Chapter 14

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

HIRO

The ghosts are crowded around Nakamura, packed in tight, and I realize in horror that they’re the same ghosts that had been haunting Hikaru. They wrap around him, hanging off of him as he faces me, likely wondering why I’ve just greeted him in the rudest and most suspicious of ways.

Are they here for Hikaru?

But no, they’re fixated on Officer Nakamura, who seems to have just been passing by. They’re obviously refusing to let him out of their sight.

“I’m so sorry. I just… that slipped out and… I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to cuss. That was very rude. I didn’t mean to do that.” I’m rambling now and I know it, but I’m so thrown off guard that I don’t know what else to do.

Nakamura shrugs. “It’s fine. I can assure you that I’ve been called worse.”

“What the fuck is this?” Reggie asks as he gestures at the horde. “Didn’t we just do this? We already like…” He waves his arms around wildly. “You know?”

“I would get a refund if I were you, Hiro,” Natalie says, but a refund on what? My fucking vacation? My ghost-sighting skills? My life?

“Hiro?” Maddox asks, clearly realizing something’s wrong.

Like do I ignore it? Wave bye and go about my day? Do I tell Nakamura something’s wrong? Does this mean someone’s after him? The same man who attacked Hikaru can’t be after him too, right? I have to assume he’s in jail or something until he awaits trial. It’s not like they couldn’t find enough evidence to hold him. The evidence is sitting in the room right behind me.

“Hiro?” Maddox asks. “Excuse us one moment.”

“Of course,” Nakamura says, but from beyond the ghosts, I can see that he’s giving me a strange look. So much for making myself seem less suspicious.

Maddox looks around before seeing a bathroom, which he drags me over to and guides me inside of. “Hiro? What’s wrong?”

“All of those ghosts… the ones that were following Hikaru, are hanging off Nakamura now. Does that mean someone’s going to kill him?”

“I don’t know what that means. I mean, from what happened to Hikaru we can deduce that it’s a huge possibility. But I don’t know beyond that. We can’t assume the same attacker is after him, unless the ghosts are reacting to intent and not capability to act. I suppose Hikaru’s attacker could still really want Nakamura dead, even if he can’t do anything about it,” Maddox says.

“That would be amazing if that’s what this means. But what the fuck do I say to Nakamura? ‘Hey, I have a premonition that someone’s out to murder you’? They already think I’m highly suspicious. I’m literally the most suspicious person ever! They’re going to be like ‘Oh, I bet it’s you’ and toss me in jail.”

“I’m positive that they have absolutely nothing on you, and if they are even halfway decent at their jobs, which they seem to be, they’re not going to toss you in jail.”

“Hmm… fine. Should I tell him?”

“Yes. Because if we don’t tell him anything, and he gets killed, you would feel so much guilt.”

“So much,” I whisper.

“Let’s just… see what he is willing to listen to,” Maddox says.

We step out from the bathroom and find that while my family is still waiting, Officer Nakamura is long gone.

“Do you know where he went?” I ask.

“I think he left,” Yumi answers. “Did you need him? He gave me his card the other day. I think I left it somewhere at home.”

“Okay, thank you,” I say as we head outside where Keaton gives me a wave.

“Hiro, he’s over here smoking.”

I turn to look but don’t see the guy. “Give me one second. I think I just saw Officer Nakamura head over there.”

Yumi and Rina squint as they seem to try to decipher how I saw someone who clearly isn’t there, but Maddox follows me as we hurry around the corner to where Officer Nakamura is on his cell phone while smoking a cigarette. When he sees us, he raises an eyebrow before saying something in Japanese and ending the call.

“What can I do for you?” he asks as the ghosts crowd him.

“Do you want me to talk?” Maddox asks me.

“No sense in both of us coming off strange,” I say to lighten the mood. I’m pretty sure Officer Nakamura’s eyebrows just go up a bit more. “So you know… how I said I had a… premonition about Hikaru getting hurt? Okay, so… um… when I saw you earlier… I got… hit with the same thing.”

Now he looks amused. “You think someone’s going to try to kill me?”

“Well… what I was hit with was the same thing I was hit with when it came to Hikaru, so… let’s just say that it led me to believe the same thing might happen to you.”

“Uh-huh… tell me about these premonitions.”

The man clearly doesn’t believe me, so do I just spill?

I look around him, hoping the ghost who’d been hanging around him at the station could possibly help me out, but she’s not here. Maybe she was run off by the ghosts who are crowding him. Or maybe she has no relation to him at all and was just curious.

“Feel free to not believe me, that’s perfectly fine. Feel free to judge me, I’ve literally been judged my entire life. I’m able to see ghosts, which is how I knew that Hikaru had been hurt. A ghost told me.”

“A ghost told you?” Nakamura asks, looking more amused by the second. “I see. So a ghost is telling you I’m about to croak?”

There is no ounce of him that believes me, but I keep speaking. “Hikaru had a group of ghosts following him. Ghosts are drawn to those who are dying or those who kill. It made me question if he was harming people or if he had some type of illness killing him. But instead, it was that someone was after him. I don’t know how they knew he was going to die, but they did, and they crowded around him. And now… the ghosts that were fixated on him are attached to you.”

“Maybe they just think I’m handsome,” he says with a grin.

I don’t know what to say to that, but thankfully Maddox steps up to try his hand at convincing him. “Hiro’s a consultant for homicide where I work. You can refuse to believe him all you want. If you feel inclined, you can also call up my boss and speak to her about the matter. She was also a skeptic. Or you can choose to brush the whole thing under a rug. But we just know that if we didn’t warn you there’s a high likelihood that someone’s after your life, then we would feel awful if something happened and you hadn’t been warned.”

“Well, thank you for letting me know about the ghosts. I’m still going with the idea that they think I’m handsome. Definitely better than some dark omen stuff,” he says as he drops his cigarette in a container.

“Yeah, from all my years of work, I’ve definitely found that being handsome saves you,” Maddox responds sarcastically.

“I mean… look at you,” Nakamura says. “You’re still alive. Must be working out quite well for you.”

“One hundred percent because of Hiro,” Maddox tells him. “Just like that guy up there.” He points in Hikaru’s general direction.

“Hmm…” Nakamura begins walking, and since we’re all heading out toward the cars, we start after him.

“What happened to your arms?” he asks. “That happen the other day?”

I glance down at my arms that aren’t covered. The bruises and scratches were beginning to look a little better, so I’d stopped hiding them. “Happened before we got here… at work.”

“At your bookstore?”

“No, consulting for Maddox,” I say.

“Hmm… I didn’t know you were married, Mr. Moore.”

“Just Hiro is fine, and I’m not… yet.”

“I see…” He’s quiet for a moment before motioning between the two of us. “You two?”

I have to assume he’s asking if we’re together. “Yeah.”

“You get shit about that, doing the job you do?” he asks, fully off topic now.

“Not often,” Maddox replies. “Definitely not at work. My boss is married to a woman, and I can guarantee that you’d rather face Satan than her pissed off.”

“Ah. Same with my boss, but he’s just a straight-up self-centered dick,” he says.

A woman passes through the door so quickly that she nearly runs into us. But what catches my attention more than anything is the way the ghosts scatter, like they’re terrified of her.

I step back and instinctively reach for Maddox, like I’m planning on protecting him… but from what? The woman is all smiles. “Officer, thank you again for your help. I didn’t know what to do and just… I was so flustered!” She grabs the man in a hug, and I can tell he’s immediately uncomfortable.

“Ah, you’re welcome,” he says as he peels her off him, but she gives no shits at all. Like not at all . She tries going back in for another hug, but he waves her off.

“I just owe you so much!”

“You owe me nothing. Simply… doing my job,” he assures her.

That’s when the woman turns enough to make me realize that I recognize her.

“Oh. My. Goodness . What a coincidence running into you two!” Charlotte says. I really never fathomed I’d see the woman again after sitting next to her on a plane for hours. “You two are just the sweetest. Officer, these two are the sweetest.”

“Oh yeah, super sweet,” the officer says dryly. I can tell he’s just being a smart-ass and she’s too oblivious to notice or care.

And now… the ghosts are horrified by her. I mean… of course I thought she was a bit obnoxious, but last time they only shied away when Hikaru’s attacker rode by on a bike.

Is she… going to try to kill Nakamura?

No… that can’t be right… can it?

“This officer saved my life ,” she declares.

The look on Nakamura’s face tells me he doesn’t quite believe that. “Your husband cut his hand, and I drove you to the hospital since that taxi would take a few minutes. Not quite sure that would be considered saving your life.”

“It’s just a miracle how big the world can be, but how small it can be to bring us all together.”

“You have a good day now,” Officer Nakamura says as he hurries off toward his car.

Charlotte beams. “Oh, such a lovely day.”

The ghosts rush from her, crowding back around Nakamura as I take off at a run to catch up with him before he gets into his car.

“This is going to sound really ridiculous. But the ghosts crowding around you were terrified of her,” I say.

“You think that overly happy lady is out to murder me?” he asks, looking quite smug. “Maybe hug me to death. What makes her think I want to be hugged?”

“I know you’re treating this like a joke, but I’m being serious,” I tell him as he opens his car door.

“I’ll go with him,” Keaton says as he slips into the car.

Nakamura’s quiet as he gets into it before looking up at me. “I’ll be careful.”

“Okay. Thank you. You have my number, right? I can… help or do something.”

“Yeah, I have your number.”

And then he shuts the car door and drives off as I’m left standing there. Glancing back at Maddox, I see him giving me a pleading look as the woman chatters on and on. I don’t want to go over there and deal with her anymore, but I’m curious why the ghosts were afraid of her.

So I take a deep breath and head over, but before I even reach them, she gives a wave and hurries back inside.

“What’d she even come out for?” I ask.

“She said she saw that Nakamura was leaving and wanted to thank him again. So… now what?”

“The ghosts were afraid of her,” I say.

“Of her?”

“Very much. It was just like how they were afraid of the bicycle as it went by.”

“You think she’s going to murder the officer?” he asks as we head to where Rina and Yumi are waiting for us by their car.

“Hell if I know. We should go to Tokyo early.”

Maddox laughs. “I feel ya.”