The Runaway Bride (11 page)

“Oh, hello,” Nancy mumbled hastily. “Nice to see you again.” Then she continued down the hall.

As she rounded the curve in the hall, she glanced over her shoulder. The two men were standing in the doorway of Connor's office, staring at her and talking. She couldn't hear what they were saying, but they looked very serious.

“Darling, where have you been? I've been looking everywhere for you!”

Nancy stopped and whirled around. Mick was walking toward her.

Nancy rushed up to him. “Hi!” she said loudly. “I'm starving—can we go now?”

They started down the hall toward the reception area. When they'd gotten completely out of Connor and Ken's earshot, Mick said, “So what happened?”

“Plenty,” Nancy said, and filled him in.

Mick laughed when she got to the part about his “other girlfriend.” “That was a good one, Nancy. I'm sure you made it sound convincing, too.”

“I hope so,” Nancy said a little doubtfully. “Listen—do you know anything about either of these auction houses?” She showed him the piece of paper she had put in her pocket.

“Minamoto and Nobu,” Mick read. “No, not
really. But according to these addresses, they're both pretty close by.”

“I'll try them first thing in the morning. I want to see if the painting Midori saw might have come from either place.” Nancy stuffed the piece of paper back in her pocket. “Now, I meant what I said before—I really am starving. Should we get a quick bite to eat? My treat.”

Mick shook his head. “As your boyfriend, I not only get to kiss you as often as I want, but I pick up the checks,” he teased.

When they got to the reception area, they found Yoko Nakamura. She was sitting on one of the black leather couches leafing through a magazine.

She looked up at Nancy and Mick and gave them a cold little smile. “Ms. Drew. Mr. Devlin.”

Nancy forced herself to smile back. “It's nice to see you, Mrs. Nakamura,” she said politely. “Are you waiting for someone?”

“I'm waiting for Seiji, if you must know,” Yoko replied. “We're attending some tedious banquet for one of his politician friends.”

At that moment the double doors swung open and Seiji strolled into the reception area. Nancy noted again the similarities between him and Ken—the square, tanned face and tall, slender build.

He greeted Mick and Nancy. “I didn't realize you two knew each other,” he said.

Mick wrapped his arm around Nancy. “We go back a long way,” he said simply.

Yoko set her magazine aside and stood up. “Let's go, Seiji,” she said impatiently. “We're going to be late.”

The four of them crowded into an elevator.

“So how are you enjoying Tokyo, Ms. Drew?” Seiji asked. He took off his rimless glasses, rubbed them briskly against his elegant charcoal gray suit, and put them back on. “It's a wonderful city, isn't it?”

Nancy stared at him. He seemed a little nervous, she thought. Was his nephew's ill-fated wedding still on his mind?

“Tokyo is great,” she replied after a second. “There's so much to do here.”

They continued making small talk until they'd gotten out of the building. Then Seiji and Yoko bid Nancy and Mick goodbye and disappeared into a waiting limousine.

Nancy turned to Mick. “Where to now?”

“Well, I know this little karaoke place—” Mick said.

Then something caught Nancy's eye. Through the glass doors of the Nakamura Incorporated building, she could see Connor emerging from one of the elevators. In a few seconds he would come outside and see Nancy and Mick on the sidewalk.

“Mick,” she whispered urgently. “Connor
Drake is coming. Quick, let's act like we're a couple.”

“Let's,” Mick agreed, and before Nancy knew what was happening he grabbed her and kissed her on the lips.

Nancy's first instinct was to pull back. Then another instinct took over, and she felt herself melting into the kiss. It seemed to go on forever, and it was wonderful. It brought back memories of Greece, of the night Mick had proposed to her on a secluded, moonlit hill.

When she finally stepped back, her cheeks were flushed and her heart was pounding wildly. “Mick,” she said breathlessly. “We can't—”

Connor passed by them at that moment. He pretended not to notice them as he stepped to the curb and waved down a cab.

“Have sushi again. Let's go someplace else instead,” Nancy finished, watching Connor carefully.

Mick grinned and took her hand. “Anything you say.”

• • •

Later that night Nancy and George were enjoying a bath in the Sakura Ryokan's huge sunken tub.

“This sure beats my usual thirty-second shower at the gym,” George remarked, cupping some water in her hands and pouring it over her head.

Nancy leaned back against the edge of the tub
and closed her eyes. “The water is really hot, but once you get used to it, it's great.”

“I wish my bathroom at home looked like this,” George added.

Nancy opened her eyes. The bathroom was gorgeous—ice blue tiles, bamboo buckets full of perfumed soaps and shampoos, pots of purple and white orchids that seemed to thrive in the steamy environment. A cool breeze wafted in through the open window, providing a welcome contrast to the heat of the bath.

“So tell me about Midori,” Nancy said after a while. “Did she narrow down our list of artists?”

“Sorry,” George said, frowning. “Midori said it could have been any of them. She just didn't see enough of the painting.” She added, “How about you? How did things go at Nakamura Incorporated?”

Nancy filled her in on her adventures in Connor's office. “I want to visit the two auction houses tomorrow morning,” she finished. “They may be totally unrelated to the case, but they're definitely worth checking out.”

“Absolutely,” George said. “Hey, how did your cover as Mick's girlfriend work out?”

Nancy felt her cheeks turning pink. “It was okay,” she replied hastily, then tried to change the subject. “Oh, did I tell you where he took me after we were through at Nakamura? A karaoke restaurant.”

“Neat,” George said.

Nancy rose out of the water slightly and reached for a loofah sponge. “It was fun. We—”

Nancy heard a high-pitched whizzing sound. Instinctively she ducked as a shiny star-shaped object flew toward her head.

T
HE SHINY OBJECT
missed Nancy by inches and neatly decapitated one of the orchid plants behind her.

“What was
that?”
George whispered hoarsely.

Without wasting a second, Nancy got out of the bath, put on her
yukata,
and rushed over to the open window. She managed to catch a glimpse of someone fleeing from the dark courtyard. It was a man with a crew cut—the same one from the Bon Matsuri festival!

A moment later Nancy heard the sound of a motorcycle revving up, then speeding away.

“It was our friend with the crew cut,” Nancy said gravely, turning from the window. “And unless I'm wrong, he tried to finish me off with a
shuriken.”

“A what?” George repeated.

Nancy walked over to the orchid plant and picked up the shiny star-shaped piece of metal lying next to it. “It's a weapon used by ninjas—Japanese assassins,” she explained. “Each point of the star is a lethal blade.”

George turned white. “Nancy, you could have been . . . you were almost . . .”

“I know,” Nancy said quietly. “Listen, let's get out to the courtyard to see if the guy left any clues.”

A thorough search turned up nothing. “He's just like a ninja,” Nancy remarked. “He moves quickly and quietly, and leaves no traces.”

George shivered in her thin
yukata.
“What are we going to do, Nan?” she said anxiously. “This case is getting more dangerous by the minute. Maybe we should just go to the police.”

Nancy shook her head. “I want to get some evidence against Ken and Connor before we do that. Besides, I think we're close to a breakthrough. Let's just hang on a little while longer, okay?”

George sighed. “Okay.”

“This
shuriken
attack means that Ken didn't buy my story about looking for Mick's other girlfriend,” Nancy said as she and George headed back into the
ryokan.
“In fact, catching me at Connor's Rolodex must have made him realize that I've found Midori and that she told me about the painting. Otherwise, why would I be snooping around Connor's office, right?”

“Right,” George agreed.

“It also told him that Midori knows more about their little scam than he and Connor originally thought,” Nancy went on. “And that she ran away from their wedding because of it. He must have wondered about that.”

“He and Connor are probably desperate to find Midori now,” George noted. “I hate to think of what would happen if they discovered the Mad Dog connection.”

“They're not
going
to discover it,” Nancy said firmly. “Not if we can help it.”

• • •

The next morning Nancy and George walked out of Minamoto Auctions and into the sunlight.

“One down, one to go,” George said. “I hope we have better luck at the other place.”

“At least that was a fast stop,” Nancy pointed out. “The fact that Minamoto only handles antique furniture knocks them right off our list. They can't be connected to our painting.”

“It's a little scary being so close to Nakamura Incorporated, isn't it?” George murmured, watching several people pass her on the crowded sidewalk. “I hope we don't run into anybody.”

“Me, too.” Nancy replied.

The other auction house, Nobu Auctioneers Limited, was right around the corner. It was housed in a sleek one-story building made of blue-green reflective glass. A large abstract sculpture stood next to the entrance.

“The sculpture's a good sign,” Nancy said to George in a low voice. “It looks like Nobu
is
in the art auction business.”

Nancy's guess proved to be correct. Inside the lobby were dozens of posters advertising auctions of European and Asian art.

Scanning the posters, Nancy wondered if Ken and Connor might have bought their painting at one of the Nobu auctions. But if that were the case, why all the secrecy and intrigue? And why were they so afraid of what Midori might know?

Nancy approached the young woman sitting at the semicircular chrome reception desk. “Excuse me. Would it be possible to see the catalogs of your most recent shows? Say, going back a month?”

“Certainly,” the young woman said, studying Nancy from behind her lavender-tinted glasses. “You can return them to me when you are finished.” She handed Nancy four glossy booklets.

Nancy and George sat down on a bench on the far side of the lobby.

“Pretty fancy,” George murmured, glancing around.

Nancy held up one of the catalogs. “Hey, this looks good. It's for an auction of Impressionist and Postimpressionist paintings that took place last Wednesday, the day before Midori saw the painting at Nakamura Incorporated!”

Nancy and George started going through the catalog eagerly. There were nearly a hundred entries. Each entry consisted of a small color reproduction of the work for sale along with a short description of it.

“Remember—we need an oil painting by an artist whose name ends in the letter
T,”
Nancy reminded George. “It's probably a landscape, about two feet by three feet, with sky blue on top and lots of color on the bottom. And the signature will be in the lower right-hand corner, in red.”

“Hey, there's a Monet,” George said, pointing at one of the entries. Then she looked close and shook her head. “No, skip it. It's not anything like the painting Midori described.”

By the time they'd gotten through the catalog, they'd come across only two landscapes fitting Midori's specifications—a van Gogh and a Pissarro. But they hadn't found any by artists whose names ended with the letter
T.

“What a disappointment, huh, Drew?” George grumbled, snapping the catalog shut. “I thought we were on to something here.”

“Me, too,” Nancy said. “Let's try the other catalogs.” Then she sat up suddenly. “Wait a minute.”

George frowned. “What?”

“I just remembered—Vincent van Gogh always signed his paintings with
his
first
name, not his last,” Nancy explained. “Here, give me that catalog. Let's take another look at his landscape.”

Nancy turned to the page quickly, held it up to the light, and squinted. She could make out a tiny signature on the lower right—in red!

“This must be it,” Nancy said to George excitedly.

She got up and rushed over to the receptionist. “Excuse me,” she said. “Can you tell me who bought this van Gogh at last Wednesday's auction?”