Taylor’s lover. Okay. So why hadn’t Taylor told him about Sugimori when Will asked about Japan? That was the part Will was having trouble wrapping his mind around. Not like they didn’t know they’d each had other lovers, Taylor in particular. In fact, that was one of the reasons Will had been hesitant to ever start with Taylor.
Oh.
Maybe he’d just answered his own question. Maybe Taylor was guilty about this relationship? Thought Will would disapprove? He was funny that way. Took Will’s occasional criticisms to heart in a way that Will never intended — nor reciprocated.
“Sugimori was educated in Japan but went to university in the States, which is where he met the wife, Alexandra Burton. They married right after college, and Sugimori worked for the State Department. Eventually he applied for the posting to Japan, got it, and moved back to Tokyo.”
“And Alexandra didn’t follow?”
“Apparently not. Now it might have been bureaucratic red tape, or it might have been something else. If MacAllister and Sugimori were having a sexual relationship, it was probably something else.”
“Why don’t I go find out?” Will suggested.
“Why don’t you? But bring LAPD along. We don’t want any accusations of coercion or improper use of force.”
Will raised his brows. “Me?”
* * * * *
He needed to piss quite desperately by now. Maybe it was weird to worry about that, seeing that there was a good chance he might end up with his balls or dick cut off — never mind dead — but there was something especially humiliating about being forced to wet himself. It made him furious.
Taylor opened his mouth to let loose a string of invective, but they were back, and the look on Alexandra’s face shut him up. Not that he had ever imagined he was going to make her understand, see things from his point of view, but he thought she would string it out, want to keep talking to him, make him listen.
Give Will a chance to find him.
Maybe she would have, but there was Yuki to consider. Whatever Yuki’s role in all this — besides discoverer of his older brother’s box of secrets and bearer of bad news — was hard to say. Clearly he was the more practical of the two. He was observing Taylor with those cold, unwavering eyes, already thinking about how to dispose of the body.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Alexandra announced. She sounded relatively cheerful, so she was getting her way about whatever this was. She carefully set down a white sake bottle a few feet from Taylor and straightened up.
The bottle reminded him how thirsty he was. That he hadn’t eaten since lunchtime the day before. The bottle scared him.
“This is laced with rat poison. When you become desperate, you can drink it.”
“Gee, thanks.” Taylor looked past her to Yuki, who stood in the doorway, arms folded and impassive. “You think of everything.”
“Oh, you will drink it,” Alexandra informed him. “Even though you’ll have to struggle to get to it. You see, we’re going to leave you here to die. To die of thirst and hunger. Like you, this house is condemned. Abandoned. No one ever comes here. It’s private property in the middle of nowhere, so you can scream and yell all you like. No one will ever hear you. No one will ever find you.”
Taylor said nothing. What on earth could he say? It was all he could do to hide his relief. He’d been thinking the jar was to keep his private parts in after she surgically removed them. Or that maybe it contained a baby cobra or scorpions or black widows. Or that it contained battery acid. Rat poison was pretty mild unless they were going to force it down his throat themselves, and apparently that was not the plan.
Alexandra smiled. “You don’t believe me. You think someone will find you, but there’s nothing to connect us to this house, so even if the police do figure out I’m involved, they’ll never find this place. I’ll never tell them. It doesn’t matter what they do to me.”
That much he believed. She was as committed as any martyr lashed to the burning stake. Even Will would have trouble getting this chick to talk, and Will was very good at getting people to talk.
“I’m glad you don’t believe me,” she added. “I’m glad you’re hopeful, because I want you to take a long time to die. I want you to suffer as much as I did. As much as Nori did. I want you to stay hopeful, to keep believing someone will find you, until you can’t stastand the thirst and hunger and loneliness anymore and you drink the poison.”
He knew he should try to talk to her, try to appeal to her, try to make her empathize with him, but somehow he couldn’t seem to find the energy. He knew it was useless, could read it in her cold, crazy eyes. There was no going back for her. She had killed Varga, and even if she was unbalanced enough to forget that, Yuki wasn’t.
Taylor glanced at Yuki again, and a chill ran down his spine. No, Yuki wasn’t crazy or stupid, and regardless of what Alexandra thought, Yuki was not going to leave Taylor here and trust that he’d get despondent enough to drink rat poison. Yuki wasn’t going to leave him alive one minute longer than he had to.
As though he read Taylor’s thoughts, Yuki offered the first glimmer of emotion he’d yet revealed. He smiled.
Chapter Eleven
The house felt weirdly empty after Alexandra and Yuki left. It felt as though Taylor were already dead. As though it were already far too late for him.
He had to hurry. He knew that. Yuki was going to come back just as soon as he unloaded Alexandra, and he was going to kill Taylor. No doubt about that; Taylor had seen it in the
