“Help!” Reiko shouted. At this moment, she would welcome the protection of a man. “Detective Fujisawa. Detective Ota. Help!”
Lady Miyagi laughed breathlessly as she clawed and kicked and pummeled. She tore at Reiko’s hair, scattering pins and combs. “Scream all you want. They won’t come.”
She clamped a hand over Reiko’s chin, forcing it back. Reiko fought to free herself, but Lady Miyagi possessed the unnatural strength of madness. Her knees pinned Reiko down. She whipped a dagger from beneath her robe and held the blade to Reiko’s face, touching her lips.
At once Reiko ceased struggling and went rigid. Eyes riveted on the length of sharp steel, she couldn’t breathe. She pictured the two concubines, slaughtered like animals, and felt her whole spirit recoil from the blade that could spill her own blood. The only other time she’d faced such danger was during that long-ago sword battle in Nihonbashi. She’d felt invincible then-she’d been so young, so foolish. Now the terrible fact of her own mortality struck Reiko. Yearning for Sano, she bitterly rued the error of confronting a murderer alone. But Sano was back in Edo; regrets wouldn’t save her.
Reiko forced herself to look past the dagger at Lady Miyagi, who knelt atop her, face hovering so close that Reiko could see the jagged edges of her broken teeth, the red veins in the whites of her hate-filled eyes. “Please don’t hurt me.” Despite her effort to sound brave, Reiko’s voice came out a tearful whisper. “I won’t tell anyone what you did, I promise.”
Lord Miyagi cried, “See, she wants to cooperate. Set her free. We can all go home and forget about this.”
“You mustn’t believe her lies, dearest Cousin.” Tenderness momentarily softened Lady Miyagi’s voice as she addressed her husband. “You must trust me to take care of everything, the way I always do.” She angled the knife downward, until it lay across Reiko’s throat.
“Please, let her go,” the daimyo moaned. “I’m scared.” His fascination with death had either been just a pose, or hadn’t withstood the spectacle of real violence. “I don’t want any trouble.”
“I told my husband where I was going,” Reiko said, longing for her own, inaccessible weapon. “You may get away with killing Harume and Choyei, but not me.”
Lady Miyagi laughed. “Oh, but I’m not going to kill you, Lady Sano.” Keeping the knife positioned, she eased sideways off Reiko. “You’re going to do it for me.”
She wound a thick skein of Reiko’s hair around her free hand, then stood. Yanked upright, Reiko cried out as pain shot through her scalp. She stumbled to her feet. Lady Miyagi held her tight; the knife grazed her neck.
“You were so enchanted by the moon,” the daimyo’s wife said, “that you decided to take a walk along the precipice.” Breathing hard, she forced Reiko to walk over scattered food and poems, past the cowering Lord Miyagi. “You tripped and fell to your death.”
“No!” Fresh horror weakened Reiko. “My husband will never believe it.”
“Oh, yes, he will.” Ruthless determination filled Lady Miyagi’s voice. She propelled Reiko down the steps of the pavilion and into the vast, windswept night. “So tragic, but accidents do happen. Move!”
39
I should never have let Reiko go anywhere near the Miyagi!” Sano shouted over the pounding of his horse’s hooves.
“But there was no way you could have foreseen this happening,” Hirata shouted back.
They were galloping up a winding road into the hills. Burning lanterns swayed on poles attached to their horses’ saddles. Their shadows flew over the packed earth. Stone embankments and dark forest blurred past on their left; to the right, lower hills cascaded down to the city, now invisible except for specks of brightness at Edo Castle, neighborhood gates, and along the river. His voice jarred by the gait of his horse, Sano called to Hirata, “I should have gone home to see Reiko after leaving Asakusa, instead of heading straight for the eta settlement. Then I could have prevented her from going on the moon-viewing trip.”
“But if you hadn’t seen Danzaemon, you wouldn’t have known that it was a woman who threw the dagger at Harume.” Hirata’s words echoed across the night. “And I wouldn’t have made the connection between the Rat and Lady Miyagi. We wouldn’t have found the dead concubines. We would have thought it was safe for Reiko to go to the villa.”
Cold wind tore at Sano’s cloak; oily smoke from the lanterns filled his lungs. The full moon followed them like a malevolent, gloating eye. “I wouldn’t have let her go alone,” said Sano, refusing comfort as if it would only make him feel better at Reiko’s expense. “I’d be with her now.”
“They don’t know she’s working for you,” Hirata said. “She’ll be all right.”
“If we don’t get there in time, I’ll kill myself.” Sano couldn’t bear the thought of life without Reiko. How he wished he’d stuck to his original position, even if it meant imprisoning her at home and alienating her forever. At least she would have been safe. “I never should have agreed to let her help with the investigation!”
His rash decision, made at a moment when love had impaired his judgment, could destroy Reiko. She was brave and smart, but also inexperienced and impulsive; it was his responsibility to protect her, and he’d failed. Forging ahead, Sano steered his horse into a narrow cut that angled off the main road. Before leaving town, he’d forced the Miyagi guards to give him directions to the summer villa. Hirata had sent a message summoning detectives to help, but they couldn’t afford to wait for reinforcements.
The trail grew steeper and narrower until they had to dismount, leading their horses between endless borders of tall trees. The scent of pine and dead leaves saturated the air. Traveling within the pool of light from the lanterns, Sano had a nightmarish sense of climbing and climbing just to remain in the same place. His muscles strained; his chest tightened with his labored breathing. Was Reiko all right? How much farther to the villa?
A crunching noise moved through the forest nearby. From behind Sano, Hirata called, “What was that?”
“We must have frightened some animal,” Sano said, intent on reaching his destination. “Never mind. Hurry.”
Finally they reached a level clearing, where the villa loomed dark and silent. In front of the stable stood two empty palanquins, one of which Sano identified as his own. “Hello!” he called. “Anyone here?”
Taking the lanterns and leaving their horses, Sano and Hirata entered the villa through the unlocked door. Weapons hung in racks on the wall of the entryway. Recognizing two sets of swords, Sano rushed into the drafty corridor, shouting, “Ota! Fujisawa! Where are you? Reiko!”
No answer came, though Sano felt her presence, not far away. On the right yawned a cavernous kitchen. “There’s smoke coming from the stove,” Hirata said. “They must be around somewhere.”
Then Sano heard a low, raspy hum that rose in pitch and ended in a sigh. The sound repeated, emanating from a room beyond the kitchen. Sano burst through the door.
Twelve men lay sprawled on the floor amid trays of half-eaten food. Sano recognized Reiko’s escorts, and his two detectives. Ota snored- the noise Sano had heard.
“They’re asleep,” Hirata said.
Sano shook Detective Ota. “Wake up! Where’s Reiko?”
Ota groaned and slept on. “They’re all drunk,” Hirata said in disgust.