Broken Storm Part One Read online

  Chapter 7

  Keiko was sitting on the couch, pushing a cushion into her chest, huddling into it.

  That had been one of the weirdest experiences of her life.

  'What the hell does that guy want?' she mumbled to herself out loud.

  There was no risk that anyone would overhear her; Jenny was in the shower, and probably wouldn't be out for the next half an hour.

  Plus, Keiko needed something to chase away the silence. It felt like it was eating at her.

  She didn't know whether she should be embarrassed or angered.

  Had she been the idiot here, or had Chase been the one to make an ass out of himself?

  At that moment she couldn't help but remember an important, if curt lesson her grandmother had once told her.

  Keiko had a tendency to think everything that went wrong in a social situation was her fault.

  If someone said something awkward, Keiko would feel embarrassed, if someone did something strange, Keiko would think she’d made it happen.

  But Keiko was not in control of the behavior of others, and right now she remembered that fact.

  Despite how mousey she may have been in that office, she had not made Chase say any of those things.

  'He's just creepy,' she finally concluded.

  And handsome too, her brain automatically answered, though she tried to stifle that conclusion.

  Because who cared if the guy was handsome? Why had he looked so interested when he'd asked questions about when Keiko had died? Why had he been so determined and belligerent in trying to get a meeting with her grandmother?

  None of it made any sense, and Keiko knew that sitting here on the couch and hugging a cushion was not going to suddenly make her understand what was going on. So sighing, throwing the cushion to the side, she padded her way into the kitchen to make yourself a cup of tea instead.

  She tried to put it out of her mind.

  Because hopefully she would never see Chase Harlow again. She certainly was not going to make a meeting between him and her grandmother, and she was never going to call the number on the back of the card that was still stuffed in her purse.

  She was going to forget about him.

  It was the sensible thing to do. And while Keiko was a lot of things, at least under all her social awkwardness, she was sensible.

  Chase Harlow

  She wasn't going to call, was she? He really had stuffed that one up. But that did not mean Chase was about to give up. He’d copied the documents she’d left him, then he'd made his secretary track down her address and send them back to her with the most expensive flowers the florist down the road could provide.

  Then Chase Harlow had stopped being decent.

  He’d found out the name of Keiko's grandmother, the nursing home she was in, and he’d called up to find out visiting hours.

  Then he’d piled into his car, cancelled all his appointments, and driven out there.

  No doubt if Keiko knew what he was doing, she would conclude that he really was a total creep. Chase didn't care.

  He had his eyes on the prize, and he was not going to get distracted.

  When he arrived at the nursing home, the day had turned bleak, clouds tracking in across the horizon.

  He pulled his car up in the parking lot, right next to a beaten up Corolla.

  In fact, glancing around, he noted that every car around him looked as if it was more than 10 years old.

  His Ferrari stuck out like a sore thumb.

  Shrugging into his jacket, curling the collar up until it sat neat against his neck and blocked out the chill, he walked across the parking lot, hands in his pockets.

  His heart was beating faster than usual, his mouth dry no matter how hard often he tried to swallow.

  This was the first lead like this he'd ever received. John was used to dealing with shady black-market contacts, or the far more dangerous groups that were after the same secret he was.

  Visiting old ladies in nursing homes was not usually on his itinerary.

  He hadn’t said a word of this to Victor or Julius. He wasn't sure if it was worthwhile yet.

  Though the documents sitting on his desk were incredible, unless they led to a picture of Aiko, what was the point?

  First he would have to find out what this woman had to say, then Chase would figure out what to do from there.

  Walking in through the doors, pushing his hand into the glass as the mechanism creaked, crying out for some maintenance and oil, he cleared his throat and walked up to the receptionist.

  When he announced who he was after, the receptionist looked confused and mumbled that Ami hardly ever got visitors.

  But eventually she led him down the clean corridors that smelt faintly of detergent and to a plain door that read the number 22.

  His heart felt like it had popped out from his chest and pulled all the way up into his throat, the beat of it reverberating through his clenched jaw.

  His hands were now firmly tucked into his pockets, the fingers having curled into fists long ago.

  The receptionist knocked on the door, walked in when somebody answered, and asked the woman inside, Ami, if she didn't mind having a visitor.

  At that moment Chase could have almost gone mad.

  The prospect that he could be turned away, suddenly dawned on him. Because he really doubted the receptionist was going to let him in if Ami put her foot down.

  And Chase wouldn't like it to go to the papers if he pushed his way in anyway and proceeded to berate the old grandmother with his questions.

  But then the receptionist popped her head out of the door, nodded at him, and opened it wide. 'If you need anything, I'll be at the desk,’ she said as she glanced down at his jacket, possibly noting his suit and the heavy, gold Rolex on his wrist.

  'Thank you,’ he said with a clear nod.

  She smiled.

  He walked in the open door.

  Ami was sitting in a chair by her bed, her expression unreadable.

  Small, diminutive, and dressed in a simple purple top and loose pants, her eyes crinkled until they were half-closed. ‘Do I know you?' she asked in an accent-rich tone.

  He shook his head, pulling his hands from his pockets and offering her one.

  She didn't lean out to shake it; she kept her own hands rested on her lap, and she stared at him. 'Who are you?'

  'My name is Chase Harlow,' he cleared his throat.

  'Why have you come here?' she asked bluntly.

  Her tone and demeanor were a mile away from her granddaughter’s. While Keiko looked timid and overcome by most situations, this woman looked like she could take anything in her stride, and right now she was looking up at Chase with calm suspicion. ‘I don't know you,’ she repeated again.

  He muddled through an awkward laugh. 'I know your daughter,' he said. It was a lie, technically. Chase had met Keiko twice; he certainly didn't know her. And he was sure that if she had her way, she would never see him again.

  But eyes on the prize, there was too much to risk, too much to gain, too much to lose.

  'Let me cut straight to the chase,' his voice deepened, and he took on a bit of the attitude he did when he was about to close an uncomfortable merger. 'I'm a collector. I'm particularly interested in Japanese culture and history. Your granddaughter mentioned to me that you still own a shrine dedicated to the wind goddess Aiko.'

  A funny thing happened when Chase said that word. The windows didn't suddenly shudder from an almighty gale, but the woman, who looked painfully frail, suddenly stood up.

  It was a powerful move, and despite the fact she barely came up to Chase’s shoulders, he almost wanted to step back.

  'What?' she said simply.

  He shifted back, his jaw tensing as his teeth ground together. 'Keiko leant me some of your notes, they were incredible,' his voice wavered as he was unable to dampen down his natural enthusiasm at that moment.

  The old woman's eyes narrowed further. 'Why did she do that?'


  Every word she said was snapped and suspicious, and just as with Keiko, the more time Ami spent with Chase, the more wary she became of him.

  He was stuffing things up again.

  He let out what he hoped was a low and reassuring chuckle. 'Your granddaughter is a good person,’ he tried.

  ‘You don't know her. She has never spoken of you. How do you know this?'

  Chase let out another laugh, but it was very uncomfortable. He felt forced to put his hands up.

  ‘Why are you really here? What do you want to know?'

  'If you have a picture.' There we go. He’d just said it. The woman's natural suspicion and forthright attitude had beaten it out of him.

  ‘Get out,’ she said in a snap. ‘I'm not going to give you a picture of my granddaughter.'

  ‘No, no, that's not what I meant,' he said quickly, swallowing his words, 'I meant Aiko, the wind goddess, I want a picture of her.'

  ‘Get out, I told you, I'm not going to give you a picture of my granddaughter,' the woman said, her voice getting louder by the second.

  Chase had to do something before she created an incident, so he took several steps towards the open door. 'I want a picture of Aiko,' he stumbled over his words again.

  'Leave my granddaughter alone,' the woman snapped, then she practically pushed him out of the door, closed it, and locked it from the inside.

  Which left Chase standing there, staring at the number 22, his mouth parted open in shock.

  That had not gone well. That had gone unbelievably badly.

  Obviously the old woman was either too confused or her English wasn't quite up to the task.

  He felt like raising his voice and saying one last time that he wasn't after a picture of Keiko, he wanted one of Aiko, but he wasn't dumb enough to try it.

  Instead Chase Harlow gave up.

  He walked away, swallowing hard as he did. He nodded at the receptionist, then got back in his car and drove all the way back to his building. His thoughts raged in his mind, his confusion over what had just happened only serving to peek his interest.

  Regardless of whether his interest was piqued or not, where was he going to go from here? He doubted Ami Teshi was ever going to talk to him again, and he was fairly sure that Keiko was done with him too.

  But Chase Harlow was not going to give up.

  His father had taught him that lesson.

  If he had been smart, however, Chase would have looked in his rear vision mirror once or twice on the way home. And he would have realized someone had followed him.

  Chapter 8

  It was when Keiko came back from work, her shoulders and arm tired from serving trays all night long, that she got a call from her grandmother.

  Her grandmother hardly ever called. Phones and any kind of technology went against everything Ami had ever believed in.

  'Two men came to see me,' her grandmother snapped immediately, without even a hello.

  Keiko, caught off guard, pressed her mobile into her ear as she walked for her room, closing the door gently behind her.

  ‘Sorry, grandmother?' she asked politely, completely confused.

  'Two men came to see me. They asked about you. They wanted your picture.'

  Alarm rising through her, Keiko paused, halfway through removing her shoes. The fingers tightened over the buckles as she practically flopped on the bed behind her. ‘What are you talking about, grandma?' her voice was high and tight.

  'Today. A man, calling himself Chase Harlow came to see me. He wanted your picture,' she said in broken English, her accent peaking around her hastily-said and slurred words.

  Keiko actually gave a shake. 'He what?' her voice was so high it was practically a shriek.

  'He wanted Aiko, he wanted to see her, wanted a picture,' her grandmother continued.

  The alarm that had built up within Keiko gradually subsided as she closed her eyes and briefly shook her head. Her grandmother sometimes got confused.

  ‘He wanted your picture,' her grandmother repeated.

  ‘You mean he wanted a picture of Aiko,' Keiko said softly.

  'I know what I said,' her grandmother answered, her tone quick.

  'Just calm down, grandma, what happened?’ Keiko pulled her legs up, tucking them neatly into her middle, bringing one hand around and locking them in place as she still held the phone hard against her ear.

  'When he left, another man came in. I had to call the nurses. He wanted a picture of you. I wouldn't give him a picture,' her grandmother said, voice shaking now.

  ‘It's okay, grandma, it's okay.’ Keiko tried.

  Except it wasn't okay. As she sat there, listening to her grandmother's harsh and rapid breath, a mix of emotion swirled around in Keiko. Alarm, yes, but anger to.

  That man, Chase Harlow, had gone behind Keiko's back, found out where her grandmother was, and had gone to see her.

  Keiko didn't care if he was rich and handsome, that was a terrible thing to do.

  Curling her fingers into her palms and digging her fingernails into the flesh, she told her grandmother it would be okay several more times.

  But the woman was beside herself. Scared, for some reason, her English kept on dropping out and turning into Japanese halfway through her sentences. Eventually Keiko had to hang up, call the nursing home, get them to send a nurse to her grandmother's room, and then she sat there on her bed, rocking back and forth as she breathed hard.

  She didn't know what to do. A part of her wanted to call the police, but she knew that technically Chase Harlow had committed no crime.

  ‘What a jerk,’ she said. Then she gave a stuttering laugh. Jerk did not begin to describe what he had just done. It wasn't just creepy, it was borderline criminal. Tracking down an old woman, berating her, then sending in one of his men afterwards – it sounded like organized crime, the activities of a Mafioso, not the head of the country's largest Fortune 500 company.

  It took Keiko a long time to calm down after that. She called the nursing home several times to see how her grandmother was going, and it wasn't until they confirmed that she had gone to sleep that Keiko allowed herself to hop in the shower.

  When the water was running down her face, dripping down her hair, she kept on balling up a fist and hitting it lightly against the shower door.

  He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with something like that, she thought to herself.

  Just because he was rich, didn't mean he could run around doing exactly what he wanted, harassing old ladies, and creeping out young women in the rain.

  When Keiko got out of the shower, pulled on her robe, and tucked her hair neatly into a towel, she came out to see Jenny swanning around the kitchen with an enormous bunch of flowers in her hand.

  'What's wrong with you?’ Jenny asked her as she nodded her way. 'You haven’t lost your job or something, have you? You look terrible.’

  Keiko shook her head. ‘I'm fine,' she lied as she tugged at the ties of her dressing gown. ‘Who sent you those flowers?'

  Jenny's eyes twinkled, her cheeks tweaking up into the strangest of smiles. 'Don't you mean who sent you these flowers?'

  Keiko faulted. The flowers were incredible. They looked incredibly expensive too. They were lilies and roses and irises and all of Keiko's favorites, and considering it was winter, they’d probably been brought in from another state.

  No one ever sent her flowers, and no one ever spent that much money on her.

  Before she could get caught up in the idea that she had a secret admirer, she frowned.

  There was one man she knew who could afford flowers like that.

  'You have to tell me, you really honestly have to tell me, why Chase Harlow has sent you these,' Jenny said, her voice shaking with excitement as she brandished the flowers like a sword, several of the petals falling off to the floor lightly by her feet.

  Keiko didn't suddenly jump forward, grab the flowers up, and dance around on the spot like a girly girl should.

  Instead she crossed her arms
and frowned. 'Was there a letter with them? A package? Any documents?'

  Jenny looked at her askance. 'What exactly have you been getting up to with Mister Chase Harlow? Did those lacy white knickers pay off?' Jenny squealed at the mere thought of it.

  Keiko didn't join in. 'I'm serious, was there a package?'

  'There wasn't a package.' Jenny narrowed her eyes, brought the flowers up, smelt them, batted at her face coquettishly, then handed them to Keiko.

  Keiko ignored them though. ‘There's not a letter with them, is there?

  ‘You know, for a girl who is getting incredible flowers from the country's richest and most eligible bachelor, you look sour as hell. What's up?’

  Keiko still didn't answer. She walked over to the flowers, checked them, and finally pulled out a card.

  She opened it, and tracing her fingers over Chase’s terrible handwriting, she frowned even deeper.

  The card read, 'thank you for the documents, if I can't compensate you, at least I can get you flowers.'

  'Are you sure there wasn't a package with these?' Keiko closed the card and looked up at Jenny sharply.

  She shrugged her shoulders. 'A courier brought them in. He didn't say anything about a package, he said he’d brought these express from Harlow Enterprises.’

  Keiko let the hand holding the card drop to her side.

  Her whole life people had called her timid. Mousy. The kind of girl that would let herself be trodden on by anyone, just as long as she never had to confront anything.

  Well right now she was angry. Angry at Mister Chase Harlow. Not only had he seen her grandmother without her permission, but now it looked as if he’d stolen her documents too. Why else would he send flowers, mention the documents, but not have sent them back? How long would it have taken to run them through a photocopier?

  ‘I don't know what's happening between you two, but you need to turn that frown upside down,' Jenny said in a sultry breath. 'Because we are talking about Mister Chase Harlow. I don't know if you've taken a long hard look at your life recently, Keiko, but you are never going to come across a man like him again.'

  Jenny was right. It was a fact Keiko didn't have any problem with though.