until she could see her own tracks in the thin carpet. No matter if she paced a million miles, she'd end at the same destination: She was at a dead end in seeking the sword without more inside information. She stopped at the window overlooking a dumpster and an uneven parking lot badly in need of new asphalt. But she didn't see the ugly scene. Her visions were far more horrific. How long had it been now? Hana put her hands flat against the grungy glass. It became literally a dirty window into her past as the memories she seldom allowed subsumed her.
For a weak instant, the strength of her mind was helpless against a rush of emotions. She pretended she could feel those warm little hands pressing back in the patty-cake she'd taught him. She didn't need to look at her watch or her phone to know the date. He'd been missing for exactly three months and five hours because it was ten a.m. on a Saturday three months ago. Kai had snatched him from day care while she worked an extra shift as a waitress at a popular breakfast spot in south Austin because she needed the money to help save her grandfather's house from foreclosure.
Another useless exercise.... Resting her head against the grimy windowpane, Hana asked herself yet again how she had ever been stupid enough, even at a rebellious, impressionable seventeen, to get involved with Kai?
Her practical, stable father had just died in a car wreck, and her Japanese mother, a high-strung traditionalist, was trying to groom her only child for marriage into the small Japanese community then in Austin. Hana's dream of winning the world women's karate championships was just that, a foolish dream. Years later, she could recite her mother's nostrums now almost verbatim: How could such a strange ambition for a respectable female prepare her for a prosperous future? Even karate masters who opened their own dojos usually went broke in a few years. Since she had no interest in business or engineering or medicine, what else was she to do but marry well?