Here's Chapter 15

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It was late afternoon before all the federal law enforcement types left – except for Natsume. He obviously had no immediate plans to go anywhere. Mikan retreated to the kitchen and made the caramel glaze for the prune cake, pouring it between the layers and on the top while it was still hot. She hadn't had time to really cook in months. Now it helped her control her racing thoughts, center her as she consider her options. And the old-fashioned southern recipes helped her feel more rooted and less isolated, as if she could draw her grandmother's strength.

She'd taken the FBI agents, the Alice agents and the guy who probably Secret Service but never said so through her house, answered all their questions and offered them iced sweet tea punch, which they'd refused. She held her temper and her tears and nerves.

She thought she'd done all right, but now, in the immediate aftermath of their search, she wished she'd simply thrown the note into the garbage.

The agents had whisked it away.

They'd told her nothing. No theories, no assessments, and no hints of what they thought of the anonymous note.

Natsume had kept his distance. After the last car pulled out of the driveway, he drifted out to the front porch. Mikan had a feeling he wasn't going to be on an evening flight back to Tokyo.

She didn't know what to do with him besides on feeding him prune cake.

She set it cool on a pink Depression-glass plate and washed her hands, then dialed the hospital.

Her brother was awake. He could talk to her.

"Koko just left here," he said, sounding tired but agitated. "Christ, Mikan. What the hell's going on?"

"I don't know. Maybe I'm just going off the deep end."

"The letter's for real." He took in what sounded like a painful breath. "You didn't make it up. The guy in Paris – I'm no help. I didn't see him. I'm still fogged in from the meds, but I'd remember."

"It was probably just a regular guy in Paris and a regular guy in Tokyo and all the adrenaline –" She sighed, sinking against the counter.

"Ruka, it's been awful these past few days. I haven't been at the top of my game. I didn't get a close enough look at the man in the park to be positive it was the same guy. If I hadn't gotten a letter, I'd never have mentioned him. Part of me still wishes I hadn't."

"I'm sorry, Mikan. If I hadn't got shot –"

"Don't go there."

"Why don't you go back to Scotland for a week or so? Hang out with your friends. But me a kilt."

She shook her head as if he could see her. "I can't. Not now. Ruka –"

"I don't remember the shooting. I don't even remember calling you. I just remember hoping Natsume wouldn't die because of me."

"Maybe you were dreaming on the operating table."

"No, Mikan. I was the shooter's target."

"But why? Because of your work." She hesitated, focusing on the old kitchen, every corner of it familiar to her, although she hadn't lived here in years. "Or because you're a Sakura now?"

"You're right. Crazy, maybe, but not dangerous." She could feel the weight of his depression, his fear that he was responsible for what was happening – and his disgust with his inability to do anything about it.

"I've been thinking. What if all this has nothing to do with you? What if I picked up an enemy in Scotland? Maybe the guy in Paris and in the Central Park was following me."

"Come on, Mikan. You don't have enemies. Maybe the ghost of some bones you dug up haunt you, but otherwise – no way."

She'd known her theory would perk him up. "I don't deal much in bones."

"I'm fading," he said. "Nurses had me up today. God, I'm weak. I thought you'd be better off in Northern Woods. Out of the fray. Now, I don't know. Natsume… make sure he knows you're tougher than you look."

"There's still time for him to fly back to New York tonight."

"Dream on, Hang in there, okay?"

"You too."

The kitchen seemed quiet and still after she hung up. She cut the prune cake in two chunks and wrapped half, carefully placing it in the freezer in anticipation of Ruka's return home, and then headed out through the back door. She was restless, her head spinning.

She found herself on the narrow trail to the house of Anju. It wound along the river, on the edge of the woods of cherry blossom and cedar trees, limestone pits and small caves. A route she'd taken of hundreds of times since she was a child.

Within five steps, Natsume fell behind her.

Mikan almost smiled. "I knew I wouldn't get far without you."

"Ruka's right. You are tougher than you look." His words registered, and she whipped around at him, furious. "You eavesdropped on my conversation with my brother?"

"Picked up the extension on the porch. Piece of cake."

"Damn it, don't I have a privacy?"

"Not when the same guy who shot me could be after you."

"No one's after me," she said, picking up her pace, pushing aside low tree branches on the damp path. The river oozed below her on her left. The path would take her higher, onto impressive limestone bluffs.

"I didn't listen to the entire conversation. That helps?"

"Not particularly."

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"I'm going for a walk."

And without any warning – without even breathing – he caught one arm around her waist and drew her to him.

She gulped in a breath. "What are you doing?"

"I'm thinking about kissing you. I've been thinking about it for a couple of days."

"You've only known me for a couple of days now."

"Plenty long enough to think about kissing you."

His lips found hers, and she didn't resist, didn't even consider it – shut her eyes and felt the softness of his lips, the coolness of the breeze against her bare arm. She remembered his injured arm and grabbed the other one instead, holding him tightly as his mouth opened to hers, his arm dropping lower, drawing her more firmly against him. He was all hard muscle and bone, not an easy man, not the sort she'd ever imagined herself wanting to kiss. Well, wanting to, maybe. He was sexy, the kind of sexy she'd been taught to resist. Didn't need to be taught to resist.

Only when he set her down did she realize he'd lifted her off her feet.

She cleared her throat and ran her fingers through her hair. "Well. I guess that excuses you for eavesdropping."

"I'll remember that."

"We should head back. You have time to make an evening flight –"

"I checked out the upstairs while you were frosting the prune cake. I think I'll take the blue room." He mentioned up the path with one hand. "Lead the way."

"I had a feeling I wasn't getting rid of you tonight. We used to get bats in the blue room."

He grinned at her. "I'm not afraid of bats."

"You've got flour on your jacket." She brushed at the spot with her fingertips. "That would never do for an agent, would it? Against all your dress codes, I imagine. Did I hurt your arm?"

His eyes went very dark, smoldering dark. "Mikan…"

She caught her breath. "Yes. I should lead the way."

The Anju house was a Japanese House revival set on three acres of yard and gardens high on a bluff above the river. Natsume remembered seeing pictures of it when Narumi Anju was campaigning. On the walk over, along the river, Mikan had explained that the house was a state and national historic site, not only because of her being friends with the Prime Minister, but because of its own unique history and near pristine condition.

"It represents almost a hundred and fifty years of Kyoto history," she said. "Himemiya and Shizune Anju made very few improvements in it over the years. There's still no central heat and only cold running water."

"Minister Anju's a wealthy man –"

"It wasn't about money. Himemiya and Shizune didn't embrace change."

Natsume followed her onto a stone path that led through the overgrown grass to the porch. "I like my water hot."

"They had hot water. They just had to boil it."

"Narumi didn't have a typical baby boomer upbringing, did he?"

"He was born during the war, so technically he's not a boomer."

Mikan trotted up the steps onto the porch, more at ease than Natsume had seen her since he'd arrived in Northern Woods. It wasn't just being on familiar turf – it was having told someone else about the letter, calling the bluff of the asshole who'd written it. He joined her on the porch, feeling as if he'd just stepped back in time.

"When I was growing up," she went on, "I'd sneak up here every chance I got and sit out on the porch and listen to Himemiya and Shizune tell stories. When I was in high school, I started videotaping them."

"Did you include some of the footage in your documentary?"

She nodded. "They're incredible, so natural and real. Every story is priceless, whether it's something ordinary like picking blackberries and going to church supper, or something melodramatic, like finding out my grandfathers dead. They were elderly by the time I was a teenager, but they had such vivid memories. Their stories helped me get t know them as children and teenagers themselves, as young women." She gazed out at the knee-high grass and weeds popping up through the rosebush. "I miss them."

Natsume knew she was seeing more than an empty historic house. "I imagine people will be most interested in what the Anju sisters have to say about the Prime Minister."

"I'm not his biographer. I don't focus on him. His is a fascinating and unique story, but it's not the only one." She straightened her spine and seemed to make an effort to return herself to the present. "I've been working on one aspect of the Anju house or another since high school. But I'm done with it now."

"What's next?"

"It'll open to the public at some point. There's still a lot to be sorted out. Parking, visitors' center, rest rooms. Who does what. The trust, the federal government."

"Narumi didn't want it?"

She shook her head. "He thinks Himemiya and Shizune would have approved of its fate in their own way. Imagine. They opened their door one morning and found him right here on this porch."

"In an apple basket," Natsume said, remembering their conversation from the other night in Tokyo over beer and half-eaten quesadilla. He leaned against the porch rail, still feeling their kiss, the eagerness of her mouth on his. But she was off in Anju land, the house a living and breathing entity to her. "Think one of the sisters had him and just didn't want to admit it?"

"It's possible, but very unlikely. They were both well into their thirties when they found him."

Reo Mouri rounded a mass of red roses.

"And our Dr. Sakura no doubt knows more than she'll ever tell," he said pleasantly. "I should practice my eavesdropping skills and see what I can learn."

Mikan's laugh struck Natsume as polite more than heart-felt. "I had a professor who often said that one can tell a good paper as much by what's not in it as what is. I imagine I know more about this land and the people who've lived on it than anyone in their right mind would ever want to know. But, everything I have, I've turned over to the Anju House Trust."

Reo leaned on the rickety rail of the porch steps. "I've heard you picked through the Anju family dump."

"The word is excavated."

He grinned at her. "Find any old diaries?"

"You are hopeless, Mr. Mouri," she said in an exaggerated Scarlett O'Hara accent.

Reo looked at Natsume, and then motioned vaguely up the river. "My fishing camp's just up the road. It has a tricky gas stove. I almost blew myself up just now trying to light up the pilot and decided to take a walk to calm my nerves. I heard the two of you out here."

Mikan sat on the step. "What are you planning to cook?" she asked.

"Your prune cake got me hankering for real southern food. I was going to try my hand at fried apricot pies – oh, Reo! I adore fried pies."

She was into her southern thing. Natsume watched her cheeks go dead-pale to rosy. Next time, he thought, amused, instead of kissing her, he'd bring up southern food. But he understood – it was distraction.

Reo was having fun, too. "I like them still warm, sprinkled with confectioner's sugar –"

"They're not easy to make. I tend to burn them."

"If I bring you fried apricot pies for breakfast, will you get me an interview with your friend the minister?"

"You are incorrigible, Mr. Mouri." She was good-natured about his relentless, open push for her trade on her friendship with Narumi – it seemed to be a conversation they'd had before. "It used to be that not many people even knew we were friends. Now – well, that's changed, hasn't it?"

"People knew," Reo said, suddenly serious. "They just have such enormous respect for your family that they didn't want to intrude. Even nosy reporters like me." But seriousness didn't last.

"Agent Hyuuga, you work for the president, don't you? Technically. The Alice is part of the Department of Justice. Your boss is the director, his boss is the attorney general – and his boss is the minister. There. You could introduce me."

Natsume didn't respond. He'd never met any of the Ministers in office during his years as an agent, and he didn't joke about them.

"Ah. I see I stepped over the line. Well, I don't want to get anyone into trouble, least of all me." Reo patted his stomach. "I think I'll go wrestle with my stove and try my fried pies again. I'll bring something by if they come out."

"I hope you will," Mikan said.

After he was gone, she leaned into Natsume and whispered, "I know where there's a key."

Great. He was going to get a tour. "What about the alarm system?"

"I have the code. If I told Reo, he'd want a personal tour. At this point I think most of what he has on Minister Anju is off the Internet, although I understand he's interviewed most of the neighbors, even ones who moved in long after Narumi left."

"Your family?"

"He's tried. My parents don't give interviews about Narumi."

"What about Ruka?"

"He doesn't, either. Nor do I. We made that decision a long time ago, before Narumi went into politics. He had an unusual background, and we all adored Himemiya and Shizune – we knew sooner or later someone would take interest in his story."

"I think your buddy Mouri has the hots for you."

She blushed. "Not everyone think that way."

Reo did. Natsume didn't know yet about the property manager.

The house was cool and antique, as if the two maiden sisters had just stepped out. Not much dust. Mikan explained that it was cleaned and the yard mowed on a regular, if not totally adequate, basis.

On a marble mantel, there were pictures of Himemiya and Shizune, two beautiful women who'd raised a Minister, and of Narumi Anju as a little boy, a teenager, a college graduate – and as the governor of Kyoto.

"They never wanted him to leave Northern Woods, but they were proud of him," Mikan said. "They and my grandmother died within two years of each other when I was in college. You passed the little church cemetery where they're buried."

Natsume wandered with her through the drawing room and the library, the kitchen, the butler's pantry, and upstairs to the bedrooms. "Did the family have money?" he asked.

"When they built this house, they did. It didn't last. Himemiya and Shizune weren't ashamed of it. They had a small inheritance, but they both worked in a local bank for years. They were very pragmatic when it came to money." She caught herself. "I'm sorry. I'm boring you."

"Not yet. You're passionate about your work. I can see that."

"This house, Himemiya and Shizune –" she glanced around the small room, not seeing what was there now, Natsume thought, but what had been there. "It really is hard to believe I'm done with all this."

"Did you interview your father?"

"Definitely. He's between the Anju sisters and Narumi in age. People have even speculated that he could be Narumi's father, but –" She shook her head. "He's one in a long, long line of possibilities. There's just no evidence. It could have been anyone."

"There's DNA these days."

She smiled slightly. "Yes, there is. Shall we go, or do you want to hear more? I hope it's been a distraction, at least."

"I could do worse for distractions." And better, he thought, noting the curve of her hip. "My uncle would have me wallpapering my sister's old room."

"Wallpapering could be therapeutic."

"You haven't seen Persona's taste in wallpaper."

She headed across the lawn and back onto the path along the river, warning him about mosquitoes, chiggers and ticks, telling him how river was higher now, because of the dams, than it had been when the Anju had built the house after the Civil war.

No more pleasant, exaggerated southern accent. No more charm and laughter and relaxed talk.

Something about him had gotten under her skin. Natsume had no idea what.

Finally she spun around him on the narrow path, her face flushed with exertion and emotion. "Has it occurred to you that the letter from Tokyo has nothing to do with me and everything to do with you? That its ruse – the shooter or whoever sent it saw me in Tokyo and decided to throw you off the scent."

"I'm not on the scent. I'm one of the victims."

"You don't expect me to believe that, do you? You're not here just out of noble concern for my safety, or to put Ruka's mind at ease. You're here because you think Kokoro Yome and his team are on the wrong track."

Natsume hated to see fear back in her hazel eyes. "I don't know what track they're on."

"Kuonji. Agent Yome hasn't given up on him."

"Because witnesses place him –"

"It doesn't matter. You think the answer to the shooting are here."

"It's not that clear-cut," Natsume said. He found himself wanting to see her smile, to ease her tension and fear – maybe because it would help ease his own he smiled. "Except for one thing. I doubt I'm putting Ruka's mind at ease. He thinks I'm here because you're pretty."

"She gave him a direct look. "Are you?"

He met her gaze, one she'd probably used to wither more than a few men by now, and shrugged. "It doesn't hurt."

She sighed. "I see now why Hotaru warned me about you."

"Hotaru? What did she say?"

"That you're hell on women."

She turned and started back down the path, the late afternoon sun catching the pale highlights in her hair.

He grunted. "And exactly what are you on men?"

She glanced back at him and smiled. "Nothing. I've been too busy for men."

Afraid of men, maybe. At least distrustful. She must have had a man or two who'd wanted her because of her looks and never beyond them to the woman underneath. Natsume wasn't so sure he wasn't one of them – although the past few days had been a crash course in what made Mikan Sakura tick. The trauma of the attack on her brother had stripped away her defenses. Natsume didn't know what the hell it had done to him.

"You're not busy anymore," he said to her back.

She stumbled, but grabbed a thin tree and righted herself. And pressed on without so much as a backward glance. Which was a good thing; because Natsume didn't think he could hide just how much he wanted her. But she was a smart woman. She probably knew that.

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~Claire-chan143