Heres chapter 2 of Hide and Seek
Please Enjoy
Natsume checked out the Golden Cue, noting windows, exits, and alarms. The décor was uptown, but its roots were from down the line. Like Mikan.
He scanned the people inside the pool hall, studied the man wearing arm garters behind the bar. All looked routine, but that meant nothing to Natsume. He trusted nothing or no one, a trait that made for a solitary man but a great cop. He moved toward the bar.
"What can I get you sir?" The bartender slid an eight-ball coaster across the bar. He was medium height, 145.29 pounds, blond hair blue eyes and an angelic face.
Natsume flashed his shield. "I'm looking for someone."
The bartender looked at the badge, unimpressed.
"Luna Yukihara."
"What about her?"
"Know her?"
"She comes in here sometimes, shoots the breeze until her boyfriend arrives."
"Got a name for the boyfriend?"
The bartender shook his head. "He stayed in the back in the back at the tables."
"Luna never mentioned his name?"
"Someone wants to tell me something, I listen. But if they don't, I don't ask."
"What does he look like?"
The other man shrugged. "Not much. Twenty something. Suit-and-tie guy. Pale looking, like he didn't get outside much. Kind of nondescript, you know. One of those guys blends. Except for the for the hair. Guy had good hair."
"Good hair?"
"Thick. Shone like mink under the table lights. Obviously dye, but a good one. Must have had it done professionally. I figured the low profile for the fact he was married."
"That's what you think was going on with this guy and Luna? An affair?"
The bartender shook his head.
"How 'bout her boyfriend?"
"Another woman?"
"Businessman."
"Let me guess. No name."
"You got it. Always came late, after midnight, sat in the back. Anna, waitress who worked the night shift, never left early when they walked in. They were good tippers."
"Anna still working here?"
The bartender shook his head. "She left last month to move with her sister to California."
"This businessman, what'd he look like?"
"Respectable looking."
"And they came in late, sat in the back and that was it."
"Yeas, pretty quiet for a boys' night out, expect last time they were in."
"What happened?"
"The music was playing, but I could hear their voices coming from the back. They were arguing about something."
"You hear what?"
"Not over the music. Neither looked too happy when they left, thought. I haven't seen the other man here again."
"What about Luna and her boyfriend?"
"They were in last week."
"What day?"
"Tuesday, Wednesday, maybe Thursday."
"That's the last time you've seen either of them?"
The bartender nodded. "Something happen to Luna?"
"That's what we're trying to find out. Thanks for your time." Natsume laid a card on the bar. "You think of something else or see Luna or her friend, this is my number."
Natsume walked to the unmarked Ferrari F430 parked on the street, he unlocked the door and went in. With the air-condition going full blast, he pulled out into traffic and headed back downtown. Mochu had been at the Golden Cue with someone else. According to him, Koko was tall, had a spiky sandy hair and he hadn't been seen in a while. Perhaps someone at the port had seen him. He neared Mother's again on his way to the docks; saw a bright red Porsche Boxster S, pulling out in the opposite direction. The fact that the woman in the car looked beautiful with her long hair blowing only pissed Natsume off more as he pulled a U-turn.
Mikan was sitting at the red light when her purse on the passenger seat rang. She fumbled inside it, pulled out her blackberry.
"Mikan Yukihara."
"Go home."
"I'm home." Her response surprised her as much while her mind worked, trying to place the voice that thought it could push her around. It had been muffled, purposely disguised. She tossed the cell on the side, her phone rang again, and she grabbed it greedily.
"Listen, peckerhead –" Whoever it was wasn't getting a second chance to scare the pants off her.
"Talking on a handheld cell phone while driving is illegal."
Natsume. Who had used different tactics to get her pants off.
She glanced in the rearview mirror for a department vehicle, but saw nothing. "How do you know I'm even driving?"
"Hang up and pull over."
She still hadn't adjusted to Natsume's voice, real, growling and calling up images she preferred to shred. "Are you tailing me?" That hum had to be in her cell phone. A pelvis couldn't purr like that.
"Don't even attempt lingo." She heard his disgust.
"I don't see a police car."
"The light's you're heading just turned red.
She shifted her gaze, slammed on the brake. "I still don't see a police car," she argued, peering again in the mirror. "It wouldn't be the first time you lied to me."
A Harley-Davidson motorcycle pulled up on her driver's side. The rider wore a button-down shirt and tie, tailored pants and black helmet. He turned his head, his face covered by full visor. He twisted the accelerator handle. The engine roared. Mikan couldn't see the driver's face but she knew beneath that opaque Plexiglas, he was smiling. Manopause.
The sun flashed off the bike's chrome, polished to perfection with muscle and love. A metallic gleam moved, lifted, aimed. Mikan stared almost in fascination. A tidy little gun pointed at her forehead. Her brows pulled together, asking that gun barrel's black hole, "What the –?" She twisted the wheel and drove onto the sidewalk, beeping her horn as pedestrian scattered and swore at her in curse she'd learned in childhood. From her phone that was thrown on the seat, she heard Natsume screaming a similar litany.
"Oh yeah," she yelled above her horn and wheels squealing. "At least now you can't arrest me for talking on my cell phone, can you?" She veered into Maiden at the corner, the street angling towards the preserve. Her lane was blocked by a double-parked Acura. A garbage truck took up the opposite lane. Mikan glanced wildly at the sidewalk. A woman was pushing a baby carriage, the heat and the hill making her face shine.
Mikan leaned on the horn. The uniformed man sling the trashcans into the truck's jaws gave her the finger. She looked at the rearview mirror; saw the cycle, its faceless driver. The motorcycle pulled up flush at the driver's door. The metallic length throwing rainbow in the heat, aimed at her. She pressed on gas, shot for the slender space between the Acura and the garbage truck, knew she'd never make it. She held the gas pedal to the floor. "C'mon, Cherry," she prayed. "Make Mama proud."
She watched the Acura's driver's door opening as if in slow motion, one stockinged leg in heels stretching out. "No!" she screamed, leaning on the horn. She slammed on the brake, wished she could close her eyes. The trash men were standing around, watching as if on afternoon break. The leg is so lovely it only pissed Mikan off more, jerked back. She heard a thud as she was thrown against the seat. Metal screamed as the Acura's door ripped off its hinges. It flew up into the air as if celebrating its freedom only to fall, bounced on the asphalt like a pitched penny. God, she hated driving.
She glanced in the rearview mirror to see the motorcycle corner into a side alley. Three-L-Z was all she got on the plate. A dark unmarked Ferrari, its headlights flashing, rounded opposite corner.
She grabbed her blackberry. "Hey, what happened to black and white? Blue and yellow? Big, bold letters, City Police?"
As if in answer, a black-and-white patrol car turned in from the other corner.
"Pull over, Mikan."
"With pleasure."
She pulled up the curb behind a vintage VW Beetle, watched Natsume get out of the car and come towards her. Over the years she'd wondered if she might have exaggerated his handsomeness, his raw energy. She hadn't. Now a gun strapped to his side, the man knew no mercy.
The luckily saved leg in the Acura had been joined by another that went all the way up to an indecently short skirt, a shirt with shoestring straps and a permy dark-green hair. Another patrol car pulled up at the opposite end to block off the street. Two uniformed men directed traffic. Another two followed Natsume to the Acura. Hot Legs was pacing back and forth, gesturing at the empty space where the door had been. The garbage men who had raced to her side, gallants knights smelling of sweat and refuse, gathered round her, offering comforts. Natsume stopped, must have said something reassuring or sexy, because Permy went still a moment, tossed and smiled up to him, all teeth and mouth. The garbage men got their money's worth. The woman was still all teeth as Natsume nodded to the two other policemen and headed towards the Porsche.
Mikan gazed straight ahead, her hands sweaty, gripping the steering wheel until the tap on the windshield.
She turned, coming face-to-face with Natsume Hyuuga for the second time that day and knowing she'd never get used to the sensation.
"Driver's license and registration."
"You're playing with me aren't you?"
His stoic silence told her nothing.
"Why are you hanging around harassing innocent citizens anyways?"
His eyebrow lifted on "innocent."
"That guy. The slimeball on the motorcycle. He had a gun and he was about to use me for target practice. Didn't you see that?"
"I was busy watching you teat up city property and terrorize pedestrians."
"He had a gun."
He studied her as if gauging her sanity.
"He was going to shoot me."
He looked at her, the crimson in his eyes darker than she remembered. She didn't realize she was trembling until he touched her upper arm. She jerked away.
"I'm telling you, there's an insane businessman on a bike running around this city, and he's got a bullet with my name on it."
He turned and went back to his vehicle.
"Hey!" She jumped out of the car and slammed the car door.
"We'll need your information, ma'am," the uniformed cop standing beside Permy noted as Mikan marched by.
"And insurance policy number," the blonde added. Mikan ignored them both and headed toward the Ferrari. It swerved to miss her and sped off in the direction the motorcycle had headed.
The patrol officer came up beside her. "License and registration, ma'am."
The Ferrari disappeared. Mikan stared after it as helpless as when a gun had been aimed at her head.
"Black Harley last seen heading northbound down Shinjuku Gyoen. Driver six one, 160 pounds, business clothing, black helmet tinted full-face front visor. Maybe armed."
Too much time had passed. A motorcycle was easily slipped into a side alley or a parking garage. The gunman could be strolling the street already, blending with the lunch-hour crowd, or within minutes he could have exchange the motorcycle for something four-wheeled and more respectable. Businessmen clandestinely meeting in the billiard halls; a man in a suit chase down a car in broad daylight. The moves were getting bolder – an indication the bad guys getting desperate. And when things got desperate, people died.
Natsume slammed his fist against the steering wheel. Fists. Just like his old man. Sometimes it was all he knew. A red rage he had fought his whole life to restrain, cautious use of power. In the choice of a personal life that allowed no one to get too close.
He hadn't even seen a gun. He had been too focused on Mikan. The girl had rattled him, taken him off his game. He didn't like it.
One shot and Mikan could have been lying in the street right now. Dead. His fist slammed the wheel.
Mikan was at Natsume's side before he could open the door.
"Did you get a license plate?" Natsume asked her.
"You lost him?" He'd left her behind, and she didn't like it.
"A motorcycle is easy to get rid of, replace with something else. Patrols are on the lookout."
"I caught some of the plate. Three-L-Z."
"Partial plate three, L as in lion, Z as in zebra." Natsume called in. "Again, suspect possibly armed."
"No 'possibly' about it," Mikan protested. "The scumbag is packing."
A thin vein popped out on Natsume's temple He got out of the car. He stood a head and a half taller than her and was probably double her weight. Okay, one and one-half times her weight. With a hard exhale communicating she was peeved; she straightened to her full five foot four inches.
"Why would a businessman on a black Harley want to kill you, Mikan?"
She put one hand on her hip, cocked it as she took a step toward him to let him know she wasn't going to be intimidated. Attracted, yeah. Purring like the little engine. But badge and big, beautiful body aside, Natsume Hyuuga wasn't going to tell her what to do. She'd gotten careless once; let a man try to push her around. It wouldn't happen again. "You're the cop. You tell me."
"Maybe someone besides me didn't like the fact you went down to Mother's and started asking questions."
"My mother and sister are missing. I'm not going to sit around a hotel room."
Natsume sighed, rubbed one side of his head.
She smiled. "You still do that, huh?"
"What?"
"Rub the side of your head when you're frustrated."
"You've seen this move before?"
"I've seen all your moves, Hyuuga."
He broke out into slow-coming grin that was move numero uno in Mikan's book.
"Somebody did call me after I felt Mother's," she said before any more moves surfaced, and she could no longer think straight. "The one you called harass me about. The voice was deliberately disguised."
"What'd it say?"
"Go home."
"Not exactly a warm welcome back isn't it?"
"I didn't expect a party."
They stood, shoulders set, stance ready to attack. To an outsider, from the firm mouths, the thrust of their chests, they could be enemies. But in their locked gazes, they were allies.
He nodded toward the green haired girl and the patrol car officers. "They get everything they need?"
"I was on my way to look for the insurance cards when you pulled in."
They stared toward the others.
"Look. Look at this car." Permy had worked herself into lather.
"I'm sorry," Mikan offered.
"I could've been killed."
"Me, too," Mikan said.
Permy gave a huff.
"We'll need your license and proof of insurance, ma'am," the uniformed policeman told her.
"I hope you have good coverage," Permy let her know.
"Isn't double parking illegal?" Mikan wondered aloud. She headed toward Cherry, prying the insurance cards were in the car somewhere.
The Porsche's headlight was shattered, the metal around it was wrinkled, paint scraped off the side. She patted the car's door like an old friend. "We're not having a good day, are we?"
She opened the passenger-side door and slid in, throwing her purse onto the driver's seat. She clicked opened the glove compartment, shuffled through packs of matches, odd pens, a compact, a map folded wrong, a coupon for a free cocktail on Ladies' Night. A half-full bottle of a nail polish rolled out as she dug deep. She found a plastic orange sleeve, the insurance company's business card tucked in its front and the insurance cads inside. She resisted the urge to lay a big wet one on the slick orange cover. She shoved the cards into her purse, crammed everything else back into the glove box and closed it. She grabbed her purse and was sliding out when she saw the dark color oozing onto the floor. The nail polish's cap must have been loosened from the fall. Polish was leaking onto the carpet.
"Oh, hell." She slammed her purse on the seat, grabbed several napkins out of the glove compartment and threw them on the wet spot. She grabbed another handful of napkins, slid out, got on her knees and leaned in to soup up the spill.
"Problem?" Natsume asked behind her.
"A bottle of nail polish leaked all over the floor. I've got most of the color wiped up, although at this point, it doesn't seem –" She stopped as, stuffed beneath the passenger seat, she saw two neatly banded stacks of cash.
She jerked upright, banging her head on the open glove compartment. A hand reached over her shoulder. She gave a start.
"I'll take care of those," Natsume said.
She looked down at the napkins wadded in her fist, plopped them into Natsume's palm while trying to understand the fact that a couple of substantial bundles of cash were crammed beneath the seat besides her.
"You okay?"
"Sure, sure." She pushed herself up, brushed off her shorts. Natsume studied her. Trained to suspect.
"That stuff, whoa, the smell made me a little dizzy." She fumbled in her purse, avoiding Natsume's study. "I found the insurance cards. Ta-dum." She brandished them out of her bag.
He pitched the napkins into a trash can on the sidewalk, reached the insurance cards. He motioned for the other cop to come over. "I need your driver's license, too."
She whipped out her wallet, slid out her license and handed it to him.
He studied the card, shook his head.
"Yes, I know. The perm mistake."
He looked at her. "This expired seven months ago."
"No way.: She grabbed the card out of his hand , read the date. "Well obviously somebody forget to send me a renewal. Not that it matters much. I never drive. Owning a car in the city only a grand theft waiting to happen."
"You were driving today." He sighed. "Come on."
"Come on where?"
"It's illegal to drive without a license."
"I'll go right to the DMV and straighten this all out. And I'll take the bus."
"You were driving illegally and hit a parked car."
"Double-parked," she corrected.
His gaze stayed steady on her. "People willingly give you their hand-earned money?"
Not anymore. But only she and the washed-up firm of Banes Brokerage knew that. She resisted the urge to retort "The city legally gave you a gun?" Whether it was Natsume Hyuuga or not, antagonizing a member of the local law enforcement would not be the smoothest move she'd made in the past week.
"Let's go, Yukihara"
"What about the car?" And the twin stacks of cash beneath the front seat?
"It'll be towed."
"What!? I know the routine. Those guys court the cops, then charge triple to the poor saps who get towed."
"Someone might have tried to take you out during their lunch break and you're worried about a trumped up towing charge?"
No, she was worried about her mother, her sister, threatening phone calls, a motorcycle-riding mystery man with a gun, and now wads of cash stuffed under the front seat. But until she knew more, she preferred to keep this latest discovery herself.
Natsume massaged the back of his neck. "Give me the keys. I'll have one of the officers drive it over my garage and tell the owner I'll be over late to talk to him. In the meantime. I'll drop you off the DMV. Considering the circumstances, I'll overlook the fines for the expired license, but I'm not letting you behind the wheel again until I have proof you're legal."
Natsume's solution was too reasonable to protest. Still, as he started toward the others, she stayed rooted as he started toward the others, she stayed rooted while her mind worked overtime to find an excuse. He glanced over his shoulder, saw she wasn't following.
He took a long breath. "I do have handcuffs."
"Are you trying to ask me out on a date?"
His eyes warned her, she was walking a fine line.
"You were more fun before you became a cop."
Now he smiled. "You were more fun before I became a cop too."
He'd won. And he knew it.
"Just let me check the spill, see if I can blot up a little more Flamboyant Fuchsia." She grabbed napkins out of the glove compartment and knelt down, setting her hand bag on the floor beside the dried stain. She patted the floor few times, then, making sure her body blocked Natsume's view, she darted her hand under the seat, scooped one stack, then the other into her purse. Thank God she always opted for small suitcase instead of the envelope-sized clutches so chic nowadays. She snapped her purse shut and stood.
"Ready?" Natsume asked behind her.
She had the cash. Now all she had to do was find her mother and her sister and stay one step ahead of scumbags with fondness for motorcycles and Shiny guns. Was that what her mother and sister were doing? Staying one step ahead of someone who wanted them dead? Had they succeeded? Her legs felt suddenly unsteady. She needed something to lean on.
"Don't make me use force Yukihara."
She turned to Natsume's hard expression. The shakiness subsided. She blesses him for the second time that day.
"Easy, Officer. I'll come willingly." She moved toward him. "Just like ol' times"
He smiled as he escorted her to the Ferrari, its lights still flashing like Mardi gras. "You said it yourself, Mikan." He opened the passenger door and stood waiting for her to enter as if this were the prom night they'd never had.
"People don't change."
What do you think? Is it good enough for you?
Review so I'll know what you think.. all of your opinion(s) are welcome :)
Well, anyway I would like to say Thank You for those who read, reviewed, followed, and added Hide and Seek in their favorites list.. Once again Thank you..
Till the next chapter ;)
XOXO
~Claire-chan143
