XXXII

The E6 was mostly deserted as Sachi wound her way north. She’d long since left the lights of Tokyo behind her and now drove steadily through the darkness of the countryside. Only the motion of the windshield wipers brushing away the now steadily falling rain and her thoughts were there to keep her company. From time to time distant lights glinted in the darkness as she passed small hamlets or individual homes obscured behind the trees lining this section of highway.
Sachi stretched her back to work the kinks out of her muscles as her satellite radio faded into silence once again. She wasn’t sure what the point of the radio was if it was going to cut out every time it rained but she had been assured it was a good feature when she’d bought the car and had been tired and testy so she’d simply agreed to hurry the process along.
“What am I going to do when I get there?” Sachi whispered, sitting back once more. She, honestly, hadn’t thought that far ahead. She couldn’t have the police come along since; at least until Sachi ripped that veil off, Amanda Wells was Akari’s legal guardian. She probably should have taken Mirai up on her offer of assistance but she wanted to do this by herself. No, she corrected. She had to do this herself. She’d been the one most responsible for Akari being in this position and she was going to be the one to make it right.
I could just burst through the door like some avenging Samurai spirit and beat the bitch with a stick, Sachi thought to herself with a chuckle, the trees on the edges of her headlights’ beam giving way to windswept bluffs. That probably wouldn’t go over well, she decided on reflection. I suppose I could simply knock on the door and brow beat the vicious bat until she was sufficiently cowed, Sachi thought. Then I could grab Akari’s hand in mine and whisk her away to Taiwan to get married in a beautiful garden in a traditional ceremony.
“What?” Sachi whispered. “Marriage?” She let her mind play out the rest of her life, trying her best to picture it in her head. Every moment she imagined had Akari in it. Sachi grinned. Yes. She finally knew with her head what her heart had been telling her for a year now and felt foolish for not seeing it sooner. “I love you, Akari.” She said, feeling exhilarated at the words. “I really love you!” She said it louder and it felt even better.
“I will make you pay, Ms. Wells,” Sachi snarled. “No one touches Akari except me.” Sachi flushed as a mental image of Akari’s skin as she danced passed unbidden through her mind.
The road curved sharply toward the east as it passed over the river and Sachi touched her brake pedal lightly and turned the wheel. She felt and heard a violent pop and the steering wheel shook in her hands. A moment later she heard a second pop further behind her and below the car. Suddenly the brake pedal sunk to the floor impotently. She turned the wheel but it didn’t affect the car’s direction whatsoever. The low metal guard rail loomed in her headlights as her car sped toward it. Panic gripped her for a brief moment before her instincts kicked in and she dragged the parking brake up. The car shuddered as the back end began to swing hard to the right. The car slowed but not nearly enough.
“Akari,” Sachi whispered, heart aching from the unfairness of it all. Time seemed to slow, the guard rail didn’t look to be getting any closer for a long moment and Sachi closed her eyes, steeling herself for the impact. Suddenly the car slammed into the guard rail and Sachi knew only darkness.
The car flipped up and over the guard rail, crushing the roof as it spun and twisted like a mortally wounded ballerina down the steep embankment before finally coming to a rest, the nose of the ruined Mercedes half-buried in the mud of the river bank, headlights playing along the rain dappled water. The dark BMW which had followed Sachi since Tokyo stopped where the Mercedes had gone off the road.
“It’s done,” He said after the woman on the other end answered. He looked down impassively at the crumpled heap of twisted metal lying at the bottom of the small hill, the smell of gasoline wafting up from the shattered car.
“Where?” She asked.
“The E6,” He replied.
“So she knew. Ok. Is she still alive?”
“Would you like me to check for a pulse?” He asked, not particularly caring either way. The woman paused for a moment.
“No,” She finally replied. “Finish this properly and I’ll transfer the rest of your money.”
“As you wish,” The man replied dispassionately, hanging up the phone. He took several photos of the car with his cell camera. He checked them to make sure a viewer could tell it was a red Mercedes before sending them off. He turned his back on the wreck and returned to his car. Putting it into gear, he drove off into the night toward the next part of the job.